When I like a game enough, simply playing it is not enough. I want to dig into the mechanics, figure all the quirks and find out exactly how the game ticks and why.

And since no one else has taken to the task of writing a guide for this game here on Steam, I might as well present all the information I've collected in an organized fashion.

The following guide is the result of many hours of general playing as well as many more hours of specialized testing.
Be it the workings of the game mechanics, power-ups and their interactions, or the factors for scoring points, here you will find everything you need to know, along with many things nobody needs to know.

The Basics of the Game are very simple: Bounce the ball of the paddle and hit the bricks. Lose the ball and you lose a life. The longer the ball bounces around, the faster it gets.

Many boards require you exploit the properties of different types of bricks or maneuvering the ball into difficult to reach places.

You start each board with a temporary Grab Paddle effect holding the ball in place and giving you the opportunity to aim the first shot. Note that this first shot will always be slightly angled to the right.

The angle at which the ball will bounce off the Paddle is determined by the side of the paddle it lands on. The further left or right the paddle is hit, the more it will be angled in that direction.
The blue nubs at the end of the board (As well as the sprites on the Laser- and Grab Paddle) can also be hit, resulting in a glancing hit with a different sound. Usually glancing hits tend to happen by accident, but they can be exploited in certain scenarios such as when you want to keep a ball from being caught by the Grab Paddle.

The speed of the ball is an important part of the game, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of score.
Whenever I give a numerical value for the speed of the ball the number will be based on the amount of points the default ball as played by a default size paddle will gain you when destroying a normal brick in that specific moment, as this value directly correlates to speed.

When you first release the ball from your paddle at the start of a board, the ball will have a base speed of 13. As the ball bounces around the level it will naturally accelerate up to a speed of 18.
Long amounts of air time without any bounces will lower the value again, but only very rarely below 17 and 16. The lowest regular ball speed is 9, just after taking the Slow Ball power-up.
Higher speeds than 18 can be achieved by using, among other things, the Punch Paddle or the Fast Ball power-up which can accelerate the ball up to values of 25 and 23 respectively. At a speeds above 21 the ball will gain a white particle trail and enter what I like to call a "super speed" state. In this state the ball gains a new "shattering" sound when breaking bricks and most importantly the ability to destroy the bricks that usually take multiple hits in only one hit.

• It might seem like destroying Multi-hit Bricks with one hit is sacrificing points but the point gain for hitting the bricks at high speeds tends to outweigh the 4 points you gain for breaking through the first 2 states (See also: Brick Types and Points and Scoring)
  
• The Eight Ball power-up accelerates the balls it splits off to super-speed, but only for a very short time.

In the 20th anniversary edition you can make the standard paddle "jump" by clicking the left mouse button. This can be used to hit the ball harder and increase its speed, making a more "aggressive" play style possible.
Hitting the ball with exact timing will result in a critical hit with a different sound and sparks (if the timing was only slightly off, you will still get the sparks but not the sound).
Getting a critical hit will accelerate the ball up to "super speed" for at least one second.

• For critical hits it doesn't make a difference if the ball was hit with the main part of the paddle or only with a glancing blow from the side.
  
• Holding the left mouse button down will cause the paddle to stay in the upwards position.
  
  • this can be used for hitting the ball slightly earlier, getting more bounces and slightly different angling but is usually not especially helpful.
• Jumping/Hitting is not possible with the Grab Paddle or Laser Paddle.
  
  • If one of these power-ups is collected while the paddle is in the upper position, it will return to the lower position and the next time the ball hits the paddle is guaranteed to be a critical hit.

You start with 2 extra lives shown as paddles in the right upper corner of the screen.
When you lose a life you lose the effects of all power-ups you collected so far.
Before you start with a new ball all falling power-ups currently on the screen disappear and all currently ongoing explosion chains are interrupted.
If you lose the ball while no extra lives remain, the game is over.

[A classic set of brick sprites in various colors]

The bricks are of course the backbone of the game and dealing with the different block types is key to playing well.

Since the different brick types can look widely different in the different bricksets I won't be including images with the descriptions.

Takes 1 hit to destroy and gives between 9 and 50 points depending on various variables like board size, ball size and ball speed. (See also: Points and Scoring.)

Explodes when hit, also destroying all adjacent bricks, including invincible bricks. All bricks caught in the explosion give 8 points.
Connected areas of explosive bricks can result in giant explosions if hit in a single point, which is great for clearing out boards quickly but note that destroying normal blocks in an explosion tends to give less points than destroying them directly.
They usually stand out by being animated.

