Innocuous Pong by MachWerx

[raw]
made by MachWerx for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

It's a totally innocuous single player version of Pong! See if you can get to a score of 15 to see the ultimate level. Use your mouse to control. If you're playing the web version, click inside the window to get the mouse cursor to lock. (Otherwise your paddle will get stuck when you reach the edge of your desktop.)

InnocuousPongLevel1.png

Spoiler Video

Scroll down to play the game on PC, Mac, or web. Or check out a video for the full game (includes footage for the ultimate level at score 15):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PbjETBAbOM

Ratings

Overall 204th 3.79⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 102th 3.903⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 45th 4.129⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 942th 3.032⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 267th 3.79⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Audio 207th 3.581⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Humor 569th 2.654⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 196th 3.65⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 7🗨️

Feedback

captainlazer1
20. Apr 2020 · 03:34 UTC
I really love this game. Sometimes my mouse would slip off the game area and it would stop responding and id lose. But it was still fun!
igizzy
20. Apr 2020 · 03:34 UTC
WOOO that camera angle on the Ultimate Level........My mind couldn't process the space quickly enough haha Very very cool stuff!
ishmandoo
20. Apr 2020 · 03:37 UTC
Great idea and really well done! Love the visual style too.

The controls are a little tough sometimes. My mouse works its way out of the play area.
NotAJumbleOfNumbers
20. Apr 2020 · 04:09 UTC
I...uh...couldn't get a score of 15 to see the ultimate level. Yeah....

Update: I got to 15. Kinda wished there was more to it.
Houdou
20. Apr 2020 · 04:51 UTC
What I thought when playing
Before 15:
Okay, a good looking pong with tricky control.
After 15:
What the f**k ? :rofl:

I'm so surprised by the "ultimate level", good work!

P.S.
I know it's hard, anyone wanna push it to the next dimension? Yes, I mean the 4D pong :joy:
stephan steinbach
20. Apr 2020 · 23:17 UTC
Nice, love the effects and the progression.
Brian Teng
21. Apr 2020 · 02:26 UTC
Maybe it's just my computer coughing up but the framerate drops made the game a bit hard to play. But I love how you handled the core gameplay and progression!

Thank you for your work! See you in a bit.
SolitudeDude
21. Apr 2020 · 02:28 UTC
Was not expecting the 3D pong transition! Really great surprise. Very addicting. Only had an issue with the web version since it would hide the mouse. The mouse would collide with the top of my monitor, preventing me from moving the paddles any further in that direction. I just downloaded the windows version and had no problems there. Great game!
21. Apr 2020 · 02:33 UTC
This was very fun, I was able to make it to 19
Nick Barrash
21. Apr 2020 · 02:35 UTC
holy shit, brilliant concept, well done :clap: :clap: :clap:
thedashdude
21. Apr 2020 · 03:15 UTC
Brilliant concept. I really loved it. A few major issues for me, though. The controls are pretty weak, as the mouse isn't locked in place, so it obstructs the view of the game and gets stuck on the window. I missed a couple balls just because I couldn't move my mouse far enough. Secondly, the collision detection wasn't perfect. There were a few times where the ball just phased right through my paddles, particularly corners. Loved all the different stages, I wish there were more.
mudlee
22. Apr 2020 · 17:09 UTC
I must 100% agree with @thedashdude, I experienced the exact same thing. Despite those, the graphics, the sound and the idea is awesome!
ruiznick
25. Apr 2020 · 19:23 UTC
the sensitivity and hit boxes :sob:
🎤 MachWerx
25. Apr 2020 · 22:34 UTC
Thanks everyone for the comments. I've released a new version with the following fixes:

* Cursor is locked so the paddle won't get stuck part-way to the edge.
* More stable collisions.
* The paddle speed has been slowed down so it's not crazy on the web.
* The score displays 0 at the beginning instead of the placeholder 99.
Lukvasando
25. Apr 2020 · 23:53 UTC
When I reached score 13 I was like whoah (I think that was the stage in which 2D view becomes 3D). I would have never expected that :smile:! The worst part was when the ball went towards the point of the square, it's too difficult to save it in that situation. But nonetheless, I would say this is a great game :thumbsup: !
Norris Eldridge
26. Apr 2020 · 02:25 UTC
I think the concept for this one is great, really unique. The controls unfortunately didn't quite work out for me. I often found my mouse getting stuck at the top of the screen and then prevented me from reaching the ball. It's a bummer that the controls ended up costing me a bit of my enjoyment and ended up shortening how long I was willing to play the game. I think this game could be really great though with some more time to polish it up and really nail the controls. Also I think picking up the pace would have made it a bit more enjoyable too. Perhaps it got faster later on in the game and I just didn't get to that point.
🎤 MachWerx
26. Apr 2020 · 02:35 UTC
@norris-eldridge Oh, the mouse should lock to prevent that from happening. Did you play the WebGL version? You might have to click once in the screen to get that to happen. If you get the mouse to lock, then try to get a score of 15 to see the surprise level. In any case, thanks for trying it out!
Norris Eldridge
26. Apr 2020 · 02:39 UTC
Hey @machwerx yup, playing the WebGL version. I tried a couple of times to get the mouse focused in the game but didn't manage to get it to work. I'll give it another go and see if I can get it working though so I can at least get to 15!
Norris Eldridge
26. Apr 2020 · 02:45 UTC
Alright @machwerx you are absolutely right, getting to 15 is worth it lol Also, apparently I needed to click a couple of times to get it properly maximized and focused. Thanks for the prompt to give your game another shot!
matthewi
26. Apr 2020 · 03:00 UTC
Got to 23! I love the concept of this, especially the 3D! Sometimes when the mode would switch I would lose because suddenly my paddle was all the way on the other side. Aside from that and the mouse issues, it was super fun to play.
meelo
26. Apr 2020 · 03:18 UTC
Hm, I dunno. This is just an innocuous game of pong. Pretty boring...

