Plasma Pong

Plasma Pong is an indie video game created by American developer Steve Taylor. In 2007, the game was put on hiatus in 2007 ("Cease and desist")[1] to respect Atari's Pong trademark.[2]

Plasma Pong
Developer(s)Steve Taylor
Platform(s)Mac OS X, Windows
ReleaseApril 20, 2007
Genre(s)Pong
Mode(s)singleplayer, multiplayer

Gameplay

Plasma Pong is a clone of Pong, in which two players control a paddle each, at either side of the screen, volleying a ball between them. The environment is a fluid-like plasma which can be pushed and sucked with the paddles.[3]

There are three game modes in Plasma Pong. In single player, the player combats a progressively smarter AI in a fluid environment where the fluid moves faster and faster, affecting the ball more and more. Multiplayer is little different, with two players typically sharing a single keyboard to play against each other. The sandbox mode, however, gives the player near total access to color, particle, and fluid motion effects, allowing them to simply play around with the game's fluid dynamics engine and see what interesting motions they can create.

Reception

Wired News considered Plasma Pong to be one of the best indie games of 2007. They highlighted the complex but manageable gameplay and beautiful graphics, but criticized the occasionally unpredictable ball control.[4]

The Washington Post made a long article about Plasma Pong in June 2007.[5]

Later, a HTML5 remake was made by another author.[6][7][8]

gollark: ... LTech?
gollark: It's actually great how well the memeplexes which convince people that they executed a really effective plan to counteract GTech™ work. Unsurprisingly, as they were designed by 198461284112615618956178561785186125 bee neurons.
gollark: I mean, I launched an IRC→orbital scanner log bridge last year.
gollark: I think *everyone* has access to those by now, really.
gollark: Wiping my memory would require wiping my memory, but you can't actually wipe my memory.

References
  1. plasmapong.com "Pong is a registered trademark of Atari Interactive Inc. To respect this trademark, Plasma Pong will be down until further notice. Fear not! The author is working on a new project that will trump Plasma Pong in awesomeness! Stay tuned." (August 2007)
  2. Road_To_The_IGF_Stephen_Taylor_Plasma_Pong on Gamasutra
  3. Stefan Werning (July 2015). Real Wars on Virtual Battlefields: The Convergence of Programmable Media at the Military-Civilian Margin. transcript Verlag. pp. 80–. ISBN 978-3-8394-1240-4.
  4. Thompson, Clive (2007-02-26). "Best Indie Games 2007". Wired News. Condé Nast Digital. Retrieved 2009-12-04. In essence, Taylor realized that in reskinning Pong, one could revamp not merely the paddles -- but the negative space in the game.
  5. GMU Student's 'Pong' Makeover Is, Like, Wild on The Washington Post by Susan Kinzie (June 19, 2007)
  6. pong-gets-a-physics-boost-by-way-of-html5 on Ars Technica (2012/09)
  7. plasma-pong on macintoshgarden
  8. fluid_table_tennis on github.com

Official website (archived in 2007)


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