Pong?

The random key binds game mode changes the key bind to move for whoever loses the point.
The charging paddles game mode changes the way the rackets move by requiring the player to hold down 'w' to match the height of the ball.

Inspiration

Inspired by the CSSS Rube Goldberg Challenge and the passion for video games, the idea of over-engineering the simplest video game came to mind.

What it does

Simple game of pong! But with challenging twists that make the game much more difficult than it needs to be. Gimmicks such as swapping the axis the paddle lies on, randomly changing player key binds, and even a perfectly unnecessary but necessary perfect parry system just to make the player think more than just moving up and down to receive the ball.

How we built it

The structure and gimmicks of the game were laid out on Figma. We then collaborated as a team using the live share feature from Visual Studio Code.

Challenges we ran into

_Game Development Challenges Finding a solution to seamlessly change between different game modes/gimmick without effecting all the object's position and commands.

Teamwork Challenges After creating the original base game, we each handled a gimmick to modify into the game, raising the difficulty of combining each other's code into a main game file (making our codes compatible with each others)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Being able to create such an overcomplicated version of Pong is something that we are proud of accomplishing in just 24 hours, especially with all the errors and frustration that got in the way.

What we learned

An important step that we overlooked was the planning of how our systems would work before starting to code, which made our process slightly disorganized. Planning ahead is something we'll consider next time we participate in a project like this. Something else we had not considered was the compatibility of our code after working on sections separately which made everything confusing to put together in the final product. Definitely something we learned to keep in mind when programming with others.

What's next for Pong?

Making it more involved with the hardware and players themselves was a goal not met due to time constraints, but are something we definitely could be challenged with next time. Using the cameras on the devices to be able to do things like motion tracking or quicktime prompted events are something that would elevate the experience of this over engineered pong. Employing other device orientated events, such as captchas to solve or tiny minigames inside the game would have also been ideas we wished we could have implemented given more time. When it comes to the simplest game, there is always more to include to make it that much unnecessarily complicated, yet exciting!