Developed by
Atari,
Arkanoid is a simple yet addictive game. The player controls a small pad that has to keep a ball from falling from the playfield, bouncing it against a number of bricks. Each time a ball hits a brick, it disappears. When all the bricks are done, the player goes to the next level, where another pattern of bricks appear. There are other variations (bricks that have to be hit a number of times, flying ships, etc) and power-ups (enlarge your pad, multiplicate the number of balls, go directly to the next level) but mainly its bricks-ball-pad stuff.
It was originally developed for the coin-op market, but there are versions for most home computers. The 8-bit computer versions (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC 464, Commodore 64) were very popular in Europe in the 1980s.