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Comment by apgwoz | Hacker News Reader

I've never "studied" "paddle dynamics" in these games, and when implementing pong, always just reflected, which doesn't provide good game play, but pong is always a "I'm trying out a different framework" type exercise.

Pong using where it hits to affect the angle never totally made sense to me. I assume the explanation is "the paddle is drawn as a rectangle, but is actually parabolic." Additionally, I've always wondered why I've never seen a pong where the paddles have acceleration to some maximum velocity, and if the paddle is not stationary, you get lateral spin, causing non-linear ball paths on the return hit.

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There's an old 3d pong game from the flash era where you put spin on the ball.

https://www.crazygames.com/game/curve-ball-3d

My god I forgot about this, and probably for the better. Too many hours wasted on it.

Thanks

Soooo satisfying, thanks for sharing. Now I also feel like writing my own version

You reminded me of one of the first Mac games I got as a kid: Shufflepuck Cafe, I don't think it had spin but the sideways speed of your mouse was imparted on the puck

Thanks for sharing! Perfect game until Level 6, died on level 7 with 21,150 points.

Oh yeah! I forgot about this one. Thanks for the link.

> Pong using where it hits to affect the angle never totally made sense to me. I assume the explanation is "the paddle is drawn as a rectangle, but is actually parabolic."

It doesn't have to be realistic, only fun. The justification (very much not an explanation) is that it is more fun if the player can affect the angle of the rebound by positioning the paddle.

It's also not realistic for Mario to change his jump's arc after he leaves the ground but the "rule of cool" holds in the Mushroom Kingdom, too.

>using where it hits to affect the angle never totally made sense to me

I believe different angles add complexity and fun.

Well yes, of course. The way the different angles are computed isn’t intuitive. If a ball bounces off a table, it doesn’t change direction from its normal reflected bounce just because it didn’t hit the center.

That’s why I’m suggesting there must be something that guides the idea that hit position changes the angle. If the paddle was actually parabolic, and just drawn as a rectangle, that’s an intuitive reason for the different reflective angles.

> That’s why I’m suggesting there must be something that guides the idea that hit position changes the angle.

Fun. The guiding principle for all games should be: is it fun?

The reason the position of impact determines the angle is because it’s more fun, Not because it’s realistic.

Realism is rarely fun.

It’s a game, not a physics simulation.

Edit:

Additionally, if you only implement perfect reflection and have a rectangular arena, then the only bounce angles that can occur are the initial ball angle A and 90 - A on the top and bottom sides. That’s not fun.

I believe the idea was to give the player more control with limited input signals.

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