Takes 3 hits to destroy. The first two states give 2 points each, the last state counts as a normal brick. Some boards spawn these already in their second or last state.

Can't be destroyed and gives no points when hit with the normal ball. When destroyed with the Brick-Thru ball invincible bricks will count as normal bricks.

Can get hit once and then turns into an invincible brick. The first hit gives you 2 points.

Invisible bricks that turn visible after getting hit once. Revealing them does not earn you any points. After being revealed they count as normal bricks.

Charms are sprites that appear in a random location on the screen once more than three quarters of the board's breakable bricks have been destroyed. Only a single charm appears per board.
A charm can be collected by hitting it with the ball. It will not make the ball bounce off and cannot be hit with the laser paddle.

• The amount of points you get for collecting a charm is based on the total number of charms you collected throughout the set.
  
  • For example the first charm you collect is worth 250 points but the 25th is worth 4000 points. That means in larger sets charms become a very important means of gaining points.
• Charms disappear when you lose a life
  
• The brick counter that decides when a charm should appear only takes the number of breakable bricks into account that existed when the level begins and is unaffected the increase in breakable bricks caused by the "zap bricks" and "expand exploding" effects.
  
• If there is a board that contains only a single breakable brick, a charm will appear immediately upon starting that board.

There are currently 23 power-ups in the game, separated here into multiple groups based on their behavior:
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Instead of changing a specific part of the gameplay or the bricks of a single board, these power-ups have wide ranging effects that can make or break a run.
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Kill Paddle

Catching this item destroys the paddle and you lose a life. All balls on the screen are frozen in place and will disappear once the next life starts.

Obviously you generally don't want to catch this "power-up" unless you got many lives to spare and really want those 50 points for collecting it.

• The single most common power-up in the game.

Chance to spawn: 10%

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Extra Life

Gives you an extra life (Paddle) but also removes the Laser Paddle and Grab Paddle Upgrades should you have them.

• This and "Level Warp" are the rarest power-ups in the game.

Chance to spawn: 0.2%

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Level Warp

Immediately warps you to the next board of the set. Needless to say you will forfeit points by doing this.

If you take this item in the last board of a set the game ends and warps you to the credits.
• This and "Extra Life" are the rarest power-ups in the game.

Chance to spawn: 0.2%

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Double Points

• A new item added in the 20th Anniversary Edition of DX-Ball 2.

After collecting this power-up all points you get are doubled for 10 seconds.
This will even affect the points from sources that normally ignore other point multipliers, which can lead to some impressive high scores.
The doubling effect is visible as a green particle effect around your board and the floating scores are colored green as well.

Chance to spawn: 2%

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These power-up change certain properties and behaviors of the ball.
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Brick-Thru

Collecting this power-up colors the ball turquoise and lets it instantly destroy all bricks without stopping.
This is without a doubt one of the most powerful power-ups in the game and will trivialize basically every board without having much of a downside.

• If the ball destroys an invincible brick, it will count as a normal brick in terms of points.
  
• Multi-hit Bricks are destroyed almost instantly but (unlike destroying them instantly with the normal ball at super speed) you will still gain both the 4 points for breaking the first 2 states as well as the standard amount of points for its last state.
  
• The Brick-Thru item seems to destroy only one brick per frame with mulit-hit bricks counting as three separate bricks. That means that if the ball only grazes the edge of a multi-hit brick for less than 3 frames, the brick will remain on the board in its second or third stage.
  
• Similarly, when breaking almost-invincible bricks you will instantly gain the 2 points for the first hit plus the standard points for destroying the brick in its invincible state.
  
• If this effect is stacked on top of the Fireball effect, the ball will look like a Fireball but still gain the Brick-Thru ability.
  
• If you have the Laser Paddle, its shots will also have the Brick-Thru effect.
  
• One risk associated with this power-up is that, since since the angle of spawning power-ups is determined by the direction of the ball, power-ups spawned by the Brick-Thru ball while it is traveling downwards will often fly down in a very similar trajectory to that of the ball, making negative power-ups potentially much harder to avoid.

Chance to spawn: 2%

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Fireball

The ball gains a flame effect and when it hits the brick as well as all directly adjacent bricks explode. Basically, any brick that is hit is treated as an explosive brick.
Since this also means that each destroyed brick is only worth 8 points, this power-up, while great for clearing boards fast, is not very useful for high score attempts.

