Claude Haiku 5.5

I'm working out a polished single-file Breakout game in vanilla JS on a canvas, and I need to satisfy the system constraints: one complete code block with nothing outside it, everything inline with no external files, no localStorage, no alert/confirm/prompt/window.open, and a layout that holds at 1280×800 and scales down to 375px without horizontal scrolling.

I'm going through the rest of the requirements now: the game has to hold up with no horizontal scrollbar, show something meaningful on first paint, and start in a self-playing demo behind a "Click or press a key to start" prompt. The gameplay list covers mouse and arrow-key paddle control, hit-position bounce angles, tougher bricks that crack, power-ups that widen the paddle or add balls, collision that can't tunnel, particles, and three lives with a visible score.

I'm still weighing the attract-mode design: a self-playing AI paddle behind the "Click or press a key to start" message, with the real game beginning once the user engages. I'm also deciding whether a game over should drop back into demo mode or go straight to a restart prompt. The point I keep returning to is that something meaningful has to be on screen at first paint.

I'm settling on the paddle controls: the mouse won't take over during the demo, and any click or key press will start the real game. I'm also planning power-ups where some bricks show a visible icon, and breaking one drops a capsule that the paddle can catch for a wider paddle or three balls.

I'm weighing the multi-ball power-up: it should bring the total ball count up to three, either by spawning two extra balls from the current one or topping up to three if there are already some in play.

I'm still weighing whether the multi-ball power-up should always leave exactly three balls in play, topping up from whatever count is already there, or simply spawn two more.

I'm working out how the multi-ball power-up should behave when it's caught: I want it to leave at least three balls in play, adding just enough to reach three if only one is active, and still adding some when there are already several.

I'm weighing whether the multi-ball pickup should top up to three balls total or always add two, and leaning toward ensuring three are in play so the power-up reliably does something.

I'm settling the multi-ball rule: if fewer than three balls are in play, the pickup spawns extra balls until there are three, and if there are already three or more, it adds two more up to a cap of five.

I'm still deciding how multi-ball should work: the plan is to top up to three balls in play if there are fewer, and otherwise add two more, capped at five. It's only a few lines of logic, so I'll settle on it and move on.

I'm settling the multi-ball rule: it should leave three balls in play, and if three or more are already active, it adds one more up to a cap of five. The wide-paddle power-up will show a visible timer on the HUD and reset to ten seconds if picked up again. I still need to decide whether falling power-up capsules should expire once they drop off the bottom of the screen.

I'm now settling on the brick design: tougher bricks take two hits, with the first hit showing procedurally generated cracks that persist on the brick. I'm also sketching small icons drawn on the bricks that hint at the power-up they hold, like arrows for the wide paddle and stacked circles for multi-ball.

I'm settling on the level layout: a single level with several rows of bricks, and I'm weighing whether something like seven rows of ten or eight rows of twelve will look right on a 1280×800 canvas.

I'm weighing whether to fit the game to a fixed logical size and scale the canvas to its container, or to use a portrait-shaped world so phones keep a usable playfield. An 800×600 world would shrink to about 281px tall at 375px wide, which is too small, so I'm leaning toward a taller, narrower logical space.

I'm weighing a fixed logical canvas against the viewport: a 4:3 playfield would shrink to about 375×281 on a phone, which is too small, so a taller portrait-shaped space like 600×800 looks better. At 1280×800 that would scale to roughly 570 wide and 760 tall, centered on a dark background, with room on the sides for controls or instructions.

I'm weighing a side legend and stat panel beside the playfield for polish, though that adds complexity and would have to collapse on a 375px phone. The alternative is a landscape canvas near 16:10, which suits a 1280×800 viewport but leaves a phone-sized canvas too small to play.

I'm now weighing a responsive approach where the logical world height stays fixed and the width tracks the viewport's aspect ratio, so the bricks reflow with the available width. That adds complexity, so I'm leaning toward a simpler fixed 480×640 world instead, with the canvas CSS scaled to fit the viewport while keeping its aspect ratio.

I'm laying out the canvas dimensions now: a 540-wide canvas at roughly 720 tall on desktop, scaling down to about 359 wide on a phone. Bricks would be 10 columns of about 44px each across 7 rows, leaving plenty of open field above the paddle.

I'm sketching the layout now: a dark gradient page with the game canvas centered in a frame, and on wide screens a sidebar on each side. The left one would hold a power-up legend and the right one a stats panel, which should make the 1280×800 view look more finished.

I'm weighing whether the HTML HUD should sit above the canvas or be drawn inside it, and leaning toward HTML for crisper text. I'm also considering HTML overlays for the title and game-over screens, with buttons that handle focus.

I'm laying out the page structure now: a header with the title and score stats above the canvas, then the game frame itself.

Still writing the page markup...

I'm deciding to draw the overlays on the canvas too, since HTML overlays would be easier to style, but I'm keeping them as HTML for crisp text and buttons. The canvas will scale through CSS, so I'll match its internal resolution to the display pixel ratio and apply a transform each frame to map the logical world onto it.

Still working out the layout: I'm settling on a centered canvas with side panels on wider screens, one for how-to-play controls and one for the power-up legend.

I'm weighing whether to draw the power-up icons in the legend as inline SVG so they match the ones on the bricks.

Still writing the canvas icon code...

I'm picking the brick layout now: 10 columns by 7 rows, and I'm weighing whether the tough steel bricks should sit in the top rows or be placed in a designed pattern, like a V shape, across the middle.

Now I'm deciding how the level pattern is encoded: plain letters for the colored bricks, a separate code for the tough steel ones, and maybe a marker for bricks that carry a power-up. I'm thinking about an 8-row by 10-column grid and whether a solid steel top row would look too heavy.

Still designing the level grid. I'm picking a pattern where the tough steel bricks sit in a deliberate shape rather than just filling a row, with power-up bricks spread across the field.

Still designing the level grid, and I'm picking how the bricks get encoded: plain letters for the colored ones, a separate code for the tough steel bricks, and maybe a marker for the ones carrying a power-up. I'm also thinking about giving each row its own color from the palette.

I'm sketching the level encoding now: each brick gets a simple code, with normal bricks and tougher steel ones, and some bricks marked to drop wide or multi-ball power-ups. I'm weighing whether to store each brick as a small object with its type, hit points and power-up, built from a character-to-spec map, or to keep the layout as plain strings with separate overlay strings for the modifiers.

Still designing the level layout, so I'm writing out the brick rows as strings and deciding how to mark the steel and power-up bricks.

