Brick Smash

Arcade · 1 player

How to play

Slide your paddle to keep the ball in play. The ball breaks the bricks it touches; tough bricks take several hits, metal bricks never break and explosive bricks take their neighbours with them. Some bricks drop power-ups: catch the ones that widen your paddle, split the ball in three, slow it down, make it stick to the paddle, fire lasers or give an extra life, and dodge the grey one that shrinks your paddle. Try to clear fifteen hand-made levels with 4 lives.

1. 1Move the paddle with your mouse, your finger or the left-right arrow keys. On a phone, drag your finger left and right anywhere on the screen; the paddle moves as far as your finger does.
2. 2Where the ball hits the paddle sets its direction: the edges send it at a sharper angle.
3. 3Coloured bricks break in one hit, tough bricks in two or three; metal bricks never break and explosive bricks break their neighbours too.
4. 4Catch falling power-ups with the paddle; the grey capsule shrinks it. Miss the ball and you lose a life; clear every breakable brick to move on to the next level.

About Brick Smash

Brick Smash is a skill game played with one ball and one paddle, and it asks for angle sense as much as quick hands. Each of the fifteen stages is a hand-drawn pattern: it eases in with Warm-up and Pyramid, passes through shapes such as Heart, Chessboard, Smiley and Rainbow, tightens up with crowded layouts like Maze, Cage and Bomb Field, and finally closes with Crown.

The ball speeds up as you advance and also the longer you spend inside a single stage, so chasing one last brick for ages leaves you facing an ever quicker ball. Some broken bricks drop capsules. The wide paddle and the sticky paddle last fifteen seconds, while slow ball and laser last ten. The grey capsule that shrinks your paddle only starts mixing in from the third stage.

You start with four lives, and extra-life capsules can raise that to a maximum of six. Progress is written to your device after each cleared stage, so the next time you open the game you can continue from the same stage with your score and lives intact. It is ideal for short, intense sessions.

Strategy and tips

• Meeting the ball with the middle of the paddle is safe but sends it steeply upward; hit it with the edge on purpose to angle it toward bricks in the corners.
• Try to slip the ball behind the wall, into the space between the ceiling and the bricks; bouncing around up there it can break dozens of bricks in one go.
• Make explosive bricks a priority target. Because they take their neighbours with them, they melt clusters of tough bricks in a few hits.
• Never risk losing the ball to catch a capsule. Return the ball first, then slide toward the capsule; no power-up is worth a life.
• When a grey capsule falls, keep the paddle away from it. Ten seconds with a narrow paddle is a real threat in the fast later stages.
• With multi-ball active, do not chase every ball. Follow the one closest to the paddle; losing the others costs nothing as long as one stays in play.
• While the sticky paddle is on, line up the angle before releasing the ball so you can pick off the remaining bricks one by one.

Frequently asked questions

How many stages are there, and what happens at the end?

There are fifteen. Once you clear the Crown stage the run is complete and your final score is saved as a record.

How do I get past metal bricks?

Metal bricks never break and do not need to; only breakable bricks count toward finishing a stage. Use them as walls to steer the ball.

Will I lose my progress?

No. After each stage your stage number, score and lives are saved on your device, and the menu offers to continue from that stage.

Why does the ball keep getting faster?

Its speed rises with both the stage number and the time spent in the stage, up to a ceiling. The slow-ball capsule cuts that speed noticeably for a while.