An original Star Soft game inspired by Arkanoid

A brick-breaking arcade game: knock down twenty walls of glass, steel and gold bricks with a bat and ball across five worlds, catching power gems as they fall, beat a henchman at the end of each world, then destroy the Iron Heart in the final battle.

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Genre

Brick-breaking arcade

Plays on

Computer (keyboard or gamepad), phone and tablet (touch screen)

Players

1

Inspired by

Arkanoid (an original game, not a copy)

Price

Free. Plays in your web browser, nothing to install

About the game

Brick Blitz is an original brick-breaking arcade game that runs in your web browser, on a computer or a phone. It is inspired by Arkanoid, the arcade bat-and-ball game that was a favourite on the Amiga: you steer a bat along the bottom of the screen and keep a ball bouncing up into a wall of bricks until every brick is gone.

There are twenty walls to clear, four in each of five worlds: a nebula with a ringed planet, a coral reef under the sea, a crystal cave, a city at night and a forge under a giant sun. Coloured bricks break with one hit, steel bricks take two to four, and gold bricks can't be broken at all, so you have to find a way round them.

Some bricks drop a power gem. Catch it with the bat for a wider bat, two bats side by side, three balls at once, a slower ball, a ball that burns straight through bricks, a bat that grabs the ball so you can aim, twin bolts to shoot bricks, a warp gate that takes you straight to the next wall, or a spare bat.

Each world ends with one of the Iron Heart's henchmen, a mini-boss on the theme of its world, each tougher than the last: the Orbital Sentinel, a riveted moon with one great eye; the Clockwork Crab, a brass crab whose claws block the ball; the Prism Golem, a crystal heart guarded by turning shards; the Neon Skyship, an airship dropping bombs over the city; and the Magma Smelter, an iron furnace that can only be hit while its grate is open.

After the last henchman comes the final battle: the Iron Heart, a great machine in a turning ring of gold armour that fires glowing orbs at your bat. Send the ball through the gaps in its armour sixteen times to destroy it.

The ball speeds up the longer you play. The game keeps a table of the eight best scores with your initials, and remembers which walls you have reached so you can start from them next time. It has detailed 16-bit art drawn in code, a sampled arcade soundtrack with a tune for the henchmen and another for the final battle, sampled sound effects and an arcade announcer.

If you loved Arkanoid on the Amiga, Brick Blitz gives you the same one-more-go bat-and-ball action, with twenty new walls, five worlds and power gems of its own.

How to play

• Keep the ball in play with your bat and break every brick to clear the wall. Lose the ball and you lose a bat; you start with three.
• Where the ball hits the bat decides where it goes: near the middle sends it straight up, near the ends sends it out at a sharp angle.
• Coloured bricks break with one hit. Steel bricks need two to four hits. Gold bricks can't be broken.
• Catch the power gems that fall from some bricks: WIDE (a longer bat), TWIN (two bats side by side), GRAB (the ball sticks to the bat until you launch it), ZAP (bolts you fire at the bricks), MULTI (three balls), BLAZE (the ball burns through bricks for a while), SLOW (a slower ball for a while), WARP (a gate opens in the right wall: move the bat into it to skip to the next wall) and LIFE (a spare bat). WIDE, TWIN, GRAB and ZAP replace each other.
• At the end of each world a henchman fights back. Hit it with the ball until its energy bar runs out, and keep the bat away from anything it fires: one touch and the bat is lost. The ball pops any shot it touches. The Clockwork Crab's claws, the Prism Golem's shards and the Neon Skyship's gondola are armoured; the Magma Smelter can only be hit while its grate is open and it glows red-hot.
• In the final battle, the Iron Heart's ring of armour turns. Aim the ball through the gaps to hit the machine.
• You get an extra bat at 20,000, 60,000 and 120,000 points, and a bonus for every wall you clear.
• Choose START AT on the title screen to start from any wall or henchman you have reached before, including the final battle.

Controls

On a phone or tablet, Brick Blitz shows its own on-screen controls.

Mouse

Keyboard

Gamepad

Touch screen

Tip: press F8 while playing on a computer to change how the picture looks. AMIGA (the default) softens the picture and adds faint scan lines, the way Amiga games looked on a 1980s monitor; SMOOTH keeps the softness without the lines; SHARP shows every pixel crisp and square. The games are drawn to look their best in AMIGA, but choose whichever you prefer: your choice is remembered.

Questions and answers

Is there a free game like Arkanoid I can play in my browser?

Yes: Brick Blitz is a free brick-breaking game in the spirit of Arkanoid, and it plays in your web browser. Knock down twenty walls of bricks with a bat and ball across five worlds, catch power gems as they fall, beat a henchman at the end of each world, then take on the Iron Heart in the final battle.

Is it free? Do I need to download anything or sign up?

Yes, it's completely free. There's nothing to download or install and no account or sign-up: open the page and press PLAY. Your best scores and the walls you've reached are saved in your own web browser, on your device.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. On a phone or tablet the bat follows your finger: drag anywhere on the screen to move it, and tap to launch the ball. Turn the phone sideways for the biggest picture.

Is it suitable for children?

Yes. There are no adverts, no cookies, no chat and no sign-up, and the game never asks for anything about you. Best scores stay in your own web browser, on your device, and never leave it. The only things that get destroyed are bricks and machines: five henchmen and, in the final battle, the Iron Heart.

Is it a copy of Arkanoid?

No. Brick Blitz is an original game inspired by Arkanoid. Its walls, worlds, power gems, henchmen, final battle, art and music are all its own: it aims for the feel of the classic bat-and-ball game without copying any of it.

Download the code

Brick Blitz is made of plain HTML and JavaScript files: download them to see how it was made, or to play it on your own computer (how to play the code on your computer).

• Brick Blitz: the code

  The game and the Star Soft engine it runs on · HTML and JavaScript · zip

  DOWNLOAD .ZIP (791 KB)

The code is shared under the Star Soft Non-Commercial Licence: you may play, study, change and share it for free, as long as nobody makes money from it and you give clear credit: Based on Brick Blitz by Star Soft. The zip includes a copy of the licence. Its music is on the MUSIC page.

Credits

• Code, art, sound and music: written by Claude (Anthropic) for Star Soft. Everything in Brick Blitz is original and made in code, unless listed here.
• Intro music: Mars, the Bringer of War by Gustav Holst (public domain), played with samples from the VSCO 2 Community Edition by Versilian Studios (CC0).
• The arcade announcer's voice: made with the Kokoro text-to-speech model (Apache 2.0 licence), then turned into Amiga-style speech samples.

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