Launch the ball one click to the right. This should destroy one of the bricks in the bottom-right cluster. Then hit the descending ball with the right side of your paddle, sending it up the right wall. Hopefully you will dislodge a capsule.
When you get the opportunity, destroy the remaining bricks in the bottom-right cluster to give yourself a clear area to shoot into. Stay conservative as you clear out the level.
Start the ball two clicks to the left. Your opening shot should ricochet off the left wall, then the top wall, and dislodge the exposed capsule on the upper left. Stay conservative as you clear out the level.
Try launching the ball one click to the left, which should clear out one of the low-hanging bricks from the bottom row and give you some breathing room. As the ball comes back, hit it with the left side of your paddle to send it up the left well.
Stay conservative. Strike the ball in the center of your paddle whenever possible, and methodically destroy all the bricks.
A Laser is very helpful on this level, and in fact all the early levels. If you grab one, use it to destroy all the bricks, starting with the lowest-hanging ones. Don’t bother grabbing other capsules unless you come across a Life. Remember to fire your Laser only when the ball is rising, so you don’t lose a life being over-eager firing bullets.
The strategy to “beating” BlackBerry’s Brick Breaker game is this: just survive. Don’t worry about your score. Play conservatively until you’ve gone through all 34 levels — twice.
Why? Well, when you make it past all 34 levels, you start over on level 1 again, except the ball moves faster. But if you make it past all 34 levels twice, the ball moves slowly all the time. The game becomes much easier — permanently.
I call this point the Turn. Once you get past the Turn, you can run up your score and your number of lives as high as you like. In fact it doesn’t take any more skill to get a high score of 500,000 than of 50,000 — once you’ve gotten past the Turn, it’s just a question of how much time you want to spend playing and racking up points and lives.
Don’t be a hero, OK? Hit the ball with the center of your paddle, as opposed to the edges, whenever possible. Shots taken off the edge are more difficult to control, because they carom around the board at sharp angles.
Stay focused on the ball. Don’t lunge after falling capsules. Grab capsules only when you can reach them easily, and even then only when you’re sure they will help your cause.
Play sitting down. Hold the Blackberry with two hands. Don’t play in a bouncy train or car. Don’t play while talking to someone or after drinking 27 beers. And so on.
Remember: survival is the key to success. Play it safe. Once you get past the Turn, the game becomes much easier. Once you reach that point, you can play aggressively and rack up points without much effort. Until then, be careful.
You must pay attention to BrickBreaker’s ball speed changes. There are two ball speeds in Brickbreaker: slow and fast. Simple eh? When the ball is moving fast, it’s much more difficult to control, so play more conservatively. When the ball is moving slowly, you can play more aggressively.
Make sure you understand the properties of each BrickBreaker capsule. Each capsule has pros and cons. Some capsules will work well on one level but not another. I’ll go into this in more details in my BrickBreaker Level Walkthroughs.
Sometimes the bricks will have descended and you’ll find yourself trapped under them. Make sure you read my instructions on how to get yourself out of this situation. You need to know this if you’re going to get a decent high score, because there’s always some situation where you get trapped like this.
There are a few key Brick Breaker tips to improving your high score. The most important thing to know is the proper BrickBreaker game strategy, which basically involves staying alive until you make it through all 34 levels (twice).
One of the most important tactics you can use to improve your chances of survival is to watch out for the ball speed changes during the game. There are two ball speeds in Brickbreaker: slow and fast. Simple eh? As you might imagine, when the ball is moving fast, it’s much more difficult to control. When the ball is moving fast, play more conservatively. When the ball is moving slowly, you can play more aggressively.
On your first pass through the 34 BrickBreaker levels, the ball will start out moving slowly. Since the ball is easier to control during this time, take the opportunity to destroy any low-hanging bricks and dislodge any easily accessible capsules.
After bouncing around for a while, the ball will suddenly transition to a faster speed. Shortly thereafter, the bricks will start to descend every time your paddle makes contact with the ball. During this period, the ball is more difficult to control, and the difficulty is compounded by the descending bricks. While this is happening, play conservatively and try to send the ball up to the top of the board where it can bounce around for a while.
Once the ball has bounced off the walls and bricks a certain number of times, it will slow down and remain slow for the rest of the level. At this point, it’s much easier to finish off the rest of the level.
I’ve found the changes in speed occur after the ball makes a certain number of bounces off the bricks and walls. This makes the Multi capsule very important – more on that in a minute. The BlackBerry help menu states that the change in speed occurs after you hit the ball with your paddle 50 times on any level, however I’ve found this definitely isn’t true. I think that the speed transitions occur after the ball hits any surface about 50 times.
Note: if you lose a Life, the cycle will repeat itself! The ball will start slow, then speed up, then become slow again.
On your second pass through the 34 levels, the ball starts out moving fast. Also, the bricks will immediately start descending every time your paddle makes contact with the ball. As before, play conservatively and avoid sharply angled shots while the ball is moving fast.
After a certain number of bounces, the ball will slow down and will remain slow for the rest of the level. This means patience is key. Just try to stay alive until the ball slows down. Once the ball slows down, it’ll be easier to clear out the level. You should still remain conservative though, because if you lose a Life, the ball starts out fast again.
On your third pass, the ball will start out moving slowly, and it will stay slow for the whole level. In fact, the ball never moves fast again, no matter how many times you go through the levels. (Except, counter-intuitively, if you pick up the Slow capsule). That’s why if you want to post a big high score your strategy should be to make it past 34 levels twice: it’s much easier to score points when the game is easy!
My name's Pierre and I created this guide to help you improve your BrickBreaker high score and reach new levels in the game. More...
