Space Pong

// How to play

Juego › Empezar starts a match: Jugador vs Jugador (left paddle ↑ ↓, right paddle W S), Jugador vs CP (you are the left paddle) or CP vs CP to watch. When the ball gets past a paddle the other side scores 10 points. There is no final score: play until you choose Parar (Ctrl+A). A ball that reaches the lower half of a paddle bounces downwards, otherwise upwards, and the more the paddles moved in the last rally, the faster the next one. Pausa (Ctrl+P) freezes the ball.

Opciones › Velocidad (F1) sets the timer intervals of the ball and of each paddle (1 is the fastest). Controles (F2): click one of the key numbers, press a key and Aceptar. On a touchscreen use the buttons under the window.

The v1.0 switch loads the first version: File › Start Game, then ↑ ↓ move your paddle one step per key press (hold the key down), or click the playfield to steer it with the mouse (click again to go back to the keyboard). Difficulty sets the speeds, and each goal is worth 1000 points.

// Revisited

Space Pong began as v1.0 in September 1999. V2# (2001, last rebuilt in 2003) added the two-player and CP vs CP modes, a computer player for the left paddle, speed sliders and key remapping. This page was rebuilt in HTML5 + JavaScript from the original Visual Basic 6 sources. V2# follows its 2003 project: Form1.frm and Module1.bas, plus the Personalizar and Controles dialogs (PrsF.frm and Cont.frm) from Joaquim's shared VB folder. v1.0 comes from its own 1999 project. The background, ball, paddles and icon are the original pictures from the forms. Ball and paddle moves, bounces, random speeds, scores and texts are ported line by line, quirks included: Pausa leaves the computer paddles moving, and the right-hand goal line sits further out than the left one.

Timing: a VB Timer only fires on the Windows clock tick, so its interval is rounded up to whole ticks. Every V2# timer is set to 1 ms, so on the Windows XP it was last built on it ran on the 15.625 ms tick (64 steps a second), and so does this port. v1.0 runs on the 55 ms tick of Windows 98, so Newbie's 300 ms computer paddle moves every 330 ms, as it did then.

The original sound effects came from Microsoft's 3D Pinball (Space Cadet). They have been replaced with similar CC0 sounds by Kenney (kenney.nl). Two bugs in the key remapping are fixed. Releasing a remapped player-1 key never stopped the paddle, because Form_KeyUp still checked the arrow keys. The Controles dialog also stored the typed character's code instead of the key's, so a lower-case letter turned into an F-key or numpad key. Your keys are kept in this browser instead of the Windows registry, and Salir and Exit take you back to the site. The only additions are the version switch, the touch buttons and a pause while the tab is hidden.