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.

Play Conservatively

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.

Watch the Ball Speed

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.

Know Your Capsules

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.

Know How to Escape When You’re Trapped Under Bricks

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.

First Pass Through 34 Levels

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.

Second Pass Through 34 Levels

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.

Third Pass Through 34 Levels…And Beyond

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!

Your BlackBerry’s Brick Breaker help menu will tell you a little about the different capsules available in the game, but here’s a more thorough review. Each capsule has special properties — some are helpful, while others hurt your cause. Sometimes certain capsules will be helpful on one level but unhelpful on another.

Make sure you understand the properties of each capsule, and don’t grab any capsule unless you’re confident it will improve your position.

The capsules are always hidden in the same bricks, though the type of capsule hidden in the brick changes. When we walk through each level, I’ll show you where the capsules are located. For now here’s a brief overview of each capsule’s properties.

Life – Gives you an extra life.

Since getting a high score is all about survival, you almost always want to grab a Life capsule.

The Life capsule takes away other capsule power-ups, so there are some situation where you’ll want to avoid the Life. I’ll discuss these in the BrickBreaker level walkthroughs.

Multi – Puts four balls in play.

You’ll find this capsule is VERY useful when the ball speed is fast, because remember: the transition to a slow ball speed occurs after the balls bounce off any surface around 50 times. With four balls in play, this transition happens four times faster!

Note: on the first pass through the 34 levels, the ball starts out slow initially, and it’s usually best to avoid the Multi capsule at that moment, because putting four balls in play will only hasten the transition from slow to fast.

Another nice thing about the Multi is if you already have the Laser, Gun or Long capsule, the Multi won’t take away those power-ups. The Multi does take away the Catch power-up though. And one downside of the Multi capsule is with four balls in play, the pace can be frenetic; you need to remain focused on keeping at least one ball in play.

Catch – Enables you to catch and hold the ball. After catching the ball, you can alter the angle at which the ball is shot.

When the ball is trapped on your paddle, use the trackball to determine the angle, and the space bar to launch the ball. If you’ve caught the ball, you can hold it on your paddle for several seconds. This can be helpful if some capsules are falling and you want to let them drop a bit closer before putting the ball back in play.

If you’ve previously grabbed a Multi and there are still multiple balls in play, the Catch capsule will take you down to a single ball again.

Laser – Gives you unlimited lasers that can damage regular bricks. It takes two hits with a laser to damage a brick.

Use the space bar to fire your lasers. I recommend you only fire the Laser when your ball is heading upward; if the ball is heading downward, just worry about keeping it in play. Sometimes you can get so caught up in lasering bricks that you let an easy ball drop into the drink.

You can dislodge a capsule from a brick — without destroying the brick — by hitting it with a single laser shot.

The Laser is especially powerful on Levels 1 – 12, which feature plenty of exposed breakable bricks. On Levels 13 – 34, unbreakable bricks often get in your way, making the Laser much less helpful, and oftentimes completely useless.

Gun – Gives you three bullets that immediately destroy any brick. The gun is the only weapon that can destroy the unbreakable bricks, and in some situations this is immensely helpful, especially in the later levels.

Use the space bar to launch your bullets. You can only launch one bullet at a time, so if one bullet is in flight, wait until it hits a brick or hits the ceiling before trying to fire another.

As with the Laser, I recommend you only fire the Gun while your ball is heading upward, to avoid accidentally losing a life.

Long – Makes your paddle longer. This makes it easier to catch errant balls.

While the Long capsule is usually very helpful, it can sometimes impede your control in the corners.

Slow – Temporarily slows down the ball and halts the bricks from descending. After a certain number of bounces, the ball will switch to a fast speed, and the bricks will resume their descent.

If the ball is moving quickly, this capsule can be very helpful. However, if the ball is already moving slowly then you should avoid the Slow capsule, because it will not make the ball any slower, and after the effect wears off the ball will start moving fast, even if you’ve already made it through the “fast portion” of the level.

Bomb – Turns the ball into a bomb that destroys the next brick it comes into contact with, while also damaging adjacent bricks.

When the bomb goes off, the screen shakes violently. Since this can be very distracting and sometimes causes me to lose a Life, I often avoid picking up the Bomb capsule.

Wrap – Allows you to move the capsule beyond the edge of the screen.

I usually avoid this capsule, because I like having the paddle stop at the edges of the screen. I find with the Wrap, it becomes too easy to overshoot the wall and come out on the other side, often making me miss a ball that’s headed for the corner.

Flip – This changes the direction of your paddle.

Grabbing any other capsule except Wrap will revert your paddle to its original orientation.

Try to avoid this capsule at all costs. If you end up with a Flip capsule anyway, try to keep your paddle moving constantly even while the ball is bouncing around at the top of the level; this will help you remember that the controls are backwards, until you can grab another capsule and revert the paddle orientation back to the original settings.

Some BrickBreaker boards feature a long row of unbreakable metal bricks. Sometimes these bricks will have descended down so far that there isn’t much room left above your paddle:

Here are some instructions on getting out of trouble if you find yourself in this situation. I call this technique “Walking the Dog”. I think this name is inspired somehow by the yo-yo trick of the same name.

Start by launching the ball two or three clicks to the left, making sure to launch the ball using the space bar instead of the trackball, for better control. Immediately reposition your paddle 2-3 places to the left.

Watch the ball closely as it rebounds off the unbreakable bricks. Focus on striking the descending ball with the left half of your paddle, which will send the ball further left. After you make contact, reposition your paddle another 2-3 places to the left. If the ball ricochets off the unbreakable bricks a second time, hit it again with the left half of your paddle.

Of course on some levels you want to start the ball off to the right, in which case you just reverse the directions.

Now that we’ve covered the ideal BrickBreaker Game strategy I’ll take you through the BrickBreaker levels in detail. I’ll show you where all the capsules are hidden on each level, and give you some tips on how to negotiate each level safely. In this guide, the capsule locations are highlighted in blue on each level diagram. The location of the capsules never changes, though the type of capsule you get from the brick is unpredictable.

Sometimes I’ll give advice on where to launch the ball at the beginning of the level. I’ll refer to the number of “clicks” to the left or right. The default starting position (zero clicks) will launch the ball slightly to the right. Using the trackball, you can move the pointer a maximum of three clicks right or four clicks left.

Please note that each Blackberry phone displays BrickBreaker a little differently. When you’re looking at the level screenshots you may see some cosmetic differences with how it looks on your phone.

The gameplay also varies slightly depending on your BlackBerry model — sometimes a certain starting shot works on one phone but not another. Because of this, I will give general advice on where to launch the ball, but you should experiment to see which shots work best on your phone.

See the links for each level below.