Ultimate Tennis Championship 2K22 by hajpappan

[raw]
made by hajpappan for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

After not finishing the last Ludum Dare I decided to go super minimalistic this time, and I think it worked out well. I kept the scope super tight, and had time to spend on some polish and tweaking the gameplay to a point where it is actually reasonably fun to play. I toyed with the idea of adding a global leaderboard, but I decided against it due to time constraints.

Enjoy this hyper realistic tennis simulator!

Ratings

Overall 917th 3.357⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 580th 3.476⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 917th 3.071⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 927th 3.452⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1234th 2.575⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1015th 2.353⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1302th 2.556⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 15🗳️ 19🗨️

Feedback

Fzsa_V
04. Apr 2022 · 19:14 UTC
A very simple twist to an old classic, very nice job! I'm not that patient so my best score was 19090. At certain times, I think I would have liked an ability for the ball to drop faster? However, I think everything "landed" perfectly. Glad to have you finish the game jam!
apaull0
05. Apr 2022 · 05:52 UTC
Great to hear that you finished this one! It took me a bit to get used to the physics, but it ended up being fun to play!
Constantine Pallas
05. Apr 2022 · 05:53 UTC
It's the opposite of PONG, if that makes sense. You play as the ball, with a very hyperbolic flappy bird type of controls. It's deceivingly difficult, because you need to time your jumps really well to not go soaring off at a 90 degree angle. It's quite fun though, and I think the particle effects are a nice touch. I couldn't shake the feeling that if I timed it perfectly, I could keep the ball on the bottom of one of the paddles. I could only keep that up for a couple seconds though.
Doctor_Zeus
05. Apr 2022 · 06:09 UTC
I really like how each click just modifies the balls vertical speed instead of replacing it. Leads to some very deceptive feeling "hops" when near neutral speed that turn into gigantic leaps with just one extra click. There was a kind of patience and planning ahead (figure out where your ball's going to have to be on the return trip, rather than just looking at the next one) that felt satisfying to execute for me.

I like those particles you put on the ball as it speeds up too, the sound effects are very satisfying and subtle stuff like the way the paddles shrink after the ball collides with it are all really nice touches. You mentioned your aim to keep scope small and how you got to put extra polish on as a result and I think the result was very nice.

The actual ability to get high scores feels a little arbitrary to me, though. With how the ball speeds up, I think all it takes is a low-high-low sort of pattern and you won't be able to make the return rally regardless of how quickly you try set up a plan be in the right spot at the right time - you just sail over the second low paddle because there's not enough time for gravity to do its work. If you get lucky and have paddle heights relatively close to one another then scoring higher is much easier/possible.

I don't know what sorts of restrictions are in place for paddle heights as the ball speeds up (if any) but maybe having some rule that increased horizontal speed limits the random range that the paddles can move to. Or maybe even more precisely, the bigger the different in heights after one paddle's random move, the smaller the difference has to be on the next random movement to try to make it unlikely players get an unwinnable pattern.

Could be that I wasn't really figuring out the best way to play, though. The highest I got was a 28980, but it really was just off of a very lucky series of middle-of-the-screen paddles.

Anyway, I had a fun time playing with the game and shooting for a high score. Nice work!
Blue Pin Studio
05. Apr 2022 · 07:48 UTC
Wow! This game is very difficult. I died perhaps 20 times before i had a single rally back and forth. Eventually it gets easier, but not by much. I like this submission, small scope but very compelling concept.
Eolin
05. Apr 2022 · 12:51 UTC
I find the game really difficult so didn't play long, but I like the idea a lot !
Gabriel Bissonnette
05. Apr 2022 · 18:36 UTC
I really like the idea of pong, but you're the ball! A bit hard to control at first but I had fun
ljol3
05. Apr 2022 · 20:14 UTC
making the top border a death zone makes it a lot harder to survive once you have a shift from a low paddle to a high paddle, but a fun yet simple experience!
Trebby
07. Apr 2022 · 13:59 UTC
super difficult, my high score was 3000 or so after 10 minutes, but a really unique and fun game regardless, nothing to complain about really
ditam
07. Apr 2022 · 14:06 UTC
Hahaha, that's undoubtably the worst control scheme I've ever seen for a pong game. Flappy Pong. Delightfully frustrating, well done!
LDJam user 236404
09. Apr 2022 · 19:06 UTC
The ball was extremely hard to control at first, but after a while I got the hang of it. I found out that clicking around 3 times per hit was the best strategy, at least for me. After I hit the score of about 10000 the ball became a bit harder to control, though the visual feedback was nice. I think you made the right decision to create a very small game and focus on polishing it. Good job!
AlgeBRUH
10. Apr 2022 · 10:07 UTC
Nice little game! At the beginning the ball so unpredictable but after a few tries I got used to it and the game turned out to be quite enjoyable.
LDJam user 279546
10. Apr 2022 · 13:05 UTC
This was great and unexpected! Good job! Being the ball is such a cool perspective and I thought it was well executed.
LDJam user 280755
10. Apr 2022 · 14:13 UTC
Hey, great little game! I read your description. Good job on keeping the scope narrowed. I know that's something a lot of people struggle with, and being able to focus and get past that hurdle is a good achievement. Congrats!
TempoSparkz
17. Apr 2022 · 19:19 UTC
the game is really fun i liked that the ball increased speed the more you hit the paddle (: