Unfair Pong

Logo
Game in progress
Leaderboard
The in-game advertisement

Team Leader: Liam Hilton-Green

https://swamphacks-vii.slack.com/team/U01L49G7JMS

Inspiration

We were inspired by challenging Flash games of old, such as Cat Mario and Unfair Platformer. No game is more retro than Pong, so we decided to combine it with the soul-crushing difficulty of these Flash games!

What it does

Unfair Pong starts out like a regular game of Pong. However, it quickly becomes very difficult. Every so often, an event will trigger that will alter gameplay. These events range from easy to hard, across three difficulty levels. Events include, but are not limited to, swapping control between paddles and a fake advertisement that the player must click away.

Unfair Pong is like a permadeath roguelike! Once you miss a shot, it's game over! Your score is based on how long you survive.

How we built it

We decided to build Unfair Pong in React. Luckily for us, someone made an open-source Pong project in React, which we used as a starting point. From there, we made visual adjustments, added our game events, and implemented a high score database.

We used Firebase to host the game and store a database. The game is up and running for you to try out in the link below!

Challenges we ran into

Three out of our four team members had no prior experience with React, Node, or JavaScript. Learning these new technologies was taxing, but we managed to take advantage of them. Liam, our team leader, has past experience with them, and he guided us along the way. (P.S. - Thanks for that React workshop!)

We wanted to use the free domain from Domains.com, but Firebase had trouble verifying that we own it. The data is probably taking a while to propagate, so that is probably not something we can do this weekend.

Another challenge was that the open-source Pong code we used was outdated. Much of React has changed since its creation, so creating something using deprecated functions was difficult (it even confused the mentors!).

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Boing?

We are proud of accomplishing so much of the project this weekend, in spite of the challenges we faced. We were able to implement nearly everything we wanted to.

We are also proud of creating something that can thoroughly annoy the player!

What we learned

We learned how to use React/Node/JS, deploy with Firebase, purchase a domain name, and modify open-source code.

What's next for Unfair Pong

We would like to add many more events, such as changing the orientation to vertical, rotating the paddle upon bouncing, and spawning fixed paddles in the center of the screen.

We want to improve the visuals and graphics--perhaps making the game truly 3D (as an event).

Additionally, we would like to get the game hosted on the free domain we acquired, UnfairPong.space.

Built With

Submitted to

SwampHacks VII

Created by

Worked on setting up some of the elements that were incorporated into the final product. Worked with connecting the firebase database. Created the pixel art photo for our team. Added the boing sound effect for every time the ball bounces off a paddle.

Kane Hollingsworth
I worked a lot on the specific events, some of the displays for them, the difficulty, and the level structure itself. This was my first time really working with JavaScript, let alone React, and it was a challenging but fun experience!

Jarrod Carson
I was the team leader. I pitched the idea before mentors and sponsors at the SwampTank event. I integrated the game events, created the Ad Time event, and made the fake ad flyer in Photoshop. I set up Firebase and acquired a domain on Domains.com. I reached out to mentors for help while troubleshooting errors. I coordinated and edited the presentation video.

Liam Hilton-Green
I created the leaderboard and made it possible for players who scored high enough to leave their initials on the board for other players to see and compete against.

Trinity Stroud