Super Breakout

Starting a Game

NOTE To start the game using a VCS Classic joystick, open the virtual keyboard with + and select START.

Gameplay

Move the joystick left and right to move the paddle at the bottom of the screen. Predict the movement of the ball as it bounces back towards the paddle, and hit the ball to send it flying towards another brick!

When a brick is hit, it is broken, allowing access to the bricks behind it.

Each time the ball falls out of the bottom of the screen, a new ball is served if any are left. Each player has five serves in each game.

Hit as many bricks as you can at the top of the screen before you run out of balls. Different coloured bricks are worth different points.

If a tie occurs in a multi-player game, the winner is determined by a tie-breaker, where the player that reaches that score in the fewest turns is declared the winner.

The Paddle

The paddle is divided into four sections, each of which send the ball in a different direction when touched.

The angle that the ball moves from the paddle when touching it changes depending on the number of times the paddle has successfully hit the ball. The angle, and speed that the ball bounces off the paddle will increase over time, up to the 9th hit.

After the ball hits the paddle for the 13th time, the angle the ball bounces from the paddle will become narrower again, but the ball will speed up.

The ball also speeds up when hitting a blue or green brick (the final four rows)

When the paddle breaks through the last row of bricks in Double and Cavity mode, the paddle halves in size. The paddle returns to normal size when a new ball is served.

Game Modes

Breakout features four game modes to enjoy, with up to 8 players!

Breakout

Breakout mode places 8 rows of bricks (14 per row). If all bricks are broken before the player runs out of balls, a new wall of bricks will appear. Each wall of bricks is worth 448 points.

Progressive

Progressive sets up bricks in a slightly different way to the Breakout and Double modes. When the game begins, the playfield contains 4 rows of bricks at the top of the screen, 4 blank rows, then 4 more rows of bricks (14 per row). The point value each brick remains the same.

After the game begins, the bricks begin moving down the screen towards the paddle, speeding up the more times the ball is hit.

As the bricks are broken by the ball, the bricks re-appear over time, at an increasingly faster rate. Bricks that are moving down the screen change their colour, giving them a new point value.

Bricks that scroll off the screen are lost, and do not count to the player’s total score.

Double

Double’s mode presents the player with the same layout of bricks as in the Breakout mode, except there are two balls, and two paddles in play. One ball is served initially towards the paddle, and another ball is served once the first is hit.

The two paddles are stacked on top of one another, and both move at the same time. When there are still two balls in play, each brick broken is worth double the points.

• If the first served ball is missed, play is stopped. After both balls have been hit at least once by the paddle, either ball can go out of play, and the game will continue.

The wall of bricks will reset two additional times if the initial wall is knocked out, giving a maximum score of 2688.

Cavity

Cavity places two balls in the second row of bricks on the middle-left and right hand side of the screen. When the bricks around these balls are broken, they can be hit by the paddle back into other bricks, allowing a player to accumulate even more points.

There are two paddles at the bottom of the screen, the same as in Double.

The point value of each brick is increased for each ball that is broken out of its cavity and in play. If all three balls are in play, each brick is worth triple points when broken.

The wall of bricks can reset two times, giving a maximum score of approximately 3500.

Interface

1. Current Ball Number
2. Player Score

Scoring

Points are scored by hitting balls in play into the rows of bricks at the top of the screen. The points for each brick are defined by their colour:

At the end of each game, a rating is displayed in the bottom left of the screen - the text displayed will depend on the player’s final score.

The maximum attainable score for the breakout and progressive modes are 9999, or infinite. The maximum score for the Double game mode is 2688 points, and the maximum for the Cavity game mode is 3500 points.