How to play Pong
Two paddles, one ball and a net down the middle. Hit the ball back past the other paddle and the point is yours; miss it and the point goes the other way.
The first to 7 wins the match. Play the computer on Easy, Normal or Hard, or two players on one keyboard, one on each side.
Rules
- Your paddle is the solid one on the left. Against the computer, its paddle is the hatched one on the right; with two players, player 2 has that one.
- Where the ball meets your paddle sets its angle. The middle sends it straight back, the edges send it off steeply, and a moving paddle adds a little spin in the way it is moving.
- Every return makes the ball faster, up to about two and a half times its serving speed. A new serve starts slow again.
- After each point the ball waits a moment on the centre line, then is served towards whoever lost the point. The arrow next to it shows which way.
- Against the computer, every point you win scores, winning the match adds a bonus for the win and the margin, and Normal and Hard double and triple everything.
- Only matches against the computer are scored and saved, win or lose. Two-player matches count points but aren’t saved. The game pauses when you switch tabs.
Controls
- ↑ ↓ / W S
- Move your paddle (against the computer)
- Mouse
- Move it over the court and your paddle follows
- Touch
- Drag anywhere on the court; ❚❚ under it pauses
- W S and ↑ ↓
- Two players: left paddle and right paddle; on a touch screen, each drags on their own half
- P / Esc / Space
- Pause
Tips
- Hit with the edge of your paddle. A steep ball makes the other paddle travel further, and the computer’s paddle is slower than yours.
- Get back to the middle after every return. Most balls can be reached from there.
- A perfect match pays 1,550 on Easy, 3,100 on Normal and 4,650 on Hard, so our Pro level of 4,000 means beating Hard.
Pong strategy
The angle is yours to choose
The angle of a return depends on where the ball meets your paddle, not on how it arrived. Dead centre sends it straight across; each end sends it off at 55 degrees, and anything in between is in proportion. A paddle moving as it hits adds 18 percent of its own speed to the ball’s up or down speed, so flicking towards an edge steepens the shot, up to 62 degrees.
Speed works against the computer
Every serve starts at the same speed, and each return makes the ball 6 percent faster, so after about 17 returns it is 2.6 times as fast and stays there. The computer only starts to move a set time after the ball turns towards it, 0.35 seconds on Easy, 0.26 on Normal and 0.2 on Hard, and it misjudges where to meet the ball by more as the ball gets faster. Long, fast rallies give it less time and less accuracy; your own reactions don’t have that delay built in.
How each level plays
Easy follows the ball’s height and doesn’t read bounces off the top and bottom walls, so a ball banked off a wall fools it. Normal and Hard work out where the ball will arrive, bounces included, and drift back to the middle between shots. Hard also hits with the edge of its paddle, sending the ball away from the side your paddle is on, so after you return, get back to the middle. Its paddle is the fastest of the three, but still about 40 percent slower than yours with the keys.
Where the points come from
Every point you win against the computer is worth 100, times 1, 2 or 3 for Easy, Normal or Hard, win or lose. Winning the match adds 500 plus 50 for each point of your margin, times the same. A 7–5 win on Normal pays 2,600, just over the Expert level; on Hard the same result pays 3,900, and the Pro level of 4,000 takes a 7–4 or better.
About Pong
Atari released Pong in November 1972. Nolan Bushnell gave the game to a new engineer, Allan Alcorn, as a warm-up exercise after seeing the table tennis game on the Magnavox Odyssey. Alcorn split each paddle into segments that send the ball off at different angles and made the ball speed up during long rallies, and Pong became the first hit video game.
This version keeps the net, the big score digits and the speeding ball, and adds a computer opponent at three levels and spin from a moving paddle. Matches run to 7 instead of 11 to fit a coffee break, and two people can still share one keyboard.
Questions
Is this the original Atari Pong?
No. It’s a remake written for this site, based on the 1972 arcade game. It runs free in the browser, with nothing to install.
Can two people play Pong on one computer?
Yes. Choose 2 players: the left player uses W and S, the right player the ↑ and ↓ arrow keys. On a phone or tablet each player drags on their own half of the court. Two-player matches aren’t saved.
How do I beat the computer?
Hit the ball with the edges of your paddle to send it off at steep angles, and keep rallies going: the ball speeds up with every return, and the computer reacts late and misjudges fast balls more. Its paddle can’t move as fast as yours.
How is the score calculated?
Each point you win against the computer is worth 100. Winning the match adds 500 plus 50 for every point of your margin. Normal doubles all of it and Hard triples it. The Expert level is 2,500 and the Pro level 4,000.
