Brick Smash in Games by Zaweba: clearing every wall

A wall of bricks, a bat and a single ball make up Brick Smash, the bat and ball game on the Retro arcade shelf of Games by Zaweba. You keep the ball in play until every breakable brick is gone. It's drawn in a 16-bit home computer style, and along the way falling capsules hand you a wider bat, extra balls, a laser and a few other helpers.

You can steer the bat with the mouse or with the Left and Right keys, and you click or press Space to launch the ball. The same click or Space fires the laser once you have it.

Controlling the angle

The most important thing to learn is that where the ball hits the bat sets its angle. That gives you a way to aim. Rather than just getting the bat under the ball, you can move so that it strikes a particular part of the bat and heads off towards the bricks you want. When a wall is down to a few stubborn bricks in one corner, that's what gets you there instead of waiting for a lucky bounce.

Practise this on the first wall, where little is at stake. Watch where the ball goes after it hits near the middle of the bat and after it hits near an end, and you'll soon start to place it.

Bricks you can and can't break

Not every brick is the same. Silver bricks take several hits before they go, so they need patience, and it's worth noticing where they are before you plan a route through the wall. Gold bricks never break at all. They're part of the layout, something to bounce off rather than a target, and the wall is cleared when everything else has gone.

What the capsules do

Some bricks release a capsule that falls towards you. Catch it with the bat and you get its effect, and the letter on each tells you what it is. W gives you a wide bat, M gives you multi-ball, L gives you a laser, S slows the ball down, C lets you catch the ball, and P gives you an extra bat.

They aren't all equally welcome at every moment. Multi-ball clears bricks quickly but gives you more to watch. Slow ball is a good one to grab when the pace is getting away from you. The laser lets you shoot bricks directly with a click or Space. And chasing a capsule is a risk in its own right, because it can pull you away from the ball, so keep an eye on which matters more.

Twelve walls and round again

There are twelve walls to clear. Once you've done all twelve, the game goes round again faster, so a good run keeps getting harder rather than simply ending. That makes your best score a real measure of how far you got and how cleanly.

Games by Zaweba keeps that best score, along with your plays, on your own PC, and shows it alongside your score at the end of each game. Esc pauses if you need a breather between walls, F11 gives you the whole screen, and the title card and F1 both cover the rules and controls if you forget which letter does what.

Start each wall by spotting the silver bricks and the gold ones, use the bat's angle to aim, and only chase a capsule when the ball is safely on its way up.