node.js ko
Pöng
Pöng
by Public Class
Pöng is an umlauted take on the classic game Pong with a multiplayer circular twist.
Behind the scenes time-lapse of our 48hours
Judging Instructions
Enter your name to join the fun! Score by hitting the other players colorful slices or by keeping your own slice of the Pöng safe from intruding balls.
We seem to have some issues with the ball getting stuck in a straight bounce (damn you Pythagoras and your 90˙ angles!). A restart will fix this but it happens once in a while because the paddles does not ‘spin’ the ball enough. If it’s get stuck drop us a line on Twitter.
Tested on: Chrome (only tested in dev, but probably works better in stable), Firefox 6 & Safari 5.1
Who
slaskis — Stockholm, Sweden
stonebranch — Stockholm, Sweden
deluxeroyale — Stockholm
How
Uses Express (with the Express-Expose addon), Socket.IO, Redis, Pen & Paper and anything unhealthy.
Hosted on Linode
Votes
Your Vote
Voting is now closed.
Other Votes
(42)
nathos
contestant
janljudgeNice job!
- contestant
Thanks!
mapejudgeLove the design and the overall concept. The UI feels smooth and intuitive.
The big thing missing is the ability to skew/spin the ball based on my paddle movement/position. Right now in a multiplayer player game you just have to find the right position once and after that you have no reason to move it.
So with with some minor alterations this could be a really great game.
- contestant
Thanks Mape! too bad you didn’t have an entry this year. I fully agree, we feel this game has a lot of potential and hopefully we’ll give ourselves some time to do those minor alterations post-knockout.
maraksquiresjudgeInteresting concept, but without friction ( see: spin ) or SFX, there isn’t much gameplay.
I did like the aesthetics of the design, I thought that part of the application was put together well.
- contestant
We actually got sound effects made, I would’ve been awesome if we got those suckers in there, unfortunately 48 hours was not enough for all of our plans and ideas. And spin logic is in there (believe it or not) but I think we screwed it up in the last hour (DOH!)…
sh1mmerjudgeI really really want to like this a lot. However because the paddles don’t bounce the ball at an angle it gets boring really quick.
Because of this I marked you down on utility/fun and completeness. If you fixed that you would have a really solid game.
You were really close but the physics didn’t quite make it here. Great job on all other aspects though.
- contestant
Appreciate your vote, it feels very much like I’d vote for it. Although I’d give it even less in completeness though as my vision of it was far greater than we had time for. But we’ll try to spend a few more hours on it and get those tweaks done (even though it won’t win us any prices)!
elizabethchajudgeNice, sleek look and interesting idea to put the game inside a circle. I didn’t understand the point of the game. On one hand, it seemed easy to hit the ball back, but on the other, there wasn’t really much you could do to make the ball move faster, do tricks, etc. (I tried moving my part of the circle really quickly, trying to hit the ball on the side of the circle, etc.) Thus, I rated lower on completeness because it didn’t feel like an entire game.
- contestant
You’re right, it’s not an entire game. It’s a game made in 48 hours in the hope of that the simple idea would give us time to handle such tweaks. But you know what? Network gaming is hard! Especially when it’s not a skill we possess since before…but you have to agree it’s pretty! Thanks for voting!
geradjudgeCool intro. Interesting idea, a somewhat novel take on pong, so a star more for innovation than I’d typically give it. Not in love with using the mouse for controlling it rather than arrow keys (took a second to figure out). Wayyyy too easy with two players to be fun. :–( I basically didn’t have to move. The paddle was almost the same size as the entire area. Also, somewhat low marks for completeness, because it felt like it was missing something, maybe the ability to spin the ball? Or breakout style power-ups?