• If this effect is stacked on top of the Brick-Thru effect, the ball will look like a normal Fireball but still gain the Brick-Thru ability.
  
• While the ball is a Fireball the shots of the Laser Paddle gain the same explosion effect as the ball itself.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.

Chance to spawn: 2%

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Fast Ball

Instantly accelerates the ball up to high speed (a speed value of 23, to be exact). If left alone the ball will then slowly decelerate down to a medium speed of 18.
Even though its red background highlights it as a "negative" power-up, it is a positive effect in the hands of an experienced player, since a faster ball generates more points.
In the 20th anniversary edition of DX-Ball 2 it is generally faster and more efficient to use the new Punch Paddle mechanic to speed up the ball. However if the Paddle loses this ability due to upgrades, this power-up becomes worth taking again.

• The Maximum speed of this power-up is just above the minimum speed necessary to get the ball into the "super speed" state but without hitting the ball with the Punch Paddle or collecting another Fast Ball item the ball will only stay at super speed for about one second.
  
• If the ball is already at a speed of over 25, collecting "Fast Ball" will actually slow the ball down.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cancel the Gravity Ball effect.

Chance to spawn: 8%

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Slow Ball

Slows down the ball down to minimum speed (9), after which it will slowly accelerate again.
This makes the ball much easier to control but since a slower ball gives less points it is not a good power-up for getting high scores and can generally be more of a nuisance than a help.

Additionally, if the ball has any of the following effects, they will be canceled:

• Thru-Brick
  
• Fireball
  
• Gravity Ball

Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Shrink Ball

Shrinks the ball to about half of its normal size and makes destroying normal bricks give 50% more points.
Good for high scores, but makes the ball somewhat harder to hit.

• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cancel the Gravity Ball effect.

Chance to spawn: 8%

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Mega Ball

Expands the ball to almost twice its original size.
The main benefit of this power-up is of course that the ball is easier to hit but there are more subtle differences as well; For example it might be a bit trickier to shoot the ball into small openings, but once the ball gets into a tight space its size will cause it to bounce faster and more often, making it overall more destructive than the normal sized ball.

• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cancel the Gravity Ball effect.

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Split Ball

Splits one ball into two balls. If multiple balls are on the screen, all of them will split.

• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Eight Balls

Turns one ball into eight, usually culminating in a lot of destruction.

• If multiple balls are on the screen only one of them will receive this effect, so if you already have more than eight balls, picking up "Split Ball" will be more efficient.
  
• If you have balls caught in your grab paddle they will escape when this item is picked up even if the ball receiving the effect is not caught on the paddle.
  
• Since the new balls radiate out in a circle this is a power-up that you can relatively safely collect even if it doesn't leave you enough time to catch the your ball; As long as you collect the power-up before the ball goes of-screen, at least some of the newly generated balls will shoot off at an upwards trajectory, allowing you to easily catch them.
  
• When splitting off the new balls, they will be accelerated to super speed for a short time.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.

Chance to spawn: 2%

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Gravity Ball

• A new item added in the 20th Anniversary Edition of DX-Ball 2.

Instead of flying in straight lines the ball will travel in an arc, as if affected by gravity.
Unfortunately, despite its novelty this item is only rarely truly useful.
In some cases it can result in a few more bounces but the fact that the gravity effect makes the ball lose speed rapidly towards the top of its arc makes it very slow to hit any bricks in the top portion of the board and since points for normal bricks are calculated based on ball speed, most bricks you hit from below with this ball will only give very few points.

Also, unlike other ball upgrades, the gravity effect is very "fragile" and will stop upon collecting any of the following power-ups:

• Fast Ball
  
• Shrink Ball
  
• Mega Ball
  
• Slow Ball
  
• Grab Paddle

After the Gravity effect wears off, the ball will continue to fly at the same speed it was flying before unless the effect was canceled by a power-up that directly modifies the ball speed.

• Since the Gravity Ball flies very slowly when it reaches the top of its arc it is possible to cancel the effect in this exact moment to have a normal ball flying speeds that are lower than the game's usual minimum ball speed.
  
• When the ball has been slowed down to this extent, the next time it bounces of the edge of the screen, it will immediately accelerate up to the regular minimum speed.

