Atari Breakout screenshot via Wikimedia Commons
Classic Atari arcade game Breakout, which turned 37 years old in April, is now playable via Google Image Search thanks to a recently discovered Easter egg.
Breakout was developed as a single-player alternative to another immensely popular Atari game from the Seventies: Pong.
Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak worked on the prototype, allegedly staying up for four days straight to finish the job. However, his design was not used for the final product and Atari went with its own version instead.
Released in April 1976, fans of the classic game can revisit it by searching for ‘Atari Breakout’ on Google Image Search. In doing so, the images from the results page transform into colourful blocks and a user-controlled paddle at the bottom of the screen is used to bounce a ball off the blocks to destroy them. But don’t let that ball touch the bottom of the screen!
The Easter egg first popped up on our radar last night, as news of it spread across Twitter.
Screen shot of the Google Image Search Easter egg for Atari Breakout
Special thanks to Adam Renardson (@ARenardson) for the tip