I'm settling on a grid layout where each character marks the kind of brick: colored letters for normal bricks, a steel code for the two-hit bricks, and a separate overlay grid for which power-up each brick carries.

Still writing the level grid, so I'm drafting the brick layout as rows of characters with a separate grid marking which bricks carry power-ups.

I'm picking brick sizes now: with a 20-unit margin on each side and 4-unit gaps between 10 columns, the bricks come out to roughly 40 units wide.

I'm sizing the bricks at 40 by 20 with 4-unit gaps, which centers the 10-column grid with about 22 units of margin on each side. Eight rows should fit between y=64 and y=252, leaving plenty of room above the paddle at y=600.

Still writing the level layout...

Still writing the level grid, so I'm picking which bricks are steel and where the power-up bricks should go.

Still writing the level data, so I'm defining the layout as a set of row strings with one code per cell, and a second grid to mark which bricks carry the wide or multi power-ups.

Next I'm weighing a second grid for power-ups against a lookup table keyed by row and column, since both are simple to read. Then I need to make sure the ball can't tunnel through bricks or the paddle, so I'll use swept collision or substeps, because at around 10 pixels per frame a 20-pixel brick could easily be skipped.

Substepping seems like the safest fix here, since at 10px per frame a 12px paddle could be skipped entirely. I'm leaning toward a fixed 120 Hz physics step with the ball capped around 700 px/s, so each step moves it only a few pixels, well under the brick and paddle thickness.

I'm checking whether a 6px step is small enough to keep the ball from skipping over the 12px paddle, since a circle that crosses the expanded rectangle in one jump could go undetected.

I'm settling on substepping for the physics: the ball moves in small increments of about 2.5 pixels, and each increment checks the walls, paddle, and bricks, so it can't jump over a thin target. When a hit is detected, I'll reflect the ball and push it out of the overlap.

I'm pushing the ball out of the overlap and carrying on with the remaining substeps. For brick hits I'll find the closest point on the brick's rectangle to the ball center, and if that's within the radius, I use the offset from that point as the normal. Reflecting the velocity off that normal, but only when the ball is moving into the surface, handles both face and corner hits, and then I place the ball just outside the brick.

Now I'm working through the paddle's bounce. I'll find where the ball hits along the paddle's width and map that to an angle, so the edges send it out sideways and the center sends it straight up.

I'm settling the paddle bounce so the ball always heads upward after contact, with the angle depending on where it lands. The hit point maps to a launch angle capped around 65°, so the center sends it straight up and the edges send it out sideways. I still need to handle hits on the paddle's side edges, where the reflection would otherwise push the ball sideways, and make sure the paddle stays solid in those cases too.

I'm working out how the paddle handles contact: a hit on the top surface gets the angle-based bounce, while a hit from the side pushes the ball out horizontally and flips only its horizontal speed. A ball coming up into the underside should simply keep moving downward.

I'm deciding how the paddle should respond to a hit: if the ball meets the top surface while moving down, it gets the angle-based bounce, and I still need to work out what happens on side contacts.

I'm handling the paddle's side and underside hits separately from the top-surface bounce: a side hit just pushes the ball out and flips its horizontal speed, and a ball meeting the underside keeps heading downward. I'm also noting that substepping keeps the ball from tunneling through the paddle, even if the paddle slides into it.

I'm checking whether pushing the ball out along the smallest penetration axis handles a ball whose center ends up inside the paddle. If it does, I'll treat that case as a top-surface hit and place the ball just above the paddle, so it can't pass through.

I'm checking the paddle case where the ball ends up below it, which should be rare, and making sure the paddle collision bounces it back down so it can't slip through. For a side hit, I'll push the ball out horizontally and reverse its horizontal speed, letting it fall away from the paddle. I'm also thinking about widening the paddle to roughly 1.6 times its base width, somewhere around 128 units.

I'm settling the game's rules now: the ball rides on the paddle until a click, tap, Space, or Up launches it, and demo mode launches it automatically after a short delay. I'll start with three lives, subtract one when the last ball is lost, and show the game over screen when none remain. Clearing every brick triggers a "LEVEL CLEARED!" overlay with the score and a play-again option.

I'm settling the scoring now: normal bricks are worth points tied to their row, and steel bricks give a smaller amount on the first hit and a larger one when they finally break.

Next I'm settling how the ball speeds up: it starts around 340 and gains roughly 1% per brick broken, capped near 470, so the game gets livelier without becoming unfair. I'm also planning particle bursts on each brick break.

I'm planning the particle bursts for each brick break, around 14 to 20 particles with random velocities, gravity, fading, and tinted to the brick's color, with gray-white sparks for steel and just a few sparks for a crack. I'm also layering in polish: a faint ball trail, a subtle shake when a life is lost, a brief flash on hits, a dark gradient background, shaded brick fills with highlights, and metallic gradients with rivets for steel bricks.

I'm listing the visual polish for the game: cracks on steel bricks after the first hit, a gradient paddle with a glow that changes when it's wide, and a ball with a glowing radial core and a trail. I'm also planning pulsing power-up capsules and floating "+10" score popups, and I'm weighing how to draw the lives display, either as a canvas or HTML element or as small heart shapes.

Now I'm settling the HUD and overlays: I'll keep the score, lives, and power-up timers in HTML rather than on the canvas, since that's easier to lay out across screen widths, and show lives as small SVG ball icons. I'm also starting to plan the start screen, with a "BREAKOUT" title and a subtitle.

I'm sketching the start overlay: a translucent card in the center with the title and a "Click or press a key to start" prompt, so the demo running behind it stays visible. I'm also weighing a small "AI demo" tag and a brief control hint, and keeping the overlay light enough that the bricks and paddle still read clearly.

I'm weighing whether the overlay should be a centered card or sit lower, since the bricks run down to about y≈250 and a card in the middle would cover them. I'm leaning toward a compact card with a blurred, semi-transparent backdrop so the demo stays visible behind it.

I'm weighing whether pause should be included: P or Escape toggles it in player mode, and losing window focus might auto-pause too, though that adds some complexity. I'm also still considering the centered start card with moderate opacity and a "DEMO" badge at the top.

I'm weighing whether the game over state should be a card or should reset straight back into the attract demo. In demo mode I'm leaning toward looping automatically after a short pause, so the screen never sits dead, and I'm still considering whether a "Game Over" card should show at all in that case.

I'm settling on the demo behavior: after a loss in attract mode, the level just resets back into demo rather than showing a game over card. The AI won't be flawless, since a little aim noise and reaction delay keep it looking like a real player. It will also chase falling power-ups so wide paddles and multi-ball show up within the first few seconds.

