PongPD

In 1971, Allan Alcorn was assigned the task of creating a game by Nolan Bushnell, a co-founder of Atari, and he made Pong. Surprised by the quality of the game, Nolan and Ted Dabney, another co-founder of Atari, decided to manufacture it, making it one of the very first arcade video games. Pong was the first commercially successful video game. Released in 1972, it established the video game industry, all based on a simple game of ping-pong.

PongPD is a love letter to the game that started it all. A great deal of effort has gone into meticulously and faithfully porting as much of the original gameplay to the Playdate handheld console. A list of these changes can be found at the bottom of this description. The game is free because being able to play a staple of gaming history is priceless, and I cannot sell what does not belong to me.

I sincerely hope you enjoy playing PongPD as much as I enjoyed creating it. It has always been a dream to make games, and having been afforded the time to do so, I'm lucky to have had the opportunity to bring a classic to the modern era. If you enjoy my work, please consider donating so I can continue doing what I love. If you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments below, and I'll do my best to address it.

The sounds and sprite sheets I created for this game will be made available in a free asset pack I'll upload after addressing any pressing launch issues.

Accessibility:

• This game can be played flipped by using the Playdates built in flip accessibility feature, and will update the controls accordingly.
• This game also supports reduced flashing in the Playdate accessibility settings which will disable the CRT TV turning on effect that occurs on game start and reset.

Changes:

• A single-player mode was added, the playdate is primarily a single-player game console so being able to play the game by yourself was of great importance.
• The game is played within the playdates 5:3 aspect ratio screen instead of a 1:1 original arcade screen for better visual clarity and to make better use of the dead space.
• The ball has been slightly slowed down to prevent quickly spiralling into a loss due to the smaller screen size.
• Measures have been put in place to prevent serves being sent directly into the paddles blind spots at the top and bottom of the screen.