Arkanoid Online: Free Brick Breaker

A brick breaker you can play right here

Many players call a whole kind of arcade game "Arkanoid": you move a paddle along the bottom of the screen, bounce a ball into a wall of bricks and try to break every brick you can before the ball slips past you. The game on this page is our own brick breaker, written from scratch for the browser. It has 36 levels in 3 worlds, glossy bricks that crack and shatter, falling power-up capsules, drifting drones and a boss at the end of the campaign.

It runs on phones, tablets and computers and remembers your progress.

How to play in 3 steps

1. Move the paddle

   With a mouse, the paddle follows your pointer. On a touch screen, drag anywhere on the game and the paddle moves with your finger, so your hand never covers it. On a keyboard, use the arrow keys or A and D; hold Shift for slow, precise moves.

2. Launch the ball

   Click, tap, or press Space or the up arrow. Where the ball lands on the paddle decides where it goes: the center sends it straight up, the edges send it off at up to 60 degrees.

3. Clear the wall

   Break every brick that can be broken to finish the level. If the last ball falls past the paddle, you lose a life. You start with 3 lives.

Press P or Esc to pause; the game also pauses by itself when you switch tabs. The How to Play guide explains scoring, combos and every control.

Know your bricks

Each level is a wall of up to 18 rows of bricks, 13 bricks wide. The bricks behave very differently:

• Colored bricks

  Break with one hit. The 8 colors are worth 50 to 120 points, from white to amber.

• Silver bricks

  Armored bricks that crack with every hit: 2 hits in the first world, 3 in the second and 4 in the third.

• Gold bricks

  They never break and do not need to be cleared. Use them to steer the ball. Only a Fireball passes through them.

• Explosive bricks

  When one breaks, it destroys its 8 neighbors. If a neighbor is explosive too, the blast keeps going.

• Splitters

  Our own brick: when it breaks, 2 extra balls fly out of it.

The power-ups and bricks guide lists every type with its points.

Power-up capsules

About 1 broken brick in 7 drops a capsule. It falls slowly; catch it with the paddle to get its effect:

• Wide makes the paddle 1.5 times as wide for 20 seconds.
• Laser lets the paddle fire twin shots for 15 seconds.
• Magnet makes the ball stick to the paddle for 20 seconds; release it when you are ready.
• Slow slows the ball down by 35% for 12 seconds.
• Multi-ball splits every ball into 3.
• Fireball lets the ball burn straight through bricks for 8 seconds.
• Shield puts a barrier under the paddle that saves the ball once.
• Extra life gives you one more life. It is rare.
• Warp opens a gate in the right wall: move into it to skip to the next level with a 5,000-point bonus. Rare too.

The paddle has one mode at a time, so Wide, Laser and Magnet replace each other. Slow, Fireball and Shield work together with anything.

36 levels, 3 worlds and a boss

The campaign has 36 hand-made levels in 3 worlds of 12: Neon Harbor, Crystal Caverns and Solar Forge, each with its own colors and mood. Silver walls get tougher as you go, and from Crystal Caverns small drones drift in through two gates at the top. They never cost you a life, but they knock the ball off course; hit them for 100 points.

Level 36 is the boss, the Prism Core: a large armored core that moves, fires slow plasma orbs and has a health bar. An orb that hits the paddle costs a life, and the glowing core that opens from time to time takes triple damage.

The level select screen shows every unlocked level with your best score and up to 3 stars: 1 for clearing it, 2 for clearing it without losing a life, 3 for doing that under the par time. If you run out of lives, you can continue once per run on the same level with 3 new lives and your score kept, after a short ad.

More ways to play

• Daily

  A new level every day, the same for everyone, with 3 lives and no Continue. Try as often as you like; your best score of the day counts. Open the Daily.

• Endless

  Waves that keep coming and get harder, with a bonus wave every 5 waves. Play for your best score and the furthest wave. Open Endless.

• Level editor

  Paint your own wall of bricks, test it at once and share it with a link. Open the level editor.

Why play here

• Starts at once

  The game is small and part of the page, so it is ready within a second, even on a slow connection.

• Free, no download

  No app, no account and nothing to buy. Open the page in any modern browser and play.

• Made for phones

  The whole game fits on one phone screen, and the page does not scroll while you drag the paddle.

• Saves your progress

  Unlocked levels, stars, best scores and settings stay in your browser, so you can close the tab and continue later.

There is also a dark theme, a sound switch and a choice of 28 languages. To get further, read our tips and strategies.

Where the genre comes from

Atari's Breakout put a paddle, a ball and a wall of bricks into arcades in 1976. Ten years later, Taito's arcade game Arkanoid added power-up capsules, tougher bricks, enemies and a boss, and it became so well known that in some countries its name is still used for the whole genre. Read the full story on our history page.

Arkanoid FAQ

More answers are on the FAQ page.