Ping: A Pong clone

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A full screen Pong clone in your browser.Ping is a clone of the famous computer game 'Pong' created by Allan Alcorn for Atari in 1972. Although not the first computer game, Pong is generally regarded to be the first that was commercially successful. Pong itself is possibly a clone of an electronic tennis game created by Magnavox earlier that year (Nolan Bushnell, one of Atari's founders had seen a demonstration of that game before Pong was created and Atari later settled the resulting legal action with Magnavox out of court). What is beyond doubt is that Pong was the first video game to make its mark on popular culture and is still well known today even by those who (like me!) were born many years after its creation.

Ping is not identical to the original. The most significant differance is the action of the ball when it hits a bat. Allan Alcorn's version would vary it's angle depending on the part of the bat that it hit. This game varies it's angle based on the relative motion of the bat and the ball. This allows greater control over the aim resulting in, I hope, a more interesting game. Allan Alcorn could not have pursued this style of game play as in his version the speed of the bat was not variable (there was no mouse to use as a controller).

<Boring details for nerds> Ping does not use flash or the html5 canvas. Instead it is achieved purely through manipulation of the DOM using javascript. This is an experiment to inform the creation of a 'proper' game engine. In this game engine the HTML5 canvas will be used but only for specific effects within each DOM element (principally physics (e.g per-pixel friction) and lighting effects). The purpose of this approach is to allow the browser to take care of the things it does fastest (i.e. rendering) while still allowing the flexibility and low-level accessibility of the HTML5 canvas. Get in touch if you would like to know more: [email protected]</Boring details for nerds>