You Know You Want To Play Massively Multiplayer Pong
If only so you can say you did. Torus Pong is a radial multiplayer Pong that demands a chance.
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Torus Pong is not fair.
Because it isn't the well-heeled baby of some big corporation, it has issues. It has lag. And while lag, on its own, tends to be disruptive towards the gaming experience, it's especially aggravating in Torus Pong.
Imagine this: a dozen pixels bouncing haphazardly your way. Your paddle drags across the screen like treacle. You pull it frantically forward. You catch one pixel. The rest go flying away. It's an exercise in slow, controlled frustration. However, depending on your temperament, this added level of complexity could be just that: an additional layer of strategy. How do you account for both other players and the speed of your paddle? How do you achieve that perfect balance?
Philosophical thoughts aside, Torus Pong is a genuinely disorienting experience. At first, it feels a lot like regular Pong: you bounce balls between you and another person. However, as more people enter the game, the difficulty ramps up. Suddenly, you have to account for the mistakes you made a second ago. Then, you're going to have to worry about the mistakes (or triumphs) someone else endured. When that happens, Torus Pong turns into a monochromatic bullet hell of sorts. I'm still somewhat at a loss as to how exactly score is kept but it remains all sorts of indie, off-kilter cool. If you find yourself liking the game, you may want to throw in a vote too as it is, in fact, an entry in the Clojure Cup, an equally cool competition that will hand a ton of books, licenses and even a Leap Motion controller to the winner.