MacBrick — five levels, and the game says so Runs here
1997 · unknown · Mac OS 8 · SheepShaver (Power Macintosh 9500) · 800×600 at 8-bit colour
Guide updated September 2026
A brick-breaker for the PowerPC Macintosh, and an unusually honest one: the first thing it tells you is that this is the shareware version, that it has five levels, and that more cost money.
Five levels is a real game and a real limit, and both are stated here rather than discovered. What is on this page is exactly what the author gave away.
Boots Mac OS 8.6 and opens MacBrick. A notice explains the five-level limit; click OK and play.
Controls
| Mouse | Move the paddle |
| Mouse button | Release the ball |
| Cmd-Q | Quit to the Finder |
The shareware build, limited by its author to five levels and announcing that on startup. Unregistered and unmodified; the full version was sold separately and is not here.
Archives
- Internet Archive — the Tucows Macintosh archive copy this was built from.
How it works & what to expect
| Machine | Power Macintosh 9500, 800×600 in colour |
|---|---|
| System | Mac OS 8.6, shared with every other title of this era |
| Emulator | SheepShaver, compiled to WebAssembly |
| Build | PowerPC shareware, five levels |
| Saves | Scores persist inside the emulated Mac |
Five levels. That is the shareware limit and it has not been patched out, because patching it out would be modifying the software. The startup notice announcing it is left where the author put it.
MacBrick does not carry its own operating system; Mac OS 8.6 comes from the shared image, so it starts faster if you have opened another Mac OS 8 title here.
Why it is here
It is the genre's baseline, done competently. Breakout variants were the single most common thing in Macintosh shareware. Most were worse than this and almost none survive in runnable form.
The limit is the licence. Five playable levels given away to advertise the rest is the oldest shareware bargain there is, and it is worth having an unambiguous example of it in the catalogue beside the nag-screen and honour-system kinds.
Compare it with the others. Colibricks, MacBrickout and Diamonds 3D are all here and all take the same starting point somewhere different — which is more interesting than any of them alone.
Getting started
Click OK past the shareware notice and move the paddle with the mouse.
Aim with the edges of the paddle rather than the middle. Hitting the ball off-centre is the only steering you get.
If you want a longer game, Colibricks — also here — is not level-limited.
Questions people ask
How many levels are there?
Five. That is the shareware limit, announced by the game itself on startup, and it has not been removed.
Is it free?
This build is, and it was distributed that way. The full version with more levels was sold.
Do scores persist?
Yes, inside the emulated Macintosh in your browser.
Is it in colour?
Yes, 800×600 on an emulated Power Macintosh.
Are there other brick-breakers here?
Colibricks, MacBrickout and Diamonds 3D, all on this site.
Why does it take a while to start?
It boots Mac OS 8.6 first, from the image shared with the other Mac OS 8 titles here.
