Brick Rebound: the paddle is an aiming device

Not a wall you hide behind. Where the ball lands on it decides the angle it leaves at — dead centre sends it straight back, the edge throws it out at sixty degrees. Everything else in the game hangs off that one choice, made forty times a minute.

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Play Brick Rebound

Insert no coin

Ready when you are

Arrows or A and D to move, Space to serve. P pauses. Or just drag.

←→ or AD to move · Space to serve · P or Esc to pause · drag anywhere on the screen to steer

The only thing you really control

The ball keeps its speed off the paddle. What changes is the direction, and that is set entirely by where along the paddle it struck. Five positions, five very different rallies.

Which is why a wide paddle is not simply easier: it is a blunter instrument. The same spot on a narrow paddle is a smaller fraction of its width, so a narrow paddle aims more sharply. Late waves take the width away and give you the precision whether you wanted it or not.

The wall, and what it is worth

Eight rows. The top ones score most because by the time you can hit them comfortably the ball is fast and there is nothing left to catch it on the way back.

From the third wave the top two rows take two hits rather than one, which is what makes a wave longer rather than merely faster.

What falls out of a brick

In Modern and Gentle only — Classic has none, which is the point of Classic. About one brick in nine drops something, and it has to be caught on the paddle.

What's better than the arcade

The rally cannot go flatHit the ball near the middle enough times in the original and it ends up crossing almost horizontally — half a minute of travel, nothing you can do, no fun in either direction. Here the ball's up-and-down travel can never fall below a third of its speed, so every rally makes progress.
The last brick does not take a minuteSame fix, turned up: once a wave is down to its last four bricks the angle is held further off the horizontal still. The ending of a wave is the worst part of the original and it is not here.
The ball cannot pass through the wallA fast ball can cross a whole brick between one frame and the next, and then it is simply through. Every movement here is cut into steps smaller than a brick, and a test plays three long games watching every frame to make sure the ball is never found inside one.
It never serves straight upA vertical serve off a centred paddle comes back vertical for ever: a player who does nothing is never punished and the game cannot end. The serve always has an angle on it. You can still aim it.
The tunnel is left aloneDigging a channel up the side and letting the ball loose on the roof is not a bug and never was. It is the best thing in the game, it is still here, and the top rows score most precisely because of it.
No coins, no account, no uploadIt runs in this browser. Your best scores are kept on this device and go nowhere; nothing about how you played is sent anywhere, because there is nowhere for it to go.

Your best

Kept in this browser. Clearing site data clears them.

Best scores

How to get good at it

Stop chasing the ball. The instinct is to put the middle of the paddle under it, which sends it straight back where it came from. That is the one shot that teaches you nothing and changes nothing. Decide where you want it to go, then put the right part of the paddle under it.

Dig a tunnel. Work one column down the side rather than skimming the bottom row across. Get the ball above the wall and it will bounce along the roof taking a brick every time, for free, while you wait. This is the single biggest scoring move in the game and it is worth losing a ball to set up.

Expect the speed-ups. The ball steps up after four bricks, again after twelve, and again the first time it reaches each of the top two rows. The fourth one is the one that catches people: you break into the top row, feel pleased, and the ball comes back a third faster than the one you were just rallying.

Catch drops, but not at any price. An extra ball is worth a risk. A wider paddle is worth less than it looks, because it blunts your aim. Chasing a drop into the corner while the ball is loose at the other end is how most games end.

Is it the same as the one you remember?

No. This is an original game built on the same idea — a paddle, a ball and a wall — in the way the other arcade games here are. The layout, the scoring, the speed-ups and the drops are this project's, the artwork is drawn in code, and nothing is a port, an emulation or a copy of any cabinet's code or assets. What it shares with the 1976 original is the mechanic, which was never anybody's to own: hit a ball with a paddle at the angle you choose.

Common questions

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. Drag anywhere on the playfield to steer the paddle — that is the best way to play it, and closer to the original cabinet's dial than keys are. The three buttons under the screen work too if you would rather tap.

Why does the ball speed up when I am doing well?

Because the original did, and because without it a good player rallies for ever. There are four speed-ups: after four bricks, after twelve, and the first time the ball reaches each of the top two rows. The ball never exceeds a ceiling, so it stays a game of placement rather than reflexes.

Is anything saved or sent?

Your five best scores are kept in this browser's own storage, on this device. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and there is no leaderboard — the scores are yours and they stay where they are.

Does it keep my place if I close the tab?

No. A game in progress is lost when the page is; only the best scores survive. That is deliberate — an arcade game you can pause for a week is a different kind of thing.