Alleyway/Walkthrough

Alleyway is a linear game with no warps or other ability to skip stages. Each stage must be completed in order until the eighth and final bonus stage is completed, at which point the game will show the end sequence before starting over again with Stage 1.

Each bracket of stages occurs in the same order:
 * 1st Stage: The pattern for the next three stages is presented as a stationary set of bricks.
 * 2nd Stage: The same pattern is presented, but now it scrolls horizontally. Different rows may move in different directions, and at different rates of speed.
 * 3rd Stage: The pattern is presented, but over time, the blocks begin to advance downward, often presenting a second arrangement of the block pattern above the first. When the lowest blocks reach a certain minimum height, they disappear.
 * Bonus Stage: After clearing the third stage of every bracket, you are presented with a bonus stage where you have a limited amount of time to clear every block on the screen. These stages present blocks in the shape of some recognizable character from the Super Mario Bros. game.  For more information about Bonus Stages, see the Bonus Stage section below.

Bonus Stages
Bonus Stages play differently than regular stages. The most immediate difference is that your ball will pass through blocks without stopping, and will only reflect off the walls. Additionally, your paddle will not shrink when the ball touches the ceiling. Your only concern is keeping the ball moving in a way that continues to break various blocks without losing the ball, or running out of time.

When playing a Bonus Stage, the most error-proof way of ensuring that you hit every block, is to simply allow the paddle to move along with the ball. Under normal circumstance, the ball will leave the paddle in a particular direction, (right for example), and bounces around the screen before returning to the paddle slightly ahead of where it left (so a little further to the right in the example.) As long as you continue to move just enough to reflect the ball back up, you can continue removing blocks in this way. The only problem comes when you hit the wall. At this point, you need to begin sending the ball in the opposite direction. Do so and you can stay with the ball by moving a little bit each time in the other direction, until every block has been cleared.