Squash

brick breaker

A brick breaker with an ending: five levels, not an endless climb, and clearing the fifth is a real win. The wall is layered by toughness, and the tough part is the bottom — the top rows fall to a single hit, the middle ones take two, the rows nearest your paddle take three — so breaking through the roof is easy and the grind waits underneath. You steer the ball with exactly one thing: the spot where it meets the paddle. Middle sends it straight back, the edges send it away at an angle, and that is the whole of your aim.

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How to play

The goal is to clear all five levels without running out of balls. You start with three lives against eleven columns and five rows; each level adds a row and the ball sets off a little faster. The top two rows are cyan and break in one hit, the next two are yellow and take two, everything below is red and takes three — and a brick changes colour as it wears down, so you can always see what is left in it. Scoring: every hit pays ten points for the brick’s original strength times the current level, and it is paid on each hit rather than when the brick falls: a red brick on level five gives a hundred and fifty a hit, four hundred and fifty in all, while a cyan one on level one is worth ten and goes at once. A yellow brick pays twice a cyan one per hit, and four times as much in total. Steering: the rebound angle depends only on where the ball lands on the paddle, from the middle out to the edges — how fast you were moving the paddle makes no difference. A ball lost off the bottom costs a life, and play restarts at a standstill with the ball resting on the paddle until you launch it. Out of lives is game over; clearing level five is a win. Your best score stays on the device. Controls: drag the paddle and tap to launch on touch, or let it follow the mouse pointer; on a keyboard ← and → move and Space launches. P or Esc pauses, Enter resumes or replays.

The rules, in full

The wall is eleven bricks wide and hangs near the top of the screen. You have a paddle at the bottom, a ball resting on it and three lives. Launch the ball, keep it in play and break every brick. When a wall is gone, the next level begins with the ball back on the paddle. Clear the fifth and you have won.

Colour tells you how tough a brick is. The two top rows are cyan and break at the first hit. The two below are yellow and take two hits. Every row under those is red and takes three. A damaged brick turns darker, so you can see what it has left.
Where the ball meets the paddle sets the bounce. A hit in the dead centre sends it straight up. The further out towards either end, the wider the angle, up to 60 degrees from vertical at the very tip. The angle the ball arrived at makes no difference.
The sides and the top of the screen bounce the ball back. Only the bottom is open.
Missing the ball costs a life. The ball returns to the paddle, the bricks stay exactly as they were, and you launch again. There are no extra lives to earn, and the ones you lose are not given back at a new level.

The five levels

Every level adds one row, and the new row is always red, at the bottom of the wall, nearest to you.

Level 1 has five rows: 22 cyan, 22 yellow and 11 red bricks.
Level 5 has nine rows: 22 cyan, 22 yellow and 55 red bricks.

The ball also gets faster from one level to the next, though never during a level. On level 5 it travels close to 30 percent faster than on level 1.

Scoring

Every hit scores, not only the one that breaks a brick. Each hit is worth 10 points for every hit that brick needs, multiplied by the level number:

cyan: 10 points, for a brick that breaks at once
yellow: 20 per hit, so 40 for the whole brick
red: 30 per hit, so 90 for the whole brick

On level 5 a single red brick is worth 450. Since every brick is always worth the same, a run that clears all five levels always ends on 70,950 points. Level 5 alone is worth 30,250 of them, more than the first four levels put together. Lost lives cost nothing on the scoreboard: what they cost is the chance to reach that last wall. Your best score is shown as BEST under the current one and kept in this browser.

Strategy that actually helps

Use the ends of the paddle to aim. A centre hit goes straight up and tends to come straight back, which is safe but slow. Catching the ball towards one end sends it across the wall, and that is how you pick the column you want to hit next.

Dig one tunnel through the wall. The red rows face you and take three hits each. Keep working the same column: once there is a gap all the way up, the ball gets above the wall and bounces between the top of the screen and the cyan rows, breaking bricks and scoring while you wait for it to come down.

On a computer, play with the mouse. The paddle goes straight to the pointer, while the arrow keys move it a fixed step at a time, and crossing the whole screen by keyboard takes more than a second. On a phone the paddle follows your finger just as directly.

Protect your lives early. Three lives have to last all five levels, and the hardest level comes last. A careless miss on level 1 is a life you will not have when the ball is at its fastest.

Common questions

Is it free? Yes. It runs in your browser, with no signup and nothing to download.

Does it work on a phone? Yes. Drag your finger to move the paddle and tap to launch the ball. It works in portrait and landscape.

Does it end? Yes. There are five levels, and clearing the fifth wall wins the game. Losing your third ball ends it earlier.

Can I install it? Yes. Bananai can be installed as an app from the browser, and a game you have already opened usually keeps working when the connection drops.

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Also available in: Italiano