Arkanoid was an 80’s arcade classic, a great test of hand-eye coordination as you tried to clear a breakout-style pattern of blocks from the screen.

But if you missed the game the first time, that’s not a problem, because Trikanoid has bought it back to life for both PCs and Macs.

As the authors themselves point out, this isn’t a precise remake. The old monochrome graphics and synthetic sounds probably wouldn’t appeal too much, so instead they’ve used high resolution backgrounds, quality animations, and a professional soundtrack: it’s all very polished.

It’s also a little confusing, at least initially, because we were using the cursor keys to navigate the menus, Enter to select an option, and finding out that nothing was happening. Why? Ah, because the space bar is the selector and general “action” key here. Once we figured that out, everything started working as expected and all was well.

Trikanoid takes Atari's Breakout to the next brick-smashing level

Play is simple enough, at least in principle, and you’ll recognise the idea if you’ve ever played a breakout-type game. You control a paddle, which sits in front of a pattern of tiles. You fire a ball against the tiles, destroying one, then must move the paddle to catch the ball and bounce it back. If the ball gets past the paddle, you lose a life. If you keep it bouncing back until all the tiles are gone, then you move onto the next level.

There are all kinds of variations to keep you entertained, though. Sometimes you’ll have to “catch” falling tiles to win extra points, for instance. There are “aliens” to destroy, and quirky little bonuses here and there – like a moment when three balls appear at once – as well as a very big End Of Game monster if you manage to clear all 33 levels.

And all this is unambiguously for free: no adware, no loaded requirements for you to sign up with accounts anywhere, not even a Donate button, it’s all nicely unpressured.

If there’s a small hassle here then perhaps it’s difficulty. If your paddle catches the ball even slightly off centre then it moves off at an ever steeper angle, making it extremely difficult to control.

It could just be that we’re not very good at the game, of course, but either way, Trikanoid is an excellent game, a great revival of an arcade classic which just might keep you occupied for a very long time.