(A Processing game)
Check out the world of Pong Quest. Heres the trailer#pong #pongquest. Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required) or Mac OS X 10, 3 GB RAM, graphics card equivalent to ATI Radeon 5570 or NVIDIA GeForce 430 GT with 1 GB memory, approx. 1,5 GB HDD space. We also highly recommend to use a gamepad (Xbox 360/One Controller or PS 3/4 Controller) to play NIVA. Embark upon an epic adventure in PONG Quest as you take on the challenge for King and country in a journey across numerous themed dungeons populated with all manner of paddles, puzzles and balls.
We are making a new edition of this game: Black Hole Master.
This game is a light-hearted remake of the old classic, except with a cosmic twist!The original game of Ponginvolved each player controlling a paddle which they woulduse to bounce a ball back to their opponent, in the hope they would miss. Each timethe ball touched the opponent's side of the screen, the player would win a point.
Inthis remake, each player now controls a black hole! The objective; to position theirblack hole on their side of the screen and utilise its gravitational potential tofling an approaching star back. Whoever lets a star slip past loses!
If you want to know more about how we are using large laser interferometers to look forastronomical signals from black holes, have a look at our Ebook ongraviatational wave detection!
This program is provided as a stand-alone application (not as an applet that runsin a browser). To run this application please download the appropriate file, unzip it andstart the executable in the BlackHolePong folder. You must have a 32bit version of Java installedfor the application to work. The game has been tested only on Mac OS 10.5, 10.6and Windows XP. A Linux version might be added later.
- BlackHolePong_OSX.zip: binary for Mac OS (23 MB)
- BlackHolePong_Windows.zip: binary for Windows (22 MB)
The video below shows a short trailer of the game. For more games, see also ourSpace Time Quest.
When you have played the game we would like to get some feedback from you. Maybe youcan spend 2 minutes to answer this very short questionnaire? Thanks a lot!
Unlike the original Pong where each player was limited to moving their paddle in one dimension,each player can now position their black hole anywhere on their side of the screen.Each black hole has a truncated inverse square law force, allowing the player toinfluence the trajectory of an incoming star and (hopefully) sling-shot it back towardstheir opponent. A player scores a goal whenever the star escapes through the back of theiropponent's side of the screen. After eachgoal the game resets and a new star appears in the middle of the screen.
Pong Quest (itch) Mac Os Catalina
ControlsThe game is for two players only, in other words, you cannot play against the computer(yet).Each player can control the position of his/her black hole within his/her side of thescreen. The range of the gravitational force of each black hole can be increasedtemporarily (by pressing the correct button). At a later stage in the game each playerwill be equipped with three 'worm holes'; these exhibit completly fictionalbehaviour, but should be fun. Try them out!
To control the black hole you can use Xbox controllers connectedby USB, a normal mouse (in the Mac OS version) or the keyboard:
Xbox controller:- the left hand stick controls the position of the black hole
- the upper left button increases the range of the gravitational potential
- hold down the right hand shoulder button for a while to initiate a worm hole
- the mouse position controls the position of the black hole
- the left button increases the range of the gravitational potential
- press the right button for a while to initiate a worm hole
- one player uses the arrow keys to move the black hole, ENTER for increasingthe gravitational range and BACKSPACE to activate the worm hole
- the second player uses A,S,D and W to move the black hole, TAB for increasingthe gravitational range and '1' to activate the worm hole
The boundaries of the screen which do not act as goals have an infinite potentialwall along with a small damping factor. This contains the star in the screen (aswith the original game of Pong) but also decreases the speed of the star by a smallfraction each time it bounces off a wall, ensuring the game does not get too out ofhand!
Unlike the original which utilises the intuitive nature of elastic collisionsbetween a ball and paddle, this game requires understanding of how gravitationalpotentials behave. Each black hole has an attractive force on the star which decayswith seperation distance according to an inverse square law. This is similar to how astar would be affected, at a distance, by the gravitational field of an object muchmore massive than itself.The game helps people to understand the concepts of orbital mechanics; in order tofling a star back, try to position the black hole so that the star passes just offcentre. The closer the star and black hole pass each other, the stronger the forceand the greater the deflection. If the distance of closest approach is increasedthe deflection will appear more and more gentle until hardly noticeable. These areall examples of stars with escape velocities, producing hyperbolic orbits.It is also possible to capture stars by approaching them from behind. This causes the starto decelerate to the point at which it is travelling below escape velocity, entering a bound, elliptical,orbit around the black hole. Timing is essential when removing the black hole from the orbit oryou may just hurl the star towards your goal!
One may also notice a distortion of the background image around the black holes,this is actually a realistic phenomenon called Gravitational Lensing! The intensestrength of the gravitational field of a black hole is sufficient to bend light aroundit, in a similar manner to a lens. This allows an observer to view what is behind ablack hole as it appears as a strectched image around its edge!
The game has been a great success during the exhibitionLooking for Black Holes with Lasersat British Science Festival in Birmingham, see some example photos below.
Pong Quest (itch) Mac Os 11
The game was started during my summer project at theGravitational Wave Group Birmingham, UK and then completed later by Andreas Freise.See also our other Processing examples.