[Prototype] Ponge

Stray_Train

In the Wits game dev course, we recently had a project where we had to "modify the classic game Pong in such a way that it subverts the use of competitive play".

This was my submission.

Now that it's submitted I can finally ask for feedback from the community :D
Your input is much appreciated!

Rigormortis

Hey man, it's cool that you posted this. I am now expecting every student's pong game(make it happen). :D Did you guys work in groups or individually? I think the idea of having non competitive pong is really cool. I also find it interesting that you didn't directly jump to co-operative pong(which is something I would have done for sure). Ok let's get to it.

I'll start with the things I enjoyed:

1)The music was awesome.
I'm a huge fan of the composition. Not that I know who wrote or anything(I think it's called the Blue Danube waltz right?). What was so cool for me about it was that it made me feel I was taking part in this ludicrous fight between two knights. Said knights have been in so many silly fights that it's become more like a dance than an actual fight. Your music choice told an entire narrative without saying a word! Good job. :)

2)The humor in the main menu's writing. I had to go read the instructions(a point I get to later) so I enjoyed the fact that there was some entertainment value in the menus.

Some stuff that I did not enjoy:

1)Not enough Don Quixote references
Too many missed opportunities here. :P

2)I didn't know when a fireball would disappear.
I had no idea when I could risk approaching a grounded fireball. So I couldn't plan out my moves at all. It felt like trying to cross the street but I could only cross when all the cars where gone. So I had to wait for an entirely clear street before I could cross, but by the time I could cross it the chicken already did it and I didn't feel like it anymore. I also couldn't quite figure out what the difference was (apart from looking fancy) between a fireball shooting up vs sinking down. Was there any difference?

3) It wasn't clear why I was dying.
The first round I played I thought that every ball I missed was making me lose life. I assumed that it worked on the same principals as pong. You miss, you lose. I had to go back to read the instructions to tell me why I was dying. In a game as simple as this you should try to not have any explicit instructions. Playing the game should clearly explain what is happening. It could be as simple as adding a fire sound effect when the player is being burned. Afterwards you can include instructions for the sake of completeness or for reference.(My opinion)

4)No variation in the cannon's firing sound.
Boom. Boom. Boom. BOOM boom. Boom.

5)The controls were too sensitive.
The controls felt too sensitive to execute on the movements I wanted to make. Most of the time I overshot my target by a lot which made me end up on a fireball. Which made me back off quickly and I ended up on a fireball behind me again. If the game is meant to be difficult that's fine, but it shouldn't feel like it's difficulty because I have a hard time controlling the paddle.

6) What is the black and red rectangle at the top of the tower?
I still don't know what the black and red rectangle thingy is. The first time I glanced at the top part of the tower my brain recognized it as an antenna and satellite dish. I'm guessing that it's supposed to be an abstract representation of your nemesis.

*Cue speculation* I think having 2 levels of detail is making it hard to understand what everything means in the game screen. I mean, the trees are OBVIOUSLY trees because I can see branches and leaves(sort of) and there is brushes and even rain. The clouds are also obviously clouds because they have those nice curvy shapes I used to draw a LOT in kindergarten. all those things are extremely detailed, and then there are red squares and black squares and grey ovals.

They are not things grounded in the world that the rest of the scene conveys, they are abstract shapes that I'm supposed to interpret instead of recognize. It makes it hard to quickly understand what they are and if/why they are relevant. If it was your intention to get other art for it and time just ran out then that's cool, but I would consider just removing it completely then, instead of having two different "languages" on the screen at the same time.

7)There is a lot of push, but no pull.
The fireballs that hit the ground make sure that the player doesn't want to cross over them, ie pushes the player away, but there is nothing pulling the player to actually want to cross the fireball. There are simple things you could change to get a pull in there. Different types of balls. Maybe letting the player be able to ram the tower when getting a certain pickup.

8)Too hard
I feel like the tower takes damage WAY too slowly and I take damage way too fast. Quickly crossing over a little bit of fire doesn't seem like it should be as damaging as being hit by a giant flaming ball of steel, and yet...it's the other way around in your game.

9)Font
The instructions are hard to read. Instead of making everything ye olde style text I would have preferred it to be headings in the ye olde style and the rest in a plainer format that I could quickly and easily process what was written.

Don't read this if you haven't played yet!

