Numbered blocks creep down the screen in 99 Balls, and you have to wear them away before they reach the bottom. Every time a ball strikes a block, its number goes down, and at zero the block disappears. If one of them makes it all the way down, the game is over.
Because the numbers keep climbing, collecting items early matters: a longer chain is the only way to keep pace with tougher rows. Shots that ricochet off the walls often reach more blocks than a straight line does. Ball-against-brick play of an older kind lives on in Arkanoid Flash.