I'm planning the AI's paddle movement so it chases falling power-ups within reach, and otherwise tracks the ball by simulating its path with wall bounces to find where it will meet the paddle line.

I'm settling on the AI's targeting: it will follow the ball that is descending soonest, meaning the one with the largest downward speed and closest to the paddle. The game won't show a game-over screen in demo mode, so the AI's occasional mistakes don't need special handling. If the demo clears the level or ends, I'll reset the board after a few seconds and keep the attract loop running.

I'm settling how the demo hands off to real play: once the player clicks or presses a key, the board resets with a fresh score and three lives. The AI should also be visibly active right away, with the ball launching on its own after about 0.8 seconds, so bricks break and particles show within the first few seconds. I'm listing the game states I need to track: attract, playing, paused, and ready, where the ball waits on the paddle until launched.

I'm settling the start flow: pressing a key or clicking in the attract screen begins a fresh game and launches the ball right away, while after losing a life the ball waits on the paddle until the player clicks or presses Space or Up. I'm also considering a canvas hint like "Click or press Space to launch" to show that.

I'm settling the controls: arrow keys and A/D move the paddle at a steady speed, Space or Up launches the ball, and Escape or P pauses. Enter restarts from the game over or victory overlays, and any arrow key also starts a game from the attract screen. For the mouse, I'm still working out how paddle tracking should behave.

I'm deciding how the mouse drives the paddle: pointer position maps to the paddle's x in game coordinates, and touch drags work the same way. Keyboard input nudges the paddle each frame, and whichever input moved it last takes priority.

I'm settling the paddle's behavior in demo mode: it eases toward the AI's target at roughly 900 px/s so it moves like a person. The paddle is 80 px wide normally and 130 px when widened, sitting near the bottom of a 640-unit-high field, and I'm setting the ball's radius and starting speed before I get into the fixed-step physics update.

I'm checking that the fixed physics step is small enough that the ball can't tunnel through the paddle or bricks, and it comes out fine at about 3.8 px per step at top speed. I'm also thinking about a backgrounded tab, where I'll clamp the frame delta so the accumulator doesn't flood the simulation with steps.

I'm checking the step size against the paddle and brick thicknesses, and the 3.8 px max movement per step is small enough that the ball can't skip through them. The harder part is corners: a ball grazing where two bricks meet, and whether resolving only one collision per step could leave it stuck bouncing in place.

I'm checking whether the paddle-collision and brick-collision handling can leave the ball overlapping something. Pushing the ball out of the overlap should prevent that, and since only one brick breaks per step, a corner hit between two adjacent bricks resolves to the closer one. After a bounce, the ball should be moving away from the brick, so it shouldn't re-collide with it on the next step.

Now I'm settling how ball-wall and paddle bounces keep the speed constant, and I'm considering whether a near-horizontal trajectory needs its angle nudged so the ball doesn't bounce forever along the same line.

I'm capping the ball's vertical speed so it can't drift along a nearly flat line, and I'm making the paddle bounce angle reach about 62 degrees at the edges. The ball only reflects off the paddle when it's moving down, and I'm placing it just above the paddle's center to start, with a launch angle of roughly ±30 degrees from vertical.

I'm defining how each brick is represented, with its position, hit points, color, and whether it's steel or carries a power-up. Normal bricks get a gradient fill and flash white when hit, while steel bricks show cracks after their first hit. Power-up bricks will get a small centered icon.

I'm deciding that the AI will chase falling power-ups when they're close and descending, otherwise it tracks the ball. The concern is that chasing a power-up could make it miss the ball, so I'm weighing how much that trade-off matters for the demo.

I'm weighing whether the AI should go for a falling power-up or stay on the ball's predicted intercept, since power-ups drop much slower than the ball and the paddle can catch them, but chasing one could leave the ball uncovered.

I'm weighing how the AI should split its attention between a falling power-up and the ball. If the ball is still far away or heading back up, chasing the power-up seems safe, but once the ball is close to reaching the paddle I'll switch back to tracking its intercept.

I'm thinking about the bricks' rendering load and the sequence of effects in the demo: particles on each break, a screen shake when a life is lost, and a flash when a brick is destroyed.

I'm weighing whether to pre-render the brick sprites to offscreen canvases, since creating about 80 gradients every frame could add up. I'm inclined to keep it simple, because drawing in logical coordinates under the DPR transform keeps the gradients cheap enough at 60fps.

I'm weighing whether to cache each brick's gradient at creation, since gradient coordinates are interpreted in the current user space at fill time and stay valid as long as the logical coordinate system holds across resizes.

I'm checking whether cached gradients still hold up under a transform change: the gradient is evaluated in the user space at fill time, so as long as I translate to each brick's origin and use coordinates relative to it, one cached gradient per color can be reused everywhere.

I'm weighing whether to cache gradients per color or just create them inline each frame, since creating about 80 small gradients per frame is cheap enough. Gradients aren't tied to a specific context, so reusing them is an option, but I'm not going to over-engineer this.

I'm settling on the canvas sizing: I'll set the backing store to the CSS size times the device pixel ratio and scale the context so drawing stays in logical units. The on-screen size will come from the container width and the space left below the header, picking whichever scale fits.

I'm laying out the desktop view as a centered row with the canvas between two side panels, which should fit within 1280 pixels. On mobile I'll switch to a single column with a compact header and a full-width canvas.

I'm settling the mobile layout by hiding the side panels under 900px and keeping a short control hint under the canvas. On desktop I'll keep a "How to play" panel. The header will show score, session best, lives as small ball icons, and power-up chips like "WIDE 7s" and "MULTI ×3", which might sit better on the canvas top-left instead.

I'm settling where the power-up chips go: they'll sit in a fixed-width slot in the top bar and toggle visibility, so the header doesn't shift when a chip appears. For the look, I'm picturing a dark navy background with a soft radial glow, a faint drifting starfield, a rounded playfield with an inner border glow, and a neon gradient "BREAKOUT" title.

I'm settling the game states now: an attract mode where the AI plays behind a title overlay, a ready state with the ball waiting on the paddle, and running, paused, lost, and won phases. I'm framing this as a `phase` value alongside a flag for whether the demo is active.

I'm setting up the state flow now: start moves from attract into a running game and launches the ball right away, the ready phase holds the ball on the paddle with a small launch prompt, and paused and lost each get their own overlay with a way back into play.

Next I'm checking the Play Again button case: a click on it also bubbles up to the frame's pointerdown, which could start the game twice, so I need to guard against that.

