Breakout

Bounce the ball off your paddle to smash every brick. Don't let it drop — clear the wall to win.

Breakout was built at Atari in 1976 by Nolan Bushnell's assignment to Steve Jobs, who brought in Steve Wozniak; Wozniak designed it in four days with a remarkably low chip count. The story of how the bonus was split is one of the more quietly awkward anecdotes in Silicon Valley history.

The mechanic that gives it depth is that the paddle imparts angle. Hitting with the edge sends the ball out steeply, hitting flat sends it back near-vertical, so the player controls trajectory rather than merely blocking. Tunnelling up one side to get the ball above the wall is the high-scoring line, and it is a deliberate sacrifice of safety for position.