Breakout Clone

Breakout Clone

A Breakout clone (also known as a Breakout-style game) is a sub-class of the "bat-and-ball" genre introduced with the Magnavox Odyssey's Tennis and Atari's Pong. The genre gets its name by the games being based around the dynamics of a player-controlled block, called a "bat" or a paddle, which hits a ball towards another player's bat or game specific object.

Breakout-style games are characterized by the addition of a wall of blocks or similar objects, that the player chips away at with the ball as part of the main gameplay. Since the release of the original Breakout arcade game in 1976, there have been notable clones and updates for various platforms. The profusion and notability of such games has been sufficient enough for them to also be referred to by some as a genre in their own right. However, since this is a fairly narrow definition of a genre, it is often not considered as such.

Breakout clones' status as a genre is slightly more established in Japan than in North America. Block kuzushi (ブロック崩し burokkukuzushi, literally block destruction) is the name given in Japan to these games. A number of block kuzushi games were released in Japan under the title Block Kuzushi, including members of D3 Publisher's Simple series and a Color TV Game system by Nintendo. However, this is a generic name referring to the genre (similar to a tennis game being called Tennis). The games titled Block Kuzushi are all distinct games and should not be considered as a series.