10)No win condition
Really...REALLY? I knew the game was hard but honestly? I am disappoint. :D (On reflection it seems like this might be a bug)

If you position the paddle just to the right hand side of the tree 3rd from the left, you can just sit there. Eventually the tower will reach zero hit points...or what looks to be zero, but then nothing happens. :P In fact, I left the game running as I typed this and haven't died for like 30 minutes at least. Tsk tsk. :P

I hope that you survived the long read to this point and that the feedback was helpful in some way. :) Good job on making this, I think if you change some things there is room to expand on this. I would love to see something like breaking through different layers of the castle and eventually reaching the inner keep to take out the king, in a sort of Karateka style "long fight".

Stray_Train

Thanks for the feedback :D

Did you guys work in groups or individually?

All our projects are individual for now.

I am now expecting every student's pong game(make it happen)

On it.

I think it's called the Blue Danube waltz right

Waltz of the flowers is the name you're looking for.

Not enough Don Quixote references

Had to look that up. Now thoroughly agree.

I had no idea when I could risk approaching a grounded fireball.

In retrospect this is something pretty obvious that I should have caught onto. I think killing off the particle effect before the ball sunk into the ground would have made it clearer.

I also couldn't quite figure out what the difference was (apart from looking fancy) between a fireball shooting up vs sinking down. Was there any difference?

No difference. It's a bug I left in for so long it became a feature.

It wasn't clear why I was dying.

This was a difficult problem for me. I decided to leave sound until the very end because of time constraints so I tried to figure out a way to communicate this to the player without using a burning sound effect. What happens in the game is the player sprite increasingly gets tinted red the more damage you take. My theory was that the player would see their avatar get tinted the longer they stood on top of a ball and make a link between that and their health decreasing. Too subtle :/

No variation in the cannon's firing sound.

Sorry about that! I put the sound in literally right before submitting. I'm going to include sound much earlier in the next game so it can improve along side the actual game. A side thought: would slightly lowering and raising the pitch of the cannon firing give the illusion of different cannon sounds? I'll experiment with this and report back.

The controls were too sensitive.

Another big issue I had. Every time I got someone to playtest I'd get feedback as either "too fast" or "too slow". The speed that you move in the game is the sweet spot I got from playtesters. I suspect that having some kind of acceleration would have helped remedy this, start slow -> accelerate to max speed but as soon as you let go of the button you stop dead. Missed opportunity alert :(

What is the black and red rectangle at the top of the tower?

My rendition of the bad guy, more on that next.

*Cue speculation* I think having 2 levels of detail is making it hard to understand what everything means in the game screen. I mean, the trees are OBVIOUSLY trees because I can see branches and leaves(sort of) and there is brushes and even rain. The clouds are also obviously clouds because they have those nice curvy shapes I used to draw a LOT in kindergarten. all those things are extremely detailed, and then there are red squares and black squares and grey ovals.

They are not things grounded in the world that the rest of the scene conveys, they are abstract shapes that I'm supposed to interpret instead of recognize. It makes it hard to quickly understand what they are and if/why they are relevant.

I agree completely. It was a time issue for me, I kept pushing back producing art because it took me so long and in the end just never managed to replace all of the placeholder art. Time management is a skill just as important as programming or drawing, something I want to improve as I gain more experience.

The fireballs that hit the ground make sure that the player doesn't want to cross over them, ie pushes the player away, but there is nothing pulling the player to actually want to cross the fireball. There are simple things you could change to get a pull in there. Different types of balls. Maybe letting the player be able to ram the tower when getting a certain pickup.

Genius :O

Too hard
I feel like the tower takes damage WAY too slowly and I take damage way too fast. Quickly crossing over a little bit of fire doesn't seem like it should be as damaging as being hit by a giant flaming ball of steel, and yet...it's the other way around in your game.

I agree. It was necessary in this case so that no one would discover the game's darkest secret: I didn't finish the victory animation in time

The instructions are hard to read. Instead of making everything ye olde style text I would have preferred it to be headings in the ye olde style and the rest in a plainer format that I could quickly and easily process what was written.

Noted!

No win condition
Really...REALLY? I knew the game was hard but honestly? I am disappoint. :D (On reflection it seems like this might be a bug)

If you position the paddle just to the right hand side of the tree 3rd from the left, you can just sit there. Eventually the tower will reach zero hit points...or what looks to be zero, but then nothing happens. :P In fact, I left the game running as I typed this and haven't died for like 30 minutes at least. Tsk tsk. :P
Inorite? My apologies! Something that WILL be a thing in the next game.

I would love to see something like breaking through different layers of the castle and eventually reaching the inner keep to take out the king, in a sort of Karateka style "long fight"

This was actually the original plan for the game! Time and scope came in somewhere towards the end and punched me in the throat :(

Thanks again for your feedback!