I'm deciding how the event handling should work: pointer movement will set the paddle target, and a pointerdown in the attract state starts the game, in the ready state launches the ball, and does nothing while running. I'm also thinking about the game-over and victory states, where the buttons should handle restart so the canvas click doesn't double up.

I'm making sure the overlay's Play Again button doesn't also trigger the canvas pointerdown, since the overlay sits beside the canvas rather than on top of its events, so a click on the button stays with the button.

Still writing the click handler...

Still wiring up the keyboard: arrows and A/D steer the paddle, and Space or Enter acts on the current phase.

I'm going through the input handling now: the Enter and Space keys act on whatever phase the game is in, and any other key starts the game from the attract state. Arrow keys and A/D keep the paddle moving, and I'll call preventDefault only on the keys the game uses so the rest of the page still behaves normally.

I'm settling the paddle input: in attract mode I ignore the mouse and let the AI drive, and once the game starts the paddle follows the pointer. I'll convert the pointer's position into logical canvas coordinates and clamp it so the paddle stays on the playfield, moving it directly to that spot for responsiveness.

Next I'm handling pointer input on touch devices, so a touch moves the paddle the same way and a tap launches the ball. I'll set `touch-action: none` on the canvas so dragging doesn't scroll the page.

Still writing the power-up setup...

Still sketching the power-up art: the wide icon is a horizontal bar with arrowheads, the multi icon is three small dots in a triangle, both drawn on a gradient capsule.

I'm working out the power-up catch logic: a capsule counts as caught when it falls into the paddle's zone, and anything that drops past the bottom gets removed. For the wide effect, I'm setting a target width and a 10-second timer, with the paddle's width easing toward that target and back once the timer runs out.

I'm weighing how the wide power-up's width change should behave: the paddle eases toward its target width each frame, but collisions still use the real width. Re-catching a wide capsule just resets its 10-second timer. For multi-ball, I'm aiming for three balls on the field. Then I'm thinking about what happens when a ball drops off the bottom: it gets removed, and only when none are left does a life get lost. I'm also considering a soft synthesized sound on that moment, created lazily after the first user gesture so it isn't blocked.

I'm weighing whether to add synthesized sound effects for the game, since that would add polish but carries a small risk of console warnings. My plan is to create the audio context only after the first user gesture, wrapped in a try/catch, and I'm thinking about a mute toggle in the header to go with it.

I'm weighing whether to add synthesized sound effects, since they'd add polish without much risk if I create the audio context only after the first user gesture and guard it with a try/catch.

I'm checking the Web Audio setup: I'll only create the audio context after a user gesture, so the browser doesn't warn about it, and wrap the creation in a try/catch in case it fails inside the iframe.

I'm adding particles that glow with additive blending: brick breaks throw off about 18 pieces, steel cracks a few sparks, and paddle hits a small burst.

I'm planning the brick break effect now: a brick that's hit gets removed straight away, with its debris handled by particles and maybe a brief fading ghost for a bit of extra feedback.

Still sketching the game's visual polish: a glowing shockwave ring for steel bricks, a brief screen shake on life loss, and a background with a starfield, grid lines, and a vignette.

Still laying out the bricks: a 10 by 8 grid with a fixed gap, centered horizontally, and each row getting its own color.

Still laying out the brick grid: I'm picking color codes for each row and marking the steel bricks in a scattered pattern, with the layout written as strings of letters.

I'm laying out the brick grid as text rows, with each letter standing for a color and a steel brick marked in the middle of the rows.

Still laying out the brick grid: I'm sketching the row patterns as strings, with steel bricks dropped into the middle rows so the field has some structure.

Still laying out the grid: I'm settling on the row strings, with a few steel bricks in the blue, violet and pink rows so the field has some structure.

I'm picking where the power-up bricks go: a few in the middle rows so they're reachable during play, each one showing its icon. I'm also thinking about how many of them to place and whether the tougher steel bricks should be mixed in with them.

Steel bricks take two hits, so the first one cracks the brick and drops its health to one, while the second destroys it with a bigger burst and a higher score. I'm also thinking about putting a power-up on one steel brick so the tougher bricks carry rewards too.

I'm drawing the steel cracks from the impact point, a few jagged dark lines with a faint highlight and some chipping, and I'll give the steel bricks a darker tone once they've been cracked.

I'm settling the ball's speed: it ramps up as more bricks fall, starting around 340 and capping near 470, and after each bounce I rescale its velocity to whatever the current speed is.

I'm keeping the ball at a steady speed by rescaling its velocity each step, so only the magnitude changes and the direction stays the same. I'm also adding a check so the vertical component never drops too low, which would make the ball bounce sideways forever.

Still working through the bounce physics: I'm rescaling the ball's velocity each step so its speed matches the current target, and nudging it if the vertical component gets too small. Then I'm handling wall reflections on the left, right, and top edges.

I'm working out how to spawn the extra balls: each new one starts at an existing ball's position and angles off by about 20 to 25 degrees. I'm also checking the edge case where every ball has been lost, since the game would drop back to the ready state and the falling power-up would have nothing to hit.

I'm settling how a lost life works: when the last ball drops I'll drop a life, shake the screen and play the sound, and game over happens at zero. Then I'm weighing whether to reset power-ups and paddle width to ready, or keep them.

I'm deciding whether to keep the timed effects when a life is lost, and I'm leaning toward keeping an active wide paddle so the reward carries over, while falling power-ups stay in play. For the ready state, the ball sits on top of the paddle and launches at a small random angle of about 0.35 radians, and I'm also planning a demo AI launch after roughly 0.6 seconds.

I'm settling the end-of-game screens and scoring: game over shows the score, best score, and a play-again prompt, while the victory screen adds a flawless bonus if no life was lost. Brick points stay at 10 for normal bricks, 5 for the first steel hit, and 30 for breaking steel.

Next I'm picking the power-up catch bonus at 20 points, and I'm keeping best score in memory so it updates when a game ends. The demo mode will show its score in the header like a normal game, and I'm now working out the AI's targeting logic for the paddle.

Still working on the AI targeting: if the ball is heading downward, I'm predicting where it will cross the paddle's top edge, accounting for bounces off the side walls by unfolding the horizontal position.

I'm working out the AI's prediction of where the ball will cross the paddle, unfolding the horizontal position across the side walls so bounces are accounted for. Then I'm picking the most urgent descending ball and aiming the paddle at its predicted spot, with a bit of random offset so the demo doesn't play perfectly.

