Breakout 71

About the game

Breakout 71 takes the old bat-and-ball formula and turns it into short runs. Every game is seven levels long. Each level is a small pixel-art picture made of bricks, and when you break a brick it throws out coins that you have to catch with your paddle: the coins are your score. Clear the picture and you choose one upgrade, which stays with you until the run ends. Start with a bigger ball, a sticky paddle or a coin magnet, and you can end up with exploding bricks, ghost coins and balls that pull each other around.

The twist is the combo. The number on your paddle is how many coins each brick spawns, and most upgrades that raise it come with a condition that lowers it again, for example if the ball comes back without touching a brick. Aiming matters: where the ball lands on the paddle decides the angle it leaves at, not how fast you were moving, so you can always plan the next shot. Playing well earns medals (a quick clear, every coin caught, a brick hit between every bounce), and medals give you extra upgrades.

New runs start almost empty. Upgrades and levels unlock as you play, first by reaching high scores, later by combining certain perks, so every game teaches you something new. Renan LE CARO made it as a lean game for short sessions: it is a single small page, and every sound is generated by the code.

Playing it here

Click Play, then use the mouse (or your finger on a touch screen) to slide the paddle; the arrow keys work too, and Shift makes them three times faster. Space pauses and resumes, and the menu button at the top left opens the main menu, where you can start a game, look at the unlocked perks and levels, read the built-in help or change the settings (basic graphics help on slow computers). Progress and settings are stored in this browser. The game's own help screen explains scoring, combos and medals.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Look at where the ball lands. Hit it dead centre and it goes straight up; the further from the middle, the sharper the angle. Use the edges of the paddle to send the ball where you want it.

Always hit something. A ball that returns to the paddle without breaking a brick resets your combo and shows "miss". Aim for a brick every time, even at the cost of a slower clear.

Pick synergies, not only numbers. Some upgrades do little alone and shine together. The unlocked-perks list in the menu tells you what each one asks for.

Try the settings. There are options for contrast, brighter colours, fewer particles and a simple graphics mode if your computer struggles.

Credits and licence

Breakout 71 was made by Renan LE CARO and is released under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. The repeating background patterns come from pattern.monster (MIT licence), and the pictures were drawn by the author and by players of the game, each with the contributor's name on the level page. About a third of the community pictures (those that reproduce characters, logos or album covers owned by other people) were left out of this version. Other changes made for this site: the links to donations, chat, app stores and the project pages (and the level editor entry) were removed, so the game never sends you away or asks for anything from the network. The complete source of this build, the patch, the level filter and the build script are linked from this page.