Get High.  Avoid Missing Ball.

What are the minimal and most impactful changes you can make to Pong to turn it into Dub Pong? What are the fundamental characteristics, tenets and inherent properties of Dub?  How can they be applied to the existing framework of Pong?

Making a Pong clone is most peoples first introduction to game design, whether as a voluntary endeavor or as a school project. It’s seen as a right of passage. Pong is to video game development what the bowl of fruit is to the Still Life. 

A straight Pong clone is exactly that, it mimics and reproduces all of the properties of the very basics game of Pong. ‘Pong, but X’ is Pong with the introduction of one or more factors such as  game mechanics and themes.

The application and effect of the altering factor can vary both in terms of how it affects gameplay or as a comment on the medium of video games themselves. A Pong clone is derivative by its very nature as it’s derived from Pong. In this sense Pong is a template to communicate an idea in a pre-existing and familiar framework.

There are over 1500 Pongs on itch.io but there is only one Dub Pong.

https://oliver-payne.itch.io/dub-pong