Change it all around

Now your game is working. It’s time to play around with it to see how to make it more interesting, or more challenging, or just more quirky. Here are some ideas, but you should really think up your own: it’s your game; make it different from everyone else’s.

Have several layers of bricks

The game only has one wall of bricks at the moment. Try adding some more walls.

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Give each side wall a bat

This is easy to do and makes the game quite a bit more tricky. The idea is to make it so the ball doesn’t bounce off the side walls: you have to deflect it with a bat. So you need a vertical bat on each side wall which is also controlled by the mouse.

../_images/two-bats-along-the-side.gif

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Have more than one ball

You could have two balls, perhaps one running faster, the other slower. Or one bigger, one smaller. These both have to be deflected in the usual way. Perhaps one ball can only knock out certain bricks.

../_images/more-than-one-ball.gif

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Have two bats along the bottom

Even if just one player you could have two bats, one which only moves when the left mouse button is pressed, the other when the right button is pressed.

../_images/two-bats-along-the-bottom.gif

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Have different kinds of bricks

You could give the bricks different properties: one might only be knocked out after three hits. Perhaps one hit weakens it and it changes to a weaker 2-hit brick.

../_images/different-bricks.gif

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Switch around the direction of play

Have the wall of bricks along the left edge of the screen and the bat along the right. Or a wall in the middle of the screen with bats along each edge.

../_images/switch-the-direction-of-play.gif

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Have the ball bounce differently from the left or right side of the bat

When the ball hits the left side of the bat, it bounces up to the left regardless of which direction it came from. Likewise when it hits the right of the bat it bounces to the right

../_images/left-and-right-side-of-bat.gif

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Have the ball bounce according to how far along the bat it hits

The angle of the ball bounce will depend where it hits along the bat

../_images/different-angles.gif

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