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Pong II: Legend of the Ball Paddlers's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Community Choice | #11 | 4.150 | 4.150 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
This is a great use of the theme- classic feature-creep sequelitis. The mechanics introduced to suit the trope were all a good fit, and goofiness aside it really does feel like an iteration on the design of Pong. Overall, there's definitely some fun to be had here. Short and sweet.
Liked:
+ Mechanics are varied and add to the Pong experience
+ Art, sfx and music are solidNeeds Work:
- Flesh out the story a bit
- Not even a "you win" screen at the endI noticed a few quirks while playing. You can "continue" if you've never started the game, which is a bit jarring. Additionally, it seems that enemies are defeated when their life drops below zero, rather than at zero- it's a bit strange to see them with a completely empty bar, still fighting.
The inclusion of a tutorial is nice. I would have appreciated at least a very brief breakdown of what each of my powers did, but I was able to figure them out. This game could have been stronger if it committed a little more to having characters and a story.
Elevator pitch
You know what Pong's missing? Absurd lore and RPG abilities.
Describe how your game adheres to the theme
It's Pong for today's youths! You know they're all into the animes and the nippons and
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Comments
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This is a really neat game, the idea of building on an old/established game is common with this theme, but this game meaningfully adds to Pong in a way that is satisfying, fun, and potentially believable as an evolution. The characters specials are varied and interesting and the enemies therefore feel different to play against which is a huge boon. The only things that are missing are a narrative to propel the action and explain the characters as well as an ending to round out the experience. The abruptness of the ending was a bit jarring and I instinctively tried to go back and see if I accidentally missed something. I also would have liked to have maybe unlocked the ability to play as the other characters after the game was beaten to play around with the different specials. The voice acting was really nicely done as well. Baller.
Hot dang, this is very professionally done! Nice job taking one of the oldest game concepts and spicing it up. The character portraits and customized moves really add a lot. I'd imagine if you could get it fairly balanced as multiplayer thing, you could have some good potential on your hands, though the Launch Ball ability would be a tough one to beat.
There's only the three opponents right now, yeah? The first time I played through, I was half paying attention after I beat the third one and was afraid I'd accidentally hit Quit when it sent me back to the title screen, so I ended up playing through it again to be sure. It ends a little abruptly right now, but at least what's there is really solid.
Super. The presentation is off the wall amazing, I love the little character special attacks and how the character portraits react to damage. I think the special attacks were a cool idea with some actual depth, I like the idea of throwing an electric bolt at the enemy to discourage them from returning the ball in the correct place. I didn't totally get how the C power worked beyond it would move the ball towards the enemy side of the screen randomly? Randomish?
Nice job overall.
Wonderful character art. I loved all the enemy special attacks. The one that made most of the screen dark was especially great as a special mechanic.
It took me a bit to figure out what some of my powers did, a little explanation might have been helpful there.
I wonder if you could explore other ways to charge the powers instead of cooldown timers. Perhaps deflecting the ball or scoring?
Great presentation, nice voice acting, nice character art, interesting ways to spice up pong. Only problem I would say, which is more personal, is that pong is really slow so I get pretty impatient but I would say that this is a really fun game!
This was fun.
The rebound ability was the most satisfying to use even if I'm still not 100% sure how it determined the angle to deflect the ball.
Great presentation and it adds just enough to add another level of depth to pong. I also love the characters and art and voice acting etc. Really fun game.