Ball (Alleyway)

The ball is an object in Alleyway that the player is required to reflect with the paddle in order to complete the stage. The ball can be used to break the breakable blocks. If the ball touches the bottom of the screen, it blows up, and one life gets taken away. The ball can bounce off of edges of the field, breakable blocks (except in Bonus Stages, where the ball passes through them), unbreakable blocks, as well as the paddle. If the ball touches the ceiling of the field, the paddle becomes smaller. This can be observed first in Stage 4. Breaking black blocks or gray blocks results in the ball speeding up until the player loses a life or moves on to the next stage.