Bring out your paddles, because in the eighth issue of The Ball is Wild 🪩 pinball culture newsletter, published on April 7th, it’s all about brick breaker videogames. The reason for this coverage is that this game genre is pretty adjacent to pinball. Did you know that there are about 2.000 different brick breaker games out there? It’s true! Everything started, of course, with Breakout in 1976 (a variant of the OG commercial videogame Pong) and became popular again with Arkanoid in 1986. This was just the beginning though.
There is even a book that delves deep into brick breakers: In Pilgrim in the Microworld, sociologist David Sudnow develops a big fascination for Breakout.
IN THIS EIGHTH EDITION:
- Editorial: Brilliant brick breakers
- Look at the book: Pilgrim in the Microworld (1983)
- Videoballs: Vaporwave Pinball
- Heavy machines: Portal pinball