Krakout

Krakout is a brick-breaking arcade game that British studio Gremlin Graphics released for the Atari 800 in the second half of the eighties. The principle follows the classic Breakout formula – the player moves a paddle along the bottom edge of the screen and bounces a ball into the fields of bricks above – but Krakout enriches it with an elaborate power-up system, shifting playfield shapes, and gradually escalating difficulty, thanks to which the game stays fun even after dozens of levels and never shrinks into mere mechanical repetition.

On the Atari, the game benefits from colorful graphics and snappy control response, which is key for this type of game – even a small delay can ruin the feel of a precise ball bounce and cost a life. The sound effects accompanying the smashing of bricks and collecting of bonuses give the game its arcade character, which Krakout retains across all the versions it appeared on. The level structure forces the player to adapt tactics, since not all bricks disappear after a single hit and some require repeated bouncing of the ball from the correct angle, pushing the game closer to a puzzle game than a pure reflex affair.

In the context of its time, Krakout was one of the more popular British titles of its genre, and on the Atari 8-bit it represents a typical example of simple yet addictive arcade fun, the kind the European scene of the era produced in abundance. Even today it's a game you can return to for a few minutes at any time, and its simple rules haven't aged even after all these years, even though the graphics clearly betray their mid-eighties origin. It's precisely this combination of simplicity and cleverly graded difficulty that keeps players coming back to Krakout on the Atari 8-bit even today, even though more modern and elaborate games of the same genre exist. Krakout is one of those titles that clearly shows how mid-eighties British developers could squeeze the most out of a simple idea and turn it into a profitable, repeatedly playable game.

Why play it: For a quick, addictive bit of fun without unnecessary complications, Krakout on the Atari 8-bit is still a great choice, even though its graphics give away the mid-eighties.