Breakout is an arcade game developed by Atari Inc. Nolan Bushnell came up with the concept of the game. Breakout was released in May of 1976 and was influenced by Pong. The game was ported to video game consoles. The Atari 2600 version was called Super Breakout. The player controls a paddle on the screen knocking the ball back and forth breaking the bricks. The images in the game are colored by a black and white monitor but the monitor has cellophane covering it to make the bricks appear in numerous colors.
Gameplay[]
A player moves the paddle back and forth horizontally to hit and ricochet the ball to cause it to break the bricks on top of the screen. If the ball reaches the bottom of the screen it costs one life. The bricks are in color of yellow, green, orange, and red from bottom to top. Once the ball is able to reach the upper red brick wall the paddle gets smaller. After a certain number of hits the ball gets faster and faster. Once all bricks are destroyed, the next level begins. There are only two levels and the total score in the game that can be reached is 896 because there are two levels. Yellow bricks can bring one point each, green bricks give three points each, orange bricks earn five points each, and the red bricks are earned seven points each.