[It might actually be possible to time the slow-down "perfectly" enough to completely freeze the ball in place, however I haven't achieved this yet]

Chance to spawn: 3%

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Power-ups that change the Paddle in some way.
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Grab Paddle

The paddle will catch balls that fall on it in an electric force field that can be released with the left mouse button. Being caught will not alter the ball's speed once it is released again. very handy for aiming at specific spots.

• The sprites at the end of the paddle can be used to hit the ball, resulting in a glancing hit.
  
• glancing hits that occur either on the Grabber sprites or very low on the paddle's side can stop a ball from being caught by the Grab Paddle.
  
  • This is also true for the blaster sprites of the Laser Paddle.
• The The Grab Paddle effect stays active after the Laser Paddle power-up is collected, even though the paddle style is overwritten (the force-field will still be visible). In this case the left mouse button will both shoot and release the Grab Paddle.
  
• collecting this power-up will disable the Punch Paddle mechanic.

Collecting the following power-ups will cause the Grab Paddle to release all balls it has currently caught:

• Shrink Paddle
  
• Expand Paddle
  
• Super Shrink
  
• Shrink Ball
  
• Mega Ball
  
• Fast Ball
  
• Fireball
  
• Double Ball
  
• Eight Ball
  
• Laser Paddle
  
• Extra Life

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Laser Paddle

Causes blasters to appear on each side of the paddle that fire lasers when the left mouse button is pressed.
Bricks destroyed by the lasers are always worth 8 points.

• If six or more lasers are on the screen the laser can't be fired again until at least one of the existing lasers either leaves the screen or hits a brick.
  
• The shots can gain the special properties of Thru-Brick and Fireball power-ups.
  
• The sprites for the blasters can be used to hit the ball, resulting in a glancing hit.
  
• The The Grab Paddle effect stays active after the Laser Paddle power-up is collected, even though the paddle style is overwritten (the force-field will still be visible). In this case the left mouse button will both shoot and release the Grab Paddle.
  
• collecting this power-up will disable the Punch Paddle mechanic.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.

Chance to spawn: 2%

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Expand Paddle

Increases the size of the paddle.
Starting from the default size, it takes three Expand Paddle power-ups to reach maximum size.
While the larger paddles make it easier to hit the ball, they can also make negative power-ups harder to avoid. In this sense, expanding the paddle has diminishing returns after a while.

• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Shrink Paddle

Reduces the size of the paddle.
Makes the ball harder to hit but can also be a help if you want to shrink a paddle that's expanded to a "dangerous" size.
The paddle's minimum size is only one step below its default size.

• If you shrink the paddle to minimum size, you get +50% points for destroying normal blocks, making this power-up useful for high scores.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Super Shrink

Directly shrinks the paddle to its lowest possible size. Basically just a more extreme version of Shrink Paddle.

• At minimum paddle size, you get +50% points for destroying normal blocks, making this power-up useful for high scores.
  
• Collecting this power-up will cause the Grab Paddle to release all currently caught balls.

Chance to spawn: 8%

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Power-ups in this category directly affect the bricks on the current board.
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Falling Bricks

After collecting this power-up, each time a ball hits the paddle, all bricks on the board "fall" one row.

This power-up is very rarely truly bad since there is an invisible barrier about eight bricks above the paddle, causing the bricks to stop falling beyond that point and making it impossible to be truly cornered.
However, if a brick structure has hit the barrier and is no longer moving, bricks above it will continue to fall. This can result in certain areas of some levels getting harder to access.

• The Falling Bricks effect stays active until you either complete the board or lose a life.
  
• In a worst case scenario, the falling brick effect can result in some bricks being fully surrounded by invincible bricks.
  
  • Fortunately the game includes workarounds for such situation as well, see: Support Mechanics.
• You can use the falling bricks to detect the position of hidden bricks by looking for spaces that bricks don't fall into even if they should, since hidden bricks still occupy space and other bricks cannot fall through them.

Chance to spawn: 8%

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Zap Bricks

This power-up has three effects:

• All invincible bricks and almost-invincible bricks turn into breakable bricks.
  
• All Multi-hit bricks are set to their last stage.
  
• All hidden bricks are revealed.

Besides making many boards much easier to complete this item can also help you get more points from destroying formerly invincible blocks.
However, changing Multi-hit bricks into their last stage will actually lose you points since the first two stages are worth 2 points each, so the usefulness depends on what exactly is on the board.

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Expand Exploding

Causes areas of exploding bricks to expand for one brick in each direction, overriding any other brick that might be in the way.
Another power-up that is great for finishing boards faster but can potentially be bad for your high score if too many normal bricks are replaced, since they are worth more points than exploding bricks. It can be worth it if most additional bricks are generated into previously empty space.

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Explode

Detonates all exploding bricks on the board.
Like Expand Exploding, this can help clear out a board fast but might not be efficient in terms of gaining points.

Chance to spawn: 4%

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Lightning

• A new item added in the 20th Anniversary Edition of DX-Ball 2.

Randomly Selects between 1 and 3 breakable bricks and summons lightning strikes that make them explode like an exploding brick.
Just like with normal exploding bricks, all bricks destroyed by the explosion give 8 points.

Chance to spawn: 2%

• Power-ups can spawn from any brick you destroy.
  
• The angle at which a power-up flies out from a brick is determined by the angle of the ball when the brick was hit.
  
• How fast and far the power-up flies away seems to be random.
  
• Each power-up you collect gives you 50 points.

There seems to be a five second period after a power-up has spawned, during which other power-ups are much less likely to spawn.
This has some interesting consequences for "optimal" tactics. For example, while the Thru-Brick ball does not impact the amount of points you get for destroying blocks, it can affect the number of power-ups you get negatively because it can destroy many blocks within just a few seconds. Due to the cool-down mechanic, most of these blocks will not have a chance to spawn a power-up.
If you plan on optimizing your high score with common items like Shrink Ball or Super Shrink, you can raise your chances of encountering these items by taking the board apart more slowly.
But don't wait too long... items tend to spawn more often if multiple bricks are destroyed in relatively quick succession (a sort of hidden combo meter, maybe?), so these two considerations need to be weighted against one another.

How many points you get for each brick you destroy depends on several factors:

• The speed of your ball; The faster it goes, the more points you get per normal brick.
  
  • In the current version it is possible to get between 9 and 50 points per brick.
• The Shrink Ball state has a +50% score multiplier.
  
• The smallest board state has a +50% score multiplier

Several sources of points are not affected by these multipliers and remain static:

• If any block is destroyed in an explosion, be it through an explosive, brick, a lightning bolt, or the Fireball, it will automatically give 8 points.
  
• Any brick destroyed by shots of the Laser Paddle will also give 8 points.
  
• The first two hits on a multi-brick as well as the first hit on an almost-invincible brick will each give you 2 points.

The Double Points power-up does exactly what it says and will stack on all points you get, even on the fixed point values listed above.

Lastly, Charms can give an incredible amount of points, since the reward you get for each successive charm grows exponentially. See also: Charms

The following mechanics come into play to make sure that you won't get stuck on a level for too long, although in certain situations they can also be exploited to generate more points.


If two or less breakable bricks remain on the board, a one minute timer will start, signaled by an electric humming. If the timer reaches zero a lightning bolt will destroy the remaining bricks, giving you 8 points for each destroyed brick (just like an explosive brick).

The timer will reset in any of the following scenarios:

• Destroying any of the remaining bricks
  
  • (hitting one stage of a multi-hit brick or hitting semi-invincible brick triggers the reset but revealing an invisible brick does not)
• Collecting a Charm
  
• Catching a power-up
  
• Losing a life

The countdown also stops if the number of bricks rises above 2 again, for example through the "Zap Bricks" or "Expand Explosive" effect.

If the last block remaining is a almost-invincible brick and you only have the normal ball, waiting for the lightning to destroy it is the more "optimal" option since you will receive 8 points instead of the 2 points you would get for hitting it yourself.

The lightning effect is identical to that of the "Lightning" power-up meaning that it might sometimes target only a single brick. Since the timer activates at two remaining bricks, it is possible (although somewhat rare) that the Lightning bolt will only destroy one of the remaining bricks. In this case the timer will restart from 0 and you will have another minute to hit the last brick yourself.

If you hit an invincible brick (not necessarily the same one) 100 times in a row the game will assume you got stuck and trigger the "Zap Bricks" effect.

• Shooting the bricks with the laser paddle counts for the counter.
  
• Hitting any non-invincible brick will reset the counter.
  
• The counter also resets when you lose a life.