I'm checking how the AI's prediction could go wrong near the corners when the ball is moving fast, but I'll accept that as a rough edge. Next I'm working out powerup chasing: the AI should go for a falling powerup only if the ball isn't about to reach the paddle, and it prefers the powerup lowest on the screen, closest to the paddle, as long as it can get there in time.

I'm working out the AI's targeting: if any balls are descending, I'll predict where the most urgent one will reach the paddle's top edge, with the powerup chase only taking priority when no ball is about to arrive.

Still writing the AI targeting code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the canvas setup and layout sizing code...

Still sizing the canvas: I'm measuring the stage's top offset to work out how much vertical room is left, leaving a small bottom margin, and I'm accepting some scroll on mobile as long as nothing overflows horizontally. I'm also setting up the stage layout with flex centering, with side panels appearing only on wider screens, and I'm starting to work out how the frame width gets derived from the available space.

Still sizing the canvas: I'm working out the scale from the available height and width, and I'm making sure the frame stays inside the stage without overflowing.

Still sizing the canvas: I'm deciding how to derive the frame's width from the space left beside the side panels and below the header, using the aspect ratio to keep the game proportional.

Still working out the mobile sizing: on a 375×667 screen the header takes about 56px and the hint another 60px, which leaves roughly 551px of height, and with 24px of side padding about 351px of width. From there I'm comparing the width limit against the height limit scaled by the aspect ratio to pick the frame size.

Still sizing the canvas: I'm checking the desktop layout at 1280×800, where the frame lands around 517px wide with side panels fitting beside it. Next I'm setting up the DPR-scaled canvas transform.

Still writing the game constants and the logical coordinate setup, which runs from 0 to 480 across and 0 to 640 down.

Still writing the game constants: the paddle is 84 wide, or 136 when widened, sitting at y=606 with a 12px height. Balls are lost once they pass the bottom edge, and I'm adding a glow and gradient to the paddle while keeping bricks and the brick grid setup in view.

Still writing the paddle bounce code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the paddle bounce and the collision code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the collision code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the collision resolution code, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the collision resolution: the push-out displacement is the normal times the depth, for both the outside case and the case where the ball's center sits inside the rectangle.

I'm choosing the brick reflection and the paddle bounce: for paddle hits on the top face I'll use the angle-from-hit-position rule, and for everything else I'll reflect the velocity off the surface normal. I'm also checking the edge case where the ball is already moving up but overlaps the paddle, since that should be rare.

I'm checking how the paddle reflects a ball that hits its side, flipping the horizontal velocity while keeping the vertical component, and pushing the ball out of the overlap.

I'm checking the paddle's corner case, where a ball hitting near the top edge could carry a diagonal normal. I'm leaning toward treating anything with a clearly upward normal as an angle bounce, so the ball always goes back up, though a hit on the side near the corner might look a little odd.

I'm checking the paddle's ordering in each physics step: saving the previous position for the trail, moving the ball, then handling walls. For the paddle I'll test every frame, not only when the ball is falling, so a ball that drifts up from below the paddle still gets caught and bounced.

I'm handling the brick collisions now: each step, I check the live bricks and take the one with the deepest overlap, then reflect the ball off its normal and push it clear. Only one brick gets hit per ball per step.

Still writing the physics step ordering and the collision handling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the power-up catch logic, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the HTML structure for the frame and canvas.

Still writing the overlay markup: an attract card that says the demo is running and how to start, plus a game-over card with the score and a play-again button.

Still writing the overlay markup and styling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the overlay markup and styling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the header markup: a brand label, score and best stats, a lives display, the power-up chips, and sound and pause buttons.

I'm settling on the header controls now: a sound toggle and a pause button, with the pause button mainly there for touch users since P and Esc already cover keyboard. Restart is out, since clicking during the attract screen already starts a game, and I want to keep the header from getting crowded on a 375px screen.

I'm moving on to the header layout now: a flex row that wraps, so on a phone the brand and buttons can sit on one line and the stats on the next. I'm also weighing a canvas-drawn HUD against HTML, and leaning toward HTML since it's easier to make look polished.

Still writing the legend, which is a short phrase now.

Next I'm wiring the legend icons: small canvases that reuse the power-up drawing routine at the right scale, with CSS swatches for the two brick types.

Still writing the game constants: the canvas is 480 by 640 logical units, the ball radius is 6, and the paddle sits near the bottom with separate key and AI speeds.

Still writing the game constants: the brick grid is 10 columns of 40-wide bricks with small gaps, centered from the top at y=62, and the power-up capsules fall at a fixed speed for 10 seconds of widened paddle.

Still writing the level layout, which is a short phrase now.

I'm setting the power-up placements as a plain list of row, column, and type, and checking that the steel bricks land where I want them. Most of the entries look fine, though I'm still deciding the exact spots for the rest.

I'm settling the power-up placements now: wide on the top row, the steel brick at row 2 column 8, the green wide spot, and then multi-ball on the steel brick at row 6 column 1 and the cyan brick at row 4 column 5. That gives three of each, so both power-ups show up in the demo.

I'm checking the bricks against the layout rows, confirming the steel bricks sit where I expect them and that the power-up spots on rows one through five fall on the intended columns.

I'm settling the steel brick spacing and whether to add a few more on the middle rows, though the current layout already gives a reasonable mix.

I'm settling the steel brick positions for the level now. Rather than putting every steel brick in the same spot, I'm thinking about spreading two on the bottom row and keeping the rest in the middle rows, and I want the layout to look balanced if I can manage it.

I'm checking the steel brick placements row by row. Row 3 is the one I'm reworking: I'm moving its two steel bricks to columns 2 and 7 so they mirror each other, which gives eight steel bricks in a balanced pattern.

Still working out the power-up placements, which means shifting the wide entry at row 3 over to column 4 since column 2 is now a steel brick.

Still working through the level layout, which means checking the rows: the steel bricks sit at columns 2 and 7 on row 3, and the power-up spots move to row 3 column 5 so they don't land on steel.

Still writing the power-up placements and checking the steel brick spacing against the layout rows.

Still writing the brick grid setup, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick grid setup, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the steel brick styling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick gradient and steel shading, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick draw routine, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the crack generation for steel bricks, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the crack and power-up badge drawing for the bricks, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the power-up capsule drawing and icons, which is a short phrase now.

Still weighing the power-up colors against the brick palette, since gold and pink both overlap with existing bricks, though the capsules and badges should stand apart by shape and icon anyway.

Still writing the particle burst and the color choices for the power-ups, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the audio setup, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the audio setup, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the audio setup, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the frame loop, which is a short phrase now.