- contestant
Yeah, power-ups and ball spinning were both on our list of things todo (and more!) that we never had time to implement unfortunately. Also tweaking the sizes of paddles and speed of the ball are such easy things that we’re beating ourselves up for not taking care of… “Just one more hour” is the slogan of Node Knockout I believe…
sonnyg95
contestantExperienced problem with ball following a straight line. Good design and intuitive interface.
pthurlow
contestantSeriously cool design, and an interesting take on massively multiplayer pong. Not much staying power though, which alas might be the fault of pong
mendelcjudgeWell designed and neat concept. It did get kinda boring after awhile, but didn’t get to play multiplayer.
johncmyk
contestantGreat entry! Loving the style and execution.
therazorbladejudgeGreat idea and very pretty execution. The game gets boring pretty fast. Need to add stuff in the middle to make it less predictable.
davidplusplus
contestantCool idea, executed well with a creative design, well done.
kselden
contestantI really liked the simple modern design, it’s very cool. The circular concept would have been great fun if the paddles had more friction and gave the ball spin but the gameplay felt a little flat when the ball just bounced directly back and forth. You should give box2dweb a try if you continue to polish this beyond the competition. I had some random disconnects during play on a wired broadband connection, otherwise it felt very complete.
ryanza
contestantLove the idea of this game!
sly010
contestantNice concept! I don’t know if the static ball movement was intentional but it gave me a great fun!
dylang
contestantNice twist on an old game.
milani
contestantkreichgauer
contestantFun to play and slick design. The path of the ball could need some variations.
azlen
contestanteirikurn
contestantVery smooth visual design. Lag sometimes looks weird. But I agree with some of the others, it would have needed some strategy in paddle positioning to be competitive. Maybe it would work better with a cornered shape (triangle, rectangle, *agon)?
mattsoldojudgeAmazing design – this game looks great. And the multiplayer aspect is cool.
The ball tends to get bounced back in the direction that it came from – making for a pretty easy game. Changing it up, with either spin, or maybe a contoured center surface would make the game more challenging & fun.
Also, the transition when another player leaves is abrupt – it would be great to make it more smooth.
ssorokajudgegameplay is a little too simplistic. there’s no strategy since the ball nearly always goes to the same place. On the plus side, it looks great.
astro
contestantNicely executed. ♥ single player mode. Any bonus?
jamesaduncanjudge
rmurpheyjudgeelectronicwhisper
contestantBeautiful graphics and I love the circle concept.
Hard to tell which paddle I’m controlling, wish it were glowing or a consistent color or something.
The ball doesn’t bounce with enough unpredictability or hard angles. It just bounces back and forth, which kills playability.
patmeenanjudgeI like the concept but the use of a circle with paddles that match the arc of the circle results in bounces that are way to predictable and consistent. Using paddles with a reverse arc (center outside of the circle) would make it a lot more fun and challenging (and add an actual skill level to the game)
pascalh1011
contestantReally a fantastic idea and brilliant mechanism for the playing field, albeit a bit let down by the physics and net code. Just a few little fixes and it could be awesome!
b00giZmjudgeAn interesting take and well designed variant of the classic PONG game. I like the idea of the circular playing field. It’s a great solution for new players to join a running game.
Now for the bad parts: The ball’s physics are really poor. It does not accelerate and only barely changes its angle after hitting a paddle. That’s not really challenging and made me quit the game after a short time. Bummer :(
jimfleming
contestantCool idea and looks good. If the ball could change speed and react to friction its entertainment value could go way up.
juliogreff
contestantLoved the concept, I’m a fan of pong myself. But as other people said, the ball doesn’t deviate from a path and doesn’t speed up. I really think you guys should build more on this :)
joaomilho
contestantThe design is amazing, but I had not much fun in fact. Looks really complete and it’s as innovative as a new take on pong could possibly be.
foxxtrotjudgeReally interesting take on Pong, especially when you start getting multiple players in. Unfortunately, the ball seems have no entropy in it’s bouncing, resulting in the ball always hitting the same two spots on the circle (or very nearly), which hurts the strong potential for fun in this game.
mjunqueira
contestantI felt a little of difficulty to play, but i really liked. Congrats
ncb000gt
contestantlinus
contestantmartinciu
contestantchapel
contestantI had a friend who wanted to make this game, almost exactly, years ago. He never made it, but I am glad you guys did.
My only complaint is that it doesn’t speed up the ball and that when I first played the ball got stuck on a set path and wouldn’t deviate from it. I ended up with a high score of 122 without moving my mouse!
Love the concept & first-run experience.
There was noticeable lag right before every paddle hit in Safari, which made playing the game slightly less fun :(