I'm making a breakout clone and want something extra. I have a cool spaceship paddle, moving bricks and an awesome particle effect ball. But to make the game really interesting I need to have as many power-ups/downs as possible. All the ideas are welcome and here is a list of mine.

The basics:

Speed ball > speeds up the ball

Slow ball > slows down the ball

Shrink ball > shrinks the ball and decreases damage

Grow ball > grows the ball and increases damage

Shrink paddle > shrinks the paddle of the spaceship

Grow paddle > grows the paddle of the spaceship

Extra's

Extra life > grants an extra life

Subtract life > subtracts a life

Invisible bricks > makes the bricks invisible for X amount of time

Ghost ball > makes the ball move through bricks doing no damage for X amount of time

Wrecking ball > the ball continues it's path when colliding with normal bricks.

Laser > Shoots X amount of lasers from the ship that damage bricks

Brick shield > grands X amount of bricks a shield for X amount of time.

Teleport > ball teleports X forward in a straight line only changing path on the level bounds except bottom.

Bounce > Increases speed of the ball after each hit for a short time.

Maybe some people have some more innovative ideas or twists to share. I will be very great full for it.

I'm making a breakout clone and want something extra.

- Guns on your paddle to shoot bricks(this is not new)

- brick-redistributor: when triggered it redistributes bricks into lines from the top, so the lower lines disappear, best to implement if bricks are slowly coming down

A few ideas that I've seen elsewhere, I believe, are:

• Explosive ball: when the ball collides with a brick, a small explosion occurs, causing damage to surrounding bricks.
• Ball-lasers: as it travels, the ball itself periodically fires shots/lasers at nearby bricks.
• Multi-ball: additional balls appear in the play-area, potentially producing additional collisions.
• Sticky-paddle: when the ball collides with paddle it is held there until the player presses the "fire" button, at which point it is launched as though it had just bounced.
• Rapid-ball: the ball moves extremely fast, and is no longer lost when it hits the bottom of the level.

A few ideas that I don't think that I've seen before:

• Warp-walls: the ball "passes through" the walls of the level, wrapping around to re-emerge from the opposite side.
• Paddle-cannon: the paddle is replaced by a cannon that oscillates its aim. When the ball hits the paddle-cannon, it is held there until the player presses the "fire" button, at which point it is launched in the direction in which the cannon is aiming at the time.

Multi-ball

This is my favorite. When the powerup is acquired, the ball (wherever it happens to be in the level) breaks up into three balls. Losing one or two of them doesn't cost a life, only when every ball on the screen is gone do you lose a life.

Additional powerups:

- Multi-paddle / mirror-paddle: You have a second paddle, that moves opposite of your regular paddle.

- Auto-paddle: You have a second paddle below your first paddle, that moves back and forth on its own.

- Tracer: The ball's trajectory is visible, making it easier to predict where you need to move your paddle to.

- Safety net: If you miss the ball and the ball hits the bottom of the screen, it bounces off the bottom like a normal wall. Only lasts for one bounce, but has no time-limit.

If you want negative powerups:

- Clouds moving across the screen slightly obscuring vision.

- The bricks move around.

- The vertical screen space decreases, giving you less time to react.

- The ball itself wobbles back and forth on its normal trajectory.

Duplicate paddle - a second AI paddle appears temporarily which helps you

Block off bottom of screen - ball temporarily bounces off the bottom of the screen rather than costing lives

Catchers mitt - allows you to catch and hold the ball and launch it again where you want it

Move down/move up - moves all blocks up or down screen by one row (like in tetris)

A few ideas that I've seen elsewhere, I believe, are:

• Explosive ball: when the ball collides with a brick, a small explosion occurs, causing damage to surrounding bricks.
• Ball-lasers: as it travels, the ball itself periodically fires shots/lasers at nearby bricks.
• Multi-ball: additional balls appear in the play-area, potentially producing additional collisions.
• Sticky-paddle: when the ball collides with paddle it is held there until the player presses the "fire" button, at which point it is launched as though it had just bounced.
• Rapid-ball: the ball moves extremely fast, and is no longer lost when it hits the bottom of the level.

A few ideas that I don't think that I've seen before:

• Warp-walls: the ball "passes through" the walls of the level, wrapping around to re-emerge from the opposite side.
• Paddle-cannon: the paddle is replaced by a cannon that oscillates its aim. When the ball hits the paddle-cannon, it is held there until the player presses the "fire" button, at which point it is launched in the direction in which the cannon is aiming at the time.

Ball lasers is a nice idea. The basic effect I have on my ball currently looks a bit like a lightning ball, I could sent lightning out to nearby blocks when this effect is obtained and use a more neutral effect for the default ball. I was already expirimenting with a fireball that does explosion damage to nearby blocks but it's a great addition!

Warp-walls is nice as a neutral effect since using the walls can be beneficial in some scenario's too. Thanks!

Multi-ball

This is my favorite. When the powerup is acquired, the ball (wherever it happens to be in the level) breaks up into three balls. Losing one or two of them doesn't cost a life, only when every ball on the screen is gone do you lose a life.

Additional powerups:

- Multi-paddle / mirror-paddle: You have a second paddle, that moves opposite of your regular paddle.

- Auto-paddle: You have a second paddle below your first paddle, that moves back and forth on its own.

- Tracer: The ball's trajectory is visible, making it easier to predict where you need to move your paddle to.

- Safety net: If you miss the ball and the ball hits the bottom of the screen, it bounces off the bottom like a normal wall. Only lasts for one bounce, but has no time-limit.

If you want negative powerups:

- Clouds moving across the screen slightly obscuring vision.

- The bricks move around.

- The vertical screen space decreases, giving you less time to react.

- The ball itself wobbles back and forth on its normal trajectory.

Yeah, multi-ball works great already.

Multi-paddle is a great idea and easy to implement. Having both of these pickup bonus effects could add some nice mechanics to the game.

The tracer might make things too easy since the player just has to touch at the predicted path. Also since I have a lot of moving objects, moving round objects that change the angle of the ball realistically cause the path to go crazy each frame.

The safety net is great too, I will implement it probably with a timer.

Most of my bricks already move around. I have to think about the clouds, it's nice but does not fit the "style" of the game. Have to come up with something else for it. Maybe some sort of distortion field but that requires me to delve into shaders.

Thanks.

Duplicate paddle - a second AI paddle appears temporarily which helps you

Block off bottom of screen - ball temporarily bounces off the bottom of the screen rather than costing lives

Catchers mitt - allows you to catch and hold the ball and launch it again where you want it

The duplicated paddle is nice, I could have some sort of semi safety field in the form of a laser at the bottom that moves left and right. The others have been suggested already but thanks.

Thanks all, with some deviations this should provide more then 30 powerups. I do need some more negatives, I was thinking about shielding bricks, re-spawning bricks and regenerating (re-energizing) bricks.

One idea that occurred to me for a negative item is "Antagonistic Bricks": At intervals (whether set or random), a random brick fires a shot directly downwards. While harmless to the ball (since it spends a fair bit of time out of the player's direct control), the shot "does damage" if it hits the paddle. What form this "damage" takes is up to you; for two examples, it might directly remove one life, or it might shrink the paddle until the paddle is at its smallest, after which a hit removes one life.