Breakout
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| Breakout | |
| Developer: | Atari Games |
| Publisher: | Atari Games |
| Game designer: | Nolan Bushnell |
| Release date: | 1976 |
| Genre: | Retro/Puzzle |
| Game modes: | Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Cabinet: | Standard and cocktail |
| Controls: | Rotary controller; 1 button |
| Monitor | |
| Orientation: | Horizontal |
| Type: | Raster, medium resolution |
| Notes | |
| Developed during the Golden Age of Arcade Games | |
Breakout is a Pong-like arcade game introduced by Atari in 1976.
In the game, a layer of 'bricks' lines the top third of the screen. A ball travels across the screen, 'bouncing' off the top and side walls of the screen. When the ball hits a brick, the ball bounces off and the brick disappears. The player loses a life when the ball touches the bottom of the screen, and to prevent this from happening, the player has a movable paddle that the ball can bounce off.
Breakout used a black and white monitor. However, the top part of the monitor had tinted strips of transparent material placed over it so that the bricks appeared to be in color.
This amazingly simple yet addictive game is the basis of countless remakes, including Super Breakout and Arkanoid.
Development
Breakout, a discrete logic (non-microprocessor) game, was developed by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak, while he was employed by Hewlett-Packard.
Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs worked at Atari, and he enlisted Wozniak to design the game, which he did in four days. Jobs took credit for the work and reportedly earned US$5000, but paid Wozniak only $350, which he said was half. [1] (http://www.woz.org/letters/general/91.html)
External links
- Bat and Ball Java Game (http://www.webcogs.com/batandball.aspx) - Plays in a Web Browser
- The LGames Project (http://lgames.sourceforge.net/) includes two Breakout implementations, LBreakout and LBreakout2.de:Breakout