Home / Reaction / Brick Bounce
Brick Bounce is a free online bouncing ball brick breaker built around a single decision per turn. You pick an angle, and from that moment you only watch: every ball you own leaves the cannon in single file, ricochets off the walls and the bricks, and knocks a point off everything it touches until the last one falls back to the floor. Then the wall of numbered bricks steps down one row, a new row arrives at the top, and you are handed one more ball. Let a brick reach the line above the cannon and the run is over. The shot worth learning is not the one that hits the most bricks — it is the one that gets a ball *inside* the wall, where it rattles between bricks for a dozen hits instead of two. Four walls, from a loose opening row to a nearly solid grind, and the ball count only ever grows. No download, no account.
How to play Brick Bounce
- Drag anywhere in the well to aim. A dashed line shows the angle the shot will take.
- Release to fire. Every ball you own goes, one after another, along that same line.
- You cannot steer after firing. The angle is the whole decision.
- Balls bounce off the side walls, the ceiling and the bricks. Each touch knocks one point off a brick.
- The number on a brick is how many more hits it needs. It disappears at zero.
- When the last ball comes back down, the wall steps down one row, a new row arrives, and you gain one extra ball.
- The dashed line above the cannon is the floor. A brick that reaches it ends the run.
- Bricks broken add up across the whole run, not just the wall you are on, and your best run is kept between visits.
- Aim into gaps rather than at faces. A ball that gets behind or inside the wall keeps bouncing and does far more damage.
- New rows arrive slightly tougher than the last, so the run gets harder even as your ball count grows.
- Survive the number of rows the level asks for to clear it.
Tips
- The best shot is rarely the one aimed at the most bricks. Aim at a gap that leads inside the wall and let the ricochets do the work.
- Shallow angles keep a ball among the bricks longer, because it crosses more of them before it can fall back out.
- Clear a whole column early if you can. A vertical corridor lets later shots run all the way to the ceiling and back.
- Watch the lowest brick, not the newest one. The run ends from the bottom up.
- You get a ball every single turn, so a turn spent setting up a corridor pays for itself for the rest of the run.
- Bricks at the edges are cheap to hit — a ball bouncing off the side wall clips them repeatedly on its way past.
- Since the count carries across walls, a run that dies on the fourth wall can still beat one that cleared the first three cleanly. Breaking bricks is worth more than surviving neatly.
- If a row is nearly solid, aim for its one thin spot rather than spreading damage. Opening a hole is worth more than chipping five bricks.
- Do not panic-aim straight up. It only ever works the one column above the cannon and is the fastest way to lose.
- Finishing with the wall well clear of the floor is three stars, so keeping the bottom row short matters more than total bricks broken.
FAQ
What am I actually scoring?
Bricks broken, totalled across the whole run rather than per wall, and your best run is stored in the browser so there is something to beat next time. Clearing a wall carries the count forward; losing one banks it. That is why a long messy run can outscore a short tidy one.
Is Brick Bounce free to play?
Yes. It runs in the browser with no download, no sign-up and nothing to buy. All four walls are included and unlock as you survive them.
Can the game get stuck with a ball bouncing forever?
No, and it is the first thing the test suite checks. A ball whose vertical speed reached zero would bounce between the two side walls for ever — the turn would never end and the game would sit frozen with nothing to report. Every bounce is therefore forced to keep a minimum amount of vertical speed, adjusted so the ball never gains energy doing it, and each ball is also retired after a bounded number of bounces. The tests fire at the worst angles, including dead flat, and require the turn to finish.
Why can I not aim sideways?
The aim is clamped short of horizontal for the same reason. A shot flat enough to skim between the walls would take an absurd amount of time to come down even with the vertical floor in place, so the cannon simply will not point that far.
How do I do more damage without more balls?
Get a ball inside the wall. A ball that enters a gap and rattles between bricks lands ten or more hits in one turn, while a ball that strikes the front face bounces straight back out after one or two. That is the whole skill: the angle matters far more than the ball count, and the ball count grows on its own anyway.
Do the bricks get harder?
Yes, but gently. Each new row arrives with slightly more health than the last. It has to be gentle: the well only holds about a dozen rows before a brick reaches the floor, so health that climbed faster than your ball count would make a level unwinnable by arithmetic rather than by play. The first values tried did exactly that and the reference solver could not clear the last two levels at all.
Is every level actually survivable?
Yes, and it is checked over six different walls rather than one. A reference aimer that shoots at the heaviest column clears all four levels on every seed, and a shot fired straight up every turn loses all four. Six seeds because an earlier set of numbers passed on the first three and failed on the fourth — tuning to the seeds you happened to try is not tuning.
Does the same level always look the same?
Replaying a level lays the same wall out again, so you can try a different opening on a layout you have already read. Starting the level fresh from the menu gives you a new one. Each row is also exactly as dense as the level specifies rather than as dense as chance allows, so no row is ever accidentally empty or accidentally solid.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, and portrait suits it: the well is taller than it is wide, so the phone frame wastes almost nothing. Drag to aim and lift your finger to fire.