Video game developers have long held a fascination with virtual tennis. All the way back in 1958, a game called Tennis for Two became one of the first documented video game prototypes. Fourteen years later, a similar game called Tennis debuted on the Magnavox Odyssey and made its way to American living rooms.
This unlikely relationship between electronic entertainment and digital sportsmanship culminated in the 1975 home version of Pong, one of the first commercially successful home video games.
More recent hits in the ball-meets-paddle genre range from big-budget forays like 2006’s Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis to more eccentric indie titles like last year’s Toasterball. But a new game out on Steam, called qomp, might be the first to consider that playing as the table tennis ball rather than the paddle could make for a novel gameplay experience.
The developer of