Oh wait! No - this was so fun to play, definitely the most fun I've had in any game I've rated! The music is wonderful and bubbly - though a longer loop would be appreciated - and the idea is really clever. There were definitely some times where it felt like losing was unfair - particularly around the 6 transition (where sometimes my paddle would teleport at a very inconvenient time) or the 12 (where sometimes the ball would head straight for a corner - and it was hard to know which paddle to bring over, and even if that went well, the ball would just fly off before I could move my mouse all the way across the screen - you could possibly get the same effect by having the paddles move along arcs of a circle instead of sides of a square to avoid these discontinuities). I only managed to get to 19 (I might come back again and try to get to 20 later) - the 3D was so hard, especially if, like for the 12 transition, the ball headed towards an edge or corner - it might be more fun if the physics cheated a bit for the 3D to not cause collisions in too rapid succession. I also wonder whether keyboard controls might suit the game better - especially if 3D things are going to come into play - it might open up more possibilities of control schemes that make the player feel like they are definitely in control of what's happening. In any case, very well done.
picross
26. Apr 2020 · 03:37 UTC
Cool game! I liked all the ideas you had going on, but I could only get to around 20 or so. I wish there was some sort of indication when it was going to switch, and that there was a little slowdown or something in between phases to prepare you for what is about to happen. I felt like there was a lot of times where I felt like I didn't have enough time to react to the environment changing. Seriously nice work here!
Goutye
26. Apr 2020 · 07:18 UTC
17 points! Which is already a big achievement I think :v: From 15 and on, it's starting to be crazy hard to understand where the ball is going to go. It was a lot of fun and originality! Thank you and well done :smile:
Happy Fish Gaming Co
26. Apr 2020 · 07:31 UTC
The mouse controls were weird, but other than that, this was a really good game! I loved the 3D levels!
Fabrizio Spadaro
26. Apr 2020 · 07:56 UTC
Oh wow, that's a great take on pong, the graphic is simple and well blended with post processing effects, really fun to play and great difficulty scale!
I got to 18 and lost, that transition was NEAT!
Frozen Spirit
26. Apr 2020 · 09:11 UTC
The game idea is super cool! The main major issue I had was the the mouse would be blocked of by the edge of the screen and the paddle would stop responding.
🎤 MachWerx
26. Apr 2020 · 16:26 UTC
@frozen-spirit If you were playing the web version, sometimes you have to click a couple times in the window to get the mouse to lock. But thanks for trying the game!
bitdecay
27. Apr 2020 · 00:55 UTC
A cool and unique take on the pong formula. I was able to hit 21 points after a handful of tries. That last one definitely is a bit of a mind-racker. Clean, and I like the sort of vector-graphic glow on everything. I had some issues at first with the responsiveness of the mouse input, but it seemed to go away after the first try. Nice job!
kevinworkman
27. Apr 2020 · 01:27 UTC
This was a unique take on an old classic. I felt like levels 11-13 were a bit unfair (especially the one where the top and bottom moved really slowly), but I finally got through them and made it to 18 points. The switch to 3D was unexpected, in a good way. All in all this was a solid entry, nice work!
Vladadamm
27. Apr 2020 · 02:16 UTC
That might be the most unique variant of pong i've played. I like how the complexity in both controls and design increases with each stage of the game. Game feels very polished visually at both the simple 2d and the 3d at the end, the music is good.
There's some problems 'by design' in the 4 paddles stages where if the ball goes to a corner to see which side it would hit first + to make the switch to replace the 2nd paddle for the corner after it has hit the 1st.
Matt Lowe
02. May 2020 · 22:21 UTC
Love this idea! The 3D levels were very creative (and hard).