How to play Wall Ball online
- Move the racket: arrow keys (up, down, left and right)
- Serve the first ball: Space bar
- Smash: hold Space while the ball hits the racket
- Restart the match and zero the score: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Pause: F2 switches the TV type to black-and-white, which freezes the game; press it again to carry on
Gameplay
Your racket is a glowing rectangle with a frame around a central sweet spot. The ball never slows down, and if you miss it, it vanishes and a buzzer sounds. Where the ball meets the racket decides where it goes next. On the sweet spot it rebounds at the same angle it came in. On the frame it comes off flatter and is pushed towards that edge: hit it with the left side of the frame and it heads left, with the top and it heads up. A smash sends the ball straight back to the far wall, whatever angle it arrived at.
Each game is one wall of 72 bricks. Four games make a set and five sets make a match. In each set, three standard games are followed by an “eliminator”, with fewer balls and bricks that jump around. To move up a level you have to knock out all but 15 bricks. Losing more balls than a level allows ends the game at once, and leftover balls do not carry over.
There are eight levels. Odd-numbered levels give you a large racket and even-numbered ones a small racket. A brick is worth most while you are still on your first ball of the level, and less with every ball after that.
| Level | Balls | Ball speed | Points per brick (first ball) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | 99 | Very slow | 5 / 10 |
| 3–4 | 50 / 40 | Slow | 25 / 50 |
| 5–6 | 30 / 20 | Medium | 100 / 250 |
| 7–8 | 15 / 10 | Fast | 500 / 650 |
| Eliminator | 5 in the first set, down to 1 in the fifth | Fast | 1,300 |
Tips
- Aim for the gaps between bricks. A shot that lands where bricks meet knocks out all of them, up to four at once, which makes the 57-brick target much easier.
- Smash single bricks. If a brick sits straight in front of the racket, hold fire as the ball arrives to send it straight at it.
- Work a row. After a smash the ball comes straight back. Catch it on the sweet spot and it keeps going straight, then use the frame to nudge it along a row or column.
- Protect your first ball. Points per brick drop sharply after the first ball of a level, so play carefully early on.
History
Avalon Hill announced its first Atari 2600 cartridges, London Blitz, Death Trap and Wall Ball, in May 1983, and the manual is dated the following month. The cartridge is rated very rare by collectors today. Modern reviewers give it credit for trying 3-D brick-breaking on the 2600 years before games such as The Light Corridor, but note that it can be hard to judge exactly where the ball will meet the racket, because the 2600 struggles to scale objects smoothly.