In addition to the counter based function described above, there also exists another timer in the game that counts how much time has passed since you last destroyed a brick. If the ball has bounced around without doing anything for over one minute the "Zap Bricks" effect will also be triggered.
If the counter based Zap effect is to make sure that you won't get stuck because of invincible bricks, this timeout exists to make sure that you won't need to blindly hunt for hidden bricks for too long.

• Anything that resets the invincible brick counter will also reset this timeout function.
  
• At least one ball needs to fly for the timer to count down, if all balls are caught on a Grab Paddle the timer is suspended.

If there are lots of invincible bricks remaining on the board and you haven't been graced with the "Zap Bricks" power-up, it's probably worth it to trigger this effect on purpose using either of the two methods to gain more points.

The following game modes can be toggled in the main options menu:

This mode has a number of important differences compared to the normal difficulty:

• You start off with a paddle that is one size bigger than normal and a Mega Ball.
  
• The speed of the ball is limited significantly.
  
  • Speeding the ball up by hitting it with the Punch Paddle is possible but it will immediately start to decelerate.
• The following power ups will never spawn in Kid Mode:
  
  • Kill Paddle
    
  • Super Shrink
    
  • Tiny Ball
• Kid Mode has a seperate table for high scores.

This setting turns off the new Punch Paddle mechanic and also prevents the following power-ups from spawning as they were added in the 20th Anniversary edition:

• Double Points
  
• Lightning
  
• Gravity Ball

Additionally the ball also behaves a bit differently:
While it retains the same starting speed value of 13, it accelerates much slower. However, the maximum speed is no longer capped at 18, but at 24 and the ball will never decelerate on its own unless the Slow Ball power-up is collected. The Fast Ball power-up will speed up the ball to its maximum speed of 24. While the ball still leaves a particle trail at high speed, it no longer gains the ability to instantly break multi-bricks.
Fast balls also make a different sound when hitting the paddle.

The "Floating Scores" are technically also an 20th anniversary feature but are is not affected by this option. They can be turned off separately.

Note: This data has been compiled based on over 2000 power-up spawns.

This is something that could easily ruin a run if you are not careful.
You might have noticed that when you pause the game, both the paddle and the ball will disappear for as long as the pause screen is visible (Note that this was not the case in the original version of the game).
I assume this was done as a way to prevent cheating, since in the previous versions it was technically possible to save balls you would otherwise be too slow to catch by pausing the game, moving the mouse into the right position on the pause screen and then un-pausing, which would cause the Paddle to "instantly" warp to the desired position.

However, now that paddle and ball go invisible, pausing itself can become a headache. Unless you have very good memory you probably should never pause while the ball is going towards the bottom of the screen, since it might very well fall off the board during the split second after un-pausing, during which you need to re-position the paddle and re-orient yourself.

Of course, the safest option is to have the ball caught in a Grab Paddle while pausing but this is clearly not always possible.
In such a case it is better to pause while the ball is flying upwards, which gives you more time to react before it comes down again, although how much time depends on how low the bricks go on the current board.

You can also use the fact that particle effects will turn invisible on the pause screen to pinpoint the location of the paddle and/or the ball while the game is paused in the following ways:

• Pause while executing a critical hit with the Punch Paddle. You will still be able to see the sparks and, if applicable, the white particle trail of the speeding ball.
  
• Similarly, the orange trail of the Fireball will stay visible on the pause screen as well.
  
• Pause right after shooting with the Laser Paddle. The Paddle disappears but the lasers will stay visible on the pause screen, showing you exactly where the paddle was.
  
• Pause right after the ball destroyed a brick. The small particle effect will remain, showing you approximately where the ball was. But make sure the block is not covered by the large black bar of the pause menu.
  
• Pause while the effect of the Double Points power-up is active. Again, the particle effects will show the location of the Paddle.

25.11.2018

• Guide first published.

27.11.2018

• Updated the guide to the changes applied in DX-Ball 2: 20th Anniversary Edition V.2.0.1 rev.47504, most notably the sections about ball speed.
  
• added some additional information about "Classic" Mode
  
• added a more detailed section about how the speed of the ball works.
  
• added information about the automatic timeout based Zap Bricks function.
  
• added additional information about grazing hits on bricks with the Brick-Thru ball.

29.11.2018

• corrected a few oversights and grammar errors.
  
• added information about the possibility of the Lightning timeout only destroying one brick.
  
• Changed the term "Multi brick" to "Multi-hit brick" since this is the term used by the developer.