The Bricks of series is a serie of Casual Video Games games developped by Arcade Lab from 2004 to 2005. Being Breaking Out-types of game, the player had to destroy a variety blocks by repeatedly bouncing off a ball with a paddle.
There are 4 games in the series:
- Bricks of Egypt (2004), with Egyptian aesthetics
- Bricks of Egypt 2 (2004), the sequel of the above
- Bricks of Camelot (2005), with medieval aesthetics
- Bricks of Atlantis (2005), with underwater aesthetics
All the games feature Power Ups (collected with the paddle after dropping randomly from destroyed blocks) that can help or hinder the player, such as shrinking or enlarging the paddle, speeding up or slowing down the ball, instant deaths, harpoons to shoot upwards by pressing the mouse buttons, etc. There are also helper characters that can be summoned by collecting specific power ups or breaking blocks representing them (Eyes in Egypt, Fishes in Altantis and Eagles in Camelot). Finally, some levels include relics, jewels and treasures that can be collected by the paddle after breaking the blocks they were standing upon.
Levels are groupes in packs. Half of them are available from the start and contain 8 levels, and the other half are progressively unlocked after finishing starter packs and have 16 levels. There are 3 difficulty levels that determine the number of lives the player starts with.
These games provide examples of:
- Atlantis: hey, it even is in the title.
- Ascended Extra: The Guardian Eye was a mere Power-Up that wandered through the screen and bounced the ball in Egypt. In the sequel, the Eyes are seen far more predominantly and now come in seven varieties, six of which are very useful to destroy blocks and gain points.
- Breaking Out: The entire point of the games.
- Extreme Omnivore: The surgeonfishes in Atlantis are often useful to the player as they can stomach marble blocks.
- Faceless Eye: The main helpers in Egypt II are floating Egyptian Eyes.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Playing on a newer operating system like Windows 10 can cause problems, like the game running at 2FPS if fullscreen is not disabled or freezing when the player attempts to close it.
- Hollywood Acid: The Acid Eye in Egypt 2 is color-coded green and cries acid tears that can damage almost anything, including otherwise unbreakable blocks. The sole exceptions are the paddle and the key blocks.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: In Atlantis, some miniature wormholes appear in some levels. When the ball hits one, it gets teleported to another one.
- Perplexing Pearl Production: Atlantis features clam shells in some levels. They cannot be destroyed: instead, each time the ball hits it, it releases a pearl that grants many points.
- Poison Mushroom: Aside from the negative power-ups, Egypt 2 has the black Poison Eyes, that can be summoned with the same bonus than the other eyes. Except this one is noxious and cries toxic tears that shrink the paddle. When hit by a tear with the paddle at it's minimum size, one precious life is lost.
- Prongs of Poseidon: Neptune's trident in Atlantis ican be summoned either by relics, special blocks of power ups. It quickly crosses the screen horizontally and damages one row of blocks.
- Solid Gold Poop: One of the fishes in Atlantis drops coins Insaniquarium-style that can be collected to earn points. Egypt 2 has a variant with the yellow Eyes, that shed solid gold tears.
- Swordfish Sabre: The swordfish summons in Atlantis destroy various blocks by ramming into them rostrum-first.
- Underwater Ruins: Ones that are promptly destroyed brick by brick in Atlantis.
