Breakout Atari ¹⁹⁷⁶

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Published on March 27, 2025 9:30:53 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSFwVQqkr2s

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Breakout (1976)

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Breakout is an arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc.[7] and released on May 13, 1976.[2] Breakout was released in Japanese arcades by Namco. The game was designed by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow and prototyped via discrete logic chips by Steve Wozniak with assistance from Steve Jobs. In the game, eight rows of bricks line the top portion of the screen, and the player's goal is to destroy the bricks by repeatedly bouncing a ball off a paddle into them. The concept was predated by Ramtek's Clean Sweep (1974), but the game's designers were influenced by Atari's own Pong (1972). The arcade version of Breakout uses a monochrome display underneath a translucent colored overlay.

The game was a worldwide commercial success. It was among the top five highest-grossing arcade video games of 1976 in the U.S. and Japan, and among the top three in both countries for 1977. A port of the game was published in 1978 for the Atari 2600 with color graphics. An arcade sequel was released in 1978, Super Breakout, which introduced multiple bouncing balls. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs went on to found the Apple Computer Company with Ronald Wayne. The company's influential Apple II computer, designed mostly by Wozniak, has technical elements inspired by Breakout's hardware.

Atari was involved in a series of court cases over their ability to copyright Breakout, and they were ultimately allowed to do so. The game spawned an entire genre of clones nonetheless. In Japan, the genre is known as block kuzushi ("block breaker") games. Breakout was the inspiration for Taito's Arkanoid (1986), which spawned dozens of imitators. It also influenced the game design of Taito's Space Invaders (1978).

Breakout begins with eight rows of bricks, with two rows each of a different color. The color order from the bottom up is yellow, green, orange and red. Using a single ball, the player must knock down as many bricks as possible by using the walls and/or the paddle below to hit the ball against the bricks and eliminate them. If the player's paddle misses the ball's rebound, they will lose a turn. The player has three turns to try to clear two screens of bricks. Yellow bricks earn one point each, green bricks earn three points, orange bricks earn five points and the top-level red bricks score seven points each. The paddle shrinks to one-half its size after the ball has broken through the red row and hit the upper wall. Ball speed increases at specific intervals: after four hits, after twelve hits, and after making contact with the orange and red rows.

The highest score achievable for one player is 864; this is done by eliminating two screens of bricks worth 432 points per screen. Once the second screen of bricks is destroyed, the ball in play harmlessly bounces off empty walls until the player restarts the game, as no additional screens are provided. However, a secret way to score beyond the 864 maximum is to play the game in two-player mode. If "Player One" completes the first screen on their third and last ball, then immediately and deliberately allows the ball to "drain", Player One's second screen is transferred to "Player Two" as a third screen, allowing Player Two to score a maximum of 1,312 points if they are adept enough to keep the third ball in play that long. Once the third screen is eliminated, the game is over.

The original arcade cabinet of Breakout has artwork framing the game's plot as a prison escape. The player is one of a prison's inmates attempting to knock a ball and chain into a wall of their prison cell with a mallet. If the player successfully destroys the wall in-game, the inmate escapes with others following.

A precursor to Breakout was Clean Sweep, released by Ramtek in 1974. In that game, the player uses a paddle to hit a ball up towards a playfield of dots, which disappear as the ball moves through the dots; the goal is to achieve a clean sweep by erasing all the dots.[8] Clean Sweep was one of the top ten best-selling arcade video games of 1974 and sold a total of 3,500 arcade cabinets.[9]

Breakout, a discrete logic (non-microprocessor) game, was designed by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow, both of whom were involved with Atari and its Kee Games subsidiary. Atari produced innovative video games using the Pong hardware as a means of competition against companies making "Pong clones".[10] Bushnell wanted to turn Pong into a single player game, where the player would use a paddle to maintain a ball that depletes a wall of bricks. Bushnell was certain the game would be popular, and he and Bristow partnered to produce a concept. Al Alcorn was assigned as the Breakout project manager, and he began development with Cyan Engineering in 1975. Bushnell assigned Steve Jobs, who was not an engineer, to design a prototype. Jobs was offered $750, with an award for every TTL (transistor-transistor logic) chip fewer than 50. Jobs promised to complete a prototype within four days.[11]

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