Brick Mania is a reinvention of the classic arcade Brick Breaker (Breakout clone) games. I remember when I was a kid, I loved playing this sort of games on my dad’s computer, but sometimes it could get so frustrating because I just couldn’t break the last brick with the ball. At least to me, those minutes of frustration certainly made the gaming experience a bit less enjoyable, especially when my mum was shouting at me that dinner was ready.
In order to avoid those moments, in Brick Mania (or maybe I should call it Ball Mania), you don’t need to focus on catching one specific ball with the paddle or aiming at one specific brick with full concentration. Instead, you should just try your best to catch as many power-ups as possible and let the balls multiply themselves. Trust me, the gaming experience is extremely relaxing (Easy levels), satisfying (Dense levels) and challenging (Hard levels).
Currently Brick Mania 2.0 is already available on the Google Play Store with many more levels (more than 1,000 levels in total) and new features than the previous version and now I’ll introduce it to you in detail.
Main page
First and foremost, let’s take a look at the main page. The Play button will take you to the next level which you haven’t passed yet while the Levels button will take you to the Universe page, where you can choose in which universe to play. Once you choose a universe, you will enter the Levels page. Now, I’ll introduce to you the next two lines of icons:
- Speaker icon: Switch on/off the sound.
- Shopping cart icon: Go to the Purchase page.
- Mini notebook icon: Change themes (skins), balls, paddles and bricks. Can you imagine? You can basically customise EVERYTHING in the game!
- Info icon: Background info about the Brick mania, info about all the power-ups as well as info about how to play the game.
- Medal icon: 25 achievements waiting to be unlocked by you. Do you notice anything specific about their titles?
- Crown icon: Leaderboard. Compete with your friends. Who has earned the most stars so far?
- Star icon: If you like Brick Mania, please rate it five stars and help others find it. Thank you!
About Brick Mania
In the latest version of Brick Mania, there are three universes, namely Easy, Dense and Hard. The Easy levels are easy and relaxing to pass; the Dense levels have 4 times more breaks and are extremely satisfying to pass; the Hard levels are challenging and therefore only for those well-trained brick breakers.
In each universe, there are more than 300 levels and in total, there are more than 1,000 levels in Brick Mania. However, it works fully offline and is less than 3 MB to download! Please keep in mind. No matter which universe you’re in, the ultimate goal is to catch as many power-ups as possible and multiply the balls. Do not struggle to catch every falling ball because otherwise you won’t pass many levels in the Dense and Hard universes. In each level, you can collect maximal 3 stars, which then can be used to “buy” power-ups.
Power-ups
Now let’s take a close look at what the power-ups do:
- x3: Multiplies each ball to three balls.
- +3: Fires 3 additional balls from the paddle.
- Wall: Covers the bottom of the screen for 5 seconds. You still need to collect the power-ups with the paddle though.
- x: Destroys one random brick. Useful towards the end of the level when you only have one or very few bricks remaining. Only available through stars (see below).
- Heart: Gives one extra life (❤️).
- Laser: Fires laser beams from the paddle.
- Fire-ball: Balls destroy everything in their way without stopping.
In-app purchases
Now let’s take a look at the page which developers love the most while users hate the most.
First of all, I’m an independent developer, which means these in-app purchases are my main source of income. Secondly, I don’t get what you pay. This is because about 1/3 of the income is deducted by Google and another 1/3 is taken by the government as tax. In the end, if you pay 3$, only about 1$ goes into my bank account. Thirdly, let alone the large amount of time I spend developing and updating my games, I invested quite some money too in, for example, domain, Apple Developer Program, Firebase, advertising and so on. In one word, I just really hope you understand why I’m not making the game completely free.
Now, let’s see what in-app purchases are available in Brick Mania:
- Double-effect: Doubles the effects of all star-bought power-ups: +3 becomes +6, x3 becomes x6, brick remover removes 2 bricks instead of one, and the duration of other power-ups is doubled from 5 to 10 seconds.️ You will also start earning 2 stars for every 1 star caught during the level. Buy early to accumulate more stars on easy levels, as you’ll need them later once it gets harder. 🙂
- Extra-features: Adds 3 new features that make the game easier and more exciting.
1) Laser power-up: periodically fires laser beams from the paddle, destroying full lines of bricks. They can go through the walls!
2) Fire-ball power-up: all the balls temporarily “catch fire” destroying everything in their path.
3) Targeting: at the beginning of the round, you can choose the angle at which the ball starts to fly. - All levels: Unlocks all the levels: in addition to 200 x 3 free levels, you will have access to 135 x 3 premium levels, bringing the total number of levels to 1000+. This purchase also includes all the future levels in future updates. Moreover, you’ll be able to play levels even if you haven’t completed the previous ones yet.
- All themes & skins: Unlocks all 20+ themes and 50+ skins for balls, paddles and bricks! This purchase also includes all future themes and skins.
- Stars: Gives 500 stars to spend on power-ups and other things.
- Mega bundle: All of the purchases at once: double-effect, extra-features, all-levels, themes & skins, and 500 stars! Great value for your money.
Achievements and leaderboard
In Brick Mania 2.0, I added 25 achievements to unlock and a leaderboard for you to compete with your friends and other players.
Here are some of the achievements: My Heart Will Go On (catch 100 extra life power-ups (❤️); So Close (lose with one brick remaining); Firework (catch 100 fireball power-ups); Laserlight (catch 100 laser power-ups); A Sky Full Of Stars (have 1000 stars); Un-break My Heart (lose 3 times in a row); Play Hard (complete 10 hard levels); When You Wish Upon A Star (collect 3 stars for 25 games in a row) and many more! Did you notice anything interesting about the titles of the achievements?
Want more fun? Check out my other games crafted with great efforts.
Currently there are four apps available on the Android platform, namely Morse Mania, Brick Mania, Color Mania and Country Mania and there are two apps available on the iOS platform, namely Morse Mania and Swiss Mania. Soon another two games (Hop Mania and Jezz Mania) will be published both on the iOS and the Android platform.
Simply download them and try them out!