Still working through the game loop, which means running the physics in fixed steps with a cap on steps per frame. I'm also deciding that particles update with real frame time, and that the paddle's key movement goes into the fixed step too so it stays consistent. Next is the demo auto-launch timer and how the demo handles game over.

Still writing the state variables for the game, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the state setup and board reset, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the state setup and ball helpers, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the launch routine, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the ball movement, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the collision handling for the ball, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the paddle collision handling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the paddle side collision handling, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the paddle collision, which means handling the corner hits where the ball meets the top edge near a side.

Still working through the paddle corner case, which means pushing the ball out along the contact normal so it ends up at exactly one radius from the closest point.

Still working through the paddle bounce, which means setting the outgoing angle from where the ball hit along the paddle.

Still writing the brick hit handling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick break handling, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the multi-ball power-up, which means deciding how many balls to spawn when the paddle is empty versus when some are already in play.

I'm settling how many balls to spawn when the multi-ball power-up is caught: at least three total, with a cap of five. Then I'll place the new balls at the paddle so they don't start over a descending ball near it.

Still writing the ball cleanup and life loss, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game-over and win handling, which is a short phrase now.

I'm settling the demo mode: instead of a separate attract phase, it's just a flag, so the overlay shows whenever the demo is running and the ready and running phases carry on as normal.

Still working out the controls for the demo and the player, which means how a click or key press moves from attract mode into a fresh game. I'm also settling the pause rules for when the player hits P or Esc, plus the game-over and win overlays with their play-again options.

Pausing the demo isn't needed, so I'm not allowing it, and the pause button stays disabled during the demo. Next I'm working out the AI controls for demo mode, starting with a think timer that re-plans the paddle's target every 50 to 100 milliseconds, then moving the paddle toward that target at its maximum speed.

Still writing the AI target calculation, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the AI paddle logic, which means finding the ball that will reach paddle level soonest and predicting where it lands. I'm also checking whether the situation is urgent before looking at any falling power-ups.

Still working out the AI target: I'm tying the error term to the paddle width, so the aim is a little off on purpose and the AI doesn't play perfectly.

I'm checking how the AI aims when the ball is stuck during the demo: it stays put or picks a spot near center for launch. I'm also working out the predicted landing point by projecting the ball's position forward over the time until it reaches paddle height, while accepting that bricks can deflect it.

Now I'm checking how the predicted landing spot gets folded back inside the walls, since the ball can bounce off both sides before it reaches the paddle. The unfolding math handles that by reflecting the position into range. Next I'll set the AI paddle's speed a bit higher so it tracks the ball smoothly without being perfect.

Next I'm working out how the mouse controls the paddle: converting the pointer position into the game's logical coordinates, and moving the paddle during the fixed step. The open question is what happens when the pointer leaves the canvas, so I'm considering listening on the window instead.

Still working out the mouse controls: the pointer position gets converted into logical canvas coordinates and only applies to the paddle during play, while keys nudge it on each step.

Still writing the keyboard handler, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the keyboard handler, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the keyboard handling for the demo: any key press starts a fresh game, and the arrow keys are set before that so the paddle moves right away.

Still writing the keyboard release handling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the pointer handling, which is a short phrase now.

Next I'm handling the overlay button clicks: the pointer handler skips anything on a button, so the click event does the work and starts a new game. A click on the card itself in the lost state does nothing, and in the paused state a click anywhere on the frame resumes the game. Last, I'll render the overlay text by updating the DOM whenever the state changes.

Still writing the HUD update, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the background drawing, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the background drawing, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the paddle rendering, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the ball drawing, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the ball trail and glow, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the ball trail and glow, which is a short phrase now.

Now I'm deciding where the launch hint goes: an HTML pill near the top of the playfield rather than text drawn on the canvas, so it keeps its typography when the canvas scales.

Still writing the page styling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the page styling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the page styling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the page styling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the mobile layout and the small hint line under the canvas, which only shows on narrow screens.

I'm picturing the 3-second screenshot now: the attract card sits over the middle of the frame, with the bricks visible above it and the AI playing behind. The question is whether the card's centered position hides too much of the ball's path, so I'm weighing a lower placement near 55% height.

Now I'm weighing whether to drop the victory and game-over cards to a lower spot too, or keep them centered like the attract card.

Still writing the audio setup, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the sound effects, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the sound effects, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the sound effects, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the canvas resize logic, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the canvas sizing math, which is a short phrase now.

Checking the viewport math for mobile: at 375×667 the header takes about 120px, so the available height is around 495px while the width allows about 343px, which means the canvas fits by width at roughly 343×457. On desktop at 1280×800 the height is the limiting factor, so the canvas comes out near 526×702. I'll check the 1920×1080 case next.

Still writing the canvas sizing code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the canvas sizing code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game-state flow, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the game flow: the player start resets the board, zeroes the score and gives three lives, then launches the ball right away.

Still writing the state reset for a new board, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the pause and game-over flow, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the pause and blur behavior: pausing returns to the previous phase, and losing focus only pauses a player game, not the demo.

Still writing the frame loop, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game loop, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game step, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game step, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the multi-ball spawn, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the multi-ball spawn, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the multi-ball spawn, which is a short phrase now.

Working out the multi-ball spawn: the new balls copy the stuck state of their source, so if I'm in the ready phase they'll all launch together with fresh random angles. Rotating the existing velocity gives each extra ball its own direction, and the target count is at least three and capped at five.

Now I'm handling the power-up catches: a caught ball power-up shows "BALLS ×3" on the chip. The wide paddle lasts 10 seconds, and catching another one resets the timer, with the remaining seconds shown on the chip.

Still writing the brick squash and hit animation, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the attract card, which is a short phrase now.

Now I'm wrapping up the attract screen's copy: the title tag, the "AI DEMO" pill, and the start prompt, plus the pause, game-over, and win cards with their buttons.

Still writing the Breakout page, the code being a short phrase now.

Still writing the page's head and base styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the page's base styles and the app layout, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the page's brand header styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the page styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the page styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the button styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the button styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the side panel styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the side panel styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the frame and canvas styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the overlay styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the card styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the pill and card headline styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the overlay card styles, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the responsive breakpoints, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the HTML header markup, the code being a short phrase now.

Still writing the Breakout page markup, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the page markup for the playfield, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the layout math, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the layout math, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the legend entries, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game constants, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game constants and the lookup tables for the brick colors, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game constants, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick builder, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick builder, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game constants and brick tables, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game state, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game state, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game state reset, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game start logic, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the demo reset and the game-over and win flow, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the win and game-over flow, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the launch logic, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the launch and pause toggle, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the keyboard handlers, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the keydown handler, which is a short phrase now.

