Pong

After regrouping from the holidays Ricky and I sat down and we discussed where this project should move to next. We looked back at our previous work to date and we decided to move forward with making the next game inspired by the popular arcade game 'Pong'. We were quite pleased with the outcome of the space invaders game, and our approach for this one was to remain the same.

Below are some examples of 'Pong' over the generations, to get a feel of what has been and what will be. Some are quite futuristic, with a modern touch such as altering the background, and often employing bold colours to attract the player.


Here the background is almost distracting from the game, however the circular patterns help to draw the player's eye towards the center of the screen. Does that affect gameplay? Another thing of interest here is the use of multiple players, with the addition of two blocks as 'P3' and 'P4'. As far as I am aware, the format has only ever been two player or player vs. computer, so this adds a nice layer to the gameplay.



Despite all these alterations, one thing remains clear. The game format itself has been left relatively unchanged, with the birdseye view layout, the position of the blocks and the general manner in which the game is played remaining a common aspect in all incarnations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong

Some of the basic research into the history of 'Pong' revealed some interesting facts. 'Pong' is not actually the first game of its kind, when infact a games console (released three years earlier) called 'Magnavox Odyssey' featured a similar concept. Info can be found at this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey

Also of note is the cultural impact 'Pong' has made over the years, being parodied in several tv shows such as 'King of the Hill', spawning hundreds of games using the same concept, and even being used in an advert for American Express featuring Andy Roddick.

There is something I picked up in this video that I found quite funny, which was the awareness of a 'flat' or two dimentional game being exploited in the three dimentional reality; hitting the ball below the block's hovering position. If there is enough time, we could exploit the birds eye view of the game and see how it would play out with different angles, though perhaps that may detract from the 'old school' vibe.