   Arkanoid Clone - Controlling Speed
  I'm curious as to the methods used for controlling the speed of a ball in an Arkanoid/breakout clone.I notice in these games the ball usually moves faster if you bank it off the sides of the paddle. In my game the paddle is 100px wide, so I have 3 bounding boxes:[ 20 |  40  | 20 ]If the ball hits the left or right one, I increase the x speed and change the y direction. If it hits the middle, I simply reverse the x and y directions.Now for what I'm trying to do. I tried a method that slightly decreased the x speed, but the problem came if there were too many consecutive middle hits - it'd get too slow. Help from anyone whos made a clone like this would help. Should I just put a cap on the speed and not decrease it? Should I have it decrease slightly for "good things" like the player hitting bricks?   
  Have the speed decrease towards a limit if you hit the middle, and increase towards a limit if you hit the sides.You can accomplish this by taking a weighted average of the current speed with whichever limit is appropriate according to where the ball was hit.   ;  Hey that worked out quite well thanks! What I do now is increase the x speed on the left and right, and in the middle I increase the y speed and decrease the x speed. I also have it check min and max values so the ball doesn't stop or get too wild. It actually feels right :D   