Still working through the keydown handler: I'm checking whether pressing Enter on a focused button would fire both the key handler and the click, which would restart the game twice. Starting the game twice is harmless, but I want to skip the key handler when the target is a button so there's a single clean path.

Working through the keydown handler, I'm skipping the key path when a button has focus so Enter or Space only triggers the native click once, not twice.

Still working through the keydown handler: I'm weighing whether to let a focused header button handle Space on its own. Pressing Space after clicking Pause could activate that button instead of launching the ball, so I'm considering blurring the button after a click or preventing the default on Space when a button has focus.

Still working through the keydown handler: I'm making sure Enter or Space on a focused button only fires its native click once, and I'm considering blurring the header buttons after they're clicked so a later Space press doesn't reactivate them instead of launching the ball.

Still working through the keydown handler: I'm skipping the key path when a button has focus so Enter or Space only fires the native click once, and I'm checking whether a focused header button could swallow Space and stop the ball from launching.

Blurring the buttons after each click looks like the safest fix, since then Space can't reactivate a focused header button and launch and toggle pause at once. I'm not fully sure whether preventing the keydown default stops Chrome from firing the click on keyup, so I'll rely on the blur.

Making sure a focused button doesn't fire twice or swallow the Space bar, so I'm skipping the key path when a button is the target and letting the native click handle Enter or Space. Blurring each button after it's clicked should stop a later Space press from reactivating it, and I'm about to write the keyup handler.

Still writing the keyup handler and the window blur reset, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the pointer handlers, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the pointer handling: I'm setting the paddle from the click position on pointerdown as well as on pointermove, and mapping coordinates through the frame's bounding box so the mapping stays stable. The paddle gets clamped inside the step loop so it can't leave the field, and I'm wiring the hint toast to show only in the ready state when the demo isn't running.

Still writing the HUD update code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the HUD update code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the HUD update, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the frame loop, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the frame loop's update function, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the frame update's particle and star updates, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the particle and popup updates, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the paddle width easing and clamp, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the paddle and ball step logic, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the game step logic, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the ball step logic, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the ball and paddle collision code, which is a short phrase now.

Still working through the ball bounce against the brick, making sure a single collision is resolved per step and the reflection only happens when the ball is moving into the surface.

Still working through the paddle bounce: I'm checking that pushing the ball out along the normal leaves its x position alone for a top hit, so the angle set from where it struck the paddle stays correct.

Still working out the normalization, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the normalization, which is a short phrase now.

Still working through the reflection math, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the pushOut helper, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the collision helper, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the collision helper's inside case, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the collision helper's inside case, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the paddle bounce: I'm mapping the hit position to an angle, so a hit near the centre sends the ball straight up and a hit at the edge sends it off at a sharp angle.

Still writing the brick hit handler, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick hit handler, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick hit handler's remaining steps, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the particle draw, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the power-up spawn code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the power-up update code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the power-up catch logic, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the power-up catch code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the loseLife function, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the demo AI's paddle movement, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the AI's target selection, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the AI's target for the incoming ball, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the AI's target choice, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the AI's fallback when no ball is coming down, which is a short phrase now.

Still working out the AI's target choice when no ball is coming down, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the render function, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the render function's background and shake handling, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick drawing code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick draw code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick draw code, which is a short phrase now.

Still writing the brick's shine gradient, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick's shine and border drawing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick's cracks and outline, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick crack generator, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the crack generator's line segments, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick's power-up badge, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the power-up icon's wide glyph, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the capsule's rounded body and glow, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the capsule's gradient and outline, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the power-up and popup drawing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the legend icons and the bottom danger glow, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the legend icon paint, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the legend icons, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the layout code, which is a short phrase now...

Still working out the layout sizing: I'm capping the canvas height and then fitting the width to the space available, so it never overflows horizontally.

Still writing the layout code's sizing and canvas resize, which is a short phrase now...

Still working through the layout's edge cases, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the overlay setup code, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the button handlers: the header pause button calls togglePause, which does nothing in demo mode, and the sound button flips the sound state and refreshes its icon.

Still writing the sound effects object, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the sound playback helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the sound effect cases, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the sound effect cases, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the sound effect cases, which is a short phrase now...

Still working through the sound unlock logic, which is a short phrase now...

Now I'm sorting out the sound unlock and the stats text: the AudioContext is only created on a user gesture, and the overlay copy will show the best score as well.

Still writing the overlay card copy, which is a short phrase now...

Now I'm settling the flawless bonus: clearing the level with no lives lost adds 500 to the score. I'm also checking that the ball can't tunnel through a brick or the paddle, since each step only moves it a few pixels.

Checking whether a fast mouse move could jump the paddle onto the ball in a single frame.

Checking whether the paddle can slide sideways into a ball that's resting just above its top edge, since a fast mouse jump could cover a lot of ground in one frame.

Now I'm checking whether the paddle could teleport across a ball sitting just above it, since a fast mouse jump could cover a lot of ground in one frame. If the ball ends up inside the paddle's expanded box, the collision code should push it out to the side or top.

Checking whether the paddle could sweep sideways into a ball resting just above it, and what the collision code should do if the ball ends up overlapping the paddle's expanded box.

Now I'm checking the paddle-to-ball case where the ball sits just above the paddle's top edge and the paddle slides under it. If the ball's center is within the paddle's band, the nearest exit is the top face, so the collision pushes it up and out.

Now I'm checking the paddle against a ball resting just above it. If the paddle slides under the ball, the closest point on its top face pushes the ball upward, so it stays out of the paddle.

Checking whether the ball could slip through a gap between two bricks: the gaps are only 4px wide and the ball is 12px across, so it can't fit and will hit a brick edge first.

Still checking the ball against brick edges: bricks and walls sit clear of the ball's path at the top, and the 4px gaps between bricks are too narrow for the 12px ball to slip through, so it will always hit an edge first. For corner hits the reflection uses the diagonal normal, which seems right, and I'm now checking that the ball can't get stuck bouncing between two bricks.

Next I'm checking the ball's lifecycle: it gets removed once it falls fully below the screen, a lost life drops back into a ready state with a fresh stuck ball on the paddle, and clearing the last brick triggers the win and stops the step loop.

I'm checking the lifecycle edge cases: if the last ball is removed while running, losing a life either drops back to ready or ends the game. Multi-ball power-ups can't fire in the lost phase, since the step loop returns early there. Starting a new game resets everything, including the power-ups, and the demo-to-player switch also resets the paddle and the rest of the state.

Now I'm checking the first paint at the three-second mark: the attract overlay should be visible, the demo running, with bricks, the occasional power-up, and particles on screen. I'm also considering whether requestAnimationFrame runs inside the iframe and how the devicePixelRatio affects canvas sizing, since at dpr 1 the canvas width is just the CSS width.

Still writing the text rendering for popups, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the CSS theme, with the gold accent for the title gradient and tabular numerals in the HUD so the score doesn't jitter.

Still writing the page's CSS: the color variables, the body background gradients and the layout base.

Still writing the page's CSS, now the topbar layout and the brand header.

Still writing the topbar brand and stats styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the topbar life indicators and their off state, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the chip styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the button styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the button styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the page's CSS, now the side panel and the key hints.

Still writing the stat and lives styles for the side panel, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the frame styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the frame and canvas styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the overlay and card styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the logo styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the logo and pill styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the toast styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the toast styles, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the responsive media queries, which is a short phrase now...

Working through the phone-width header, I'm estimating each block's width at 375px and it clearly overflows, so the topbar will need to wrap onto multiple rows.

Still working on the topbar layout: the chips container might keep its height when empty, which could leave the canvas size stale on narrow screens.

I'm weighing whether to keep the power-up chips in the header or move that status into the canvas as a small HUD, since the header chips would make the layout jump on phones. Drawing the timers and ball count directly on the playfield would avoid that shift.

Canvas text is scaling with the frame, so at 343px wide the 12-unit labels land around 8.6px, which feels a bit small. I'm weighing a larger 16-unit size for the HUD text, which would bring it to roughly 11px on screen. I'm also looking at the empty strip across the top of the playfield, since the bricks don't start until y=64, and that could hold the ball count and power-up timers without overlapping anything.

Still writing the canvas HUD, which is a short phrase now...

I'm drawing the power-up status as pills inside the canvas's top strip, since that space is empty above the bricks, so the header never shifts. A small "AI DEMO" tag can go top-center as well, though the attract card already covers that.

Moving the power-up status out of the header and into the canvas top strip, since that space above the bricks is empty and drawing there won't shift the layout on phones. The header can then stay as brand and controls on one row, with the stats on a second row when narrow.

Still writing the header markup, which is a short phrase now...

Now I'm laying out the header for mobile: brand and controls on one row, stats on a second row, and the power-up status moving into the canvas so the header height stays put.

Still writing the icon definitions for the pause, play and sound buttons, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the icon definitions for the pause, play, and sound buttons, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the icon definitions for the pause, play and sound buttons, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the side panel markup, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the side panel's key hints and the brick and power-up legend, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the canvas-drawn icons for the mobile play button, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the game constants, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the game setup, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the game's setup constants and state, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the game state and the star field, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the game's setup constants and the star field, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick builder, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the reset logic, which is a short phrase now...

Now I'm wiring up the ball launch: each stuck ball gets a random angle within a narrow cone and is set moving at the current speed.

Still writing the ball launch logic, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the life-loss handling, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the game-over logic, which is a short phrase now...

Now I'm deciding how the game handles a win: a flawless clear gets a 500-point bonus, and the best score gets updated.

Still writing the game's win and pause handling, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the overlay toggling and the toast helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the pointer input, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the pointer input, which is a short phrase now...

I'm fixing the pointer handler: the mouse-move branch currently also runs in demo mode, which would let the cursor override the AI paddle, so it should only apply when the game is live and in the running or ready phase.

Still wiring up the keyboard controls, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the keyboard controls, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the keyboard controls, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the keyboard controls, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the keyboard release and focus handling, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the button clicks and the sound toggle, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the button handlers and the icon rendering, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the pause button's state, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the main loop and its timing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the game loop and the step function, which is a short phrase now...

Now I'm handling the paddle movement for both modes: the AI moves it in demo, otherwise the arrow keys do, and a wide-paddle timer gets counted down and eases the width back to normal.

Now I'm wrapping up the main step: once the physics and power-ups have updated, I'll drop any balls that have fallen off the bottom, and if none are left I'll take a life. If the last brick has gone, the win is triggered.

Still writing the power-up update loop, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the power-up catch logic, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the add-balls helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the add-balls helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still adding the guard for an empty ball list, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the ball movement and paddle bounce, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the ball movement code, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the ball collision with the paddle, which is a short phrase now...

Still checking the paddle-bounce edge case: the ball should only get the upward kick when it is coming down, and a launch from the stuck position sits just outside the paddle's top edge, so it won't overlap.

Now I'm checking the bricks: the ball's collision with each brick gets handled next.

Still wiring up the brick collisions, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the brick collisions, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the render setup, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the render pass, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the background drawing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the background gradient and star drawing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the paddle drawing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the paddle's gradient and specular highlight, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the rounded-rectangle helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the ball trail rendering, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the ball trail and glow, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the trail rendering, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the particle drawing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the popup drawing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the popup text rendering, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the HUD drawing, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the pill helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the pill helper's bar and label, which is a short phrase now...

Still working through the HUD pills and the top-centre demo tag, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the HUD update function, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the updateFX step, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the updateFX step, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the burst helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the popup and burst helpers, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick hit handler, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the brick hit's score, particles, popup and ring, which is a short phrase now...

Still wiring up the brick hit's ring and power-up drop, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the power-up spawn helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the capsule gradient and its fill, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the capsule fill and its outline, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the glyph drawing for the wide power-up icon, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the glyph's dot shapes, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the badge drawing for the bricks, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the badge's pulsing glow and outline, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the badge's glyph size and placement, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick draw function, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick gradient fill, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick's rivets and steel detail, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick's rim and edge outline, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick's cracks and power-up badge, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick crack lines, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the brick crack lines, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the crack-drawing pass, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the crack lines' shadow pass, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the rounded-rectangle helper, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the rounded-rectangle helper's corner arcs, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the AI helper that wraps the ball's x-position back into the playfield, which is a short phrase now...

Still working on the AI target and aim offset, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the AI target selection, which is a short phrase now...

Still writing the AI's powerup chase, which is a short phrase now...

Still working out the AI's powerup chase, weighing whether the paddle can get there and back in time.

Still working out the AI's chase condition, checking whether the powerup is worth going for given how close the ball's predicted landing is.

Now I'm working out how the AI picks its target: when the ball is still far off, it can drift toward a falling power-up instead, provided the paddle can reach it and get back in time.

Still working out the AI's fallback when the ball is rising, so the paddle has a target even without a descending ball.