Breakout

An implementation of the ball-and-paddle game, programmed by Steve Wozniak, creator of the Apple II computer. Wozniak was also involved in the engineering of the arcade original for Atari. He used Breakout as a demonstration for his new computer, and to determine some of the features it should have.

As in the original, players have to break out bricks from a multi-layer wall by bouncing a ball against it. They use the rotary knob on the Apple II's game controller to move a paddle, in order to keep the ball from leaving the game area, and ricochet it back towards the wall. Compared to the arcade original, the wall is on the right hand side instead of at the top, to account for the horizontal screen orientation. The wall consists of 8 layers of 20 bricks each, with each brick earning the player a number of points according to the layer it was in. The player is given 5 balls to try and reach the maximum score of 720. When the board is clear, the game ends. If unable to clear the whole board, the player is given a ranking according to the score they achieved.

The game was distributed as Integer BASIC source code for the Apple II's built-in interpreter, on a demonstration cassette supplied with early systems. It allows players to customize the game by asking for their name, and letting them change the color palette. Speaker beeps of different pitches give audio feedback on what the ball is hitting.

Anamon # 2021-08-01 05:35:34

display: raster

was remade as
Little Brick Out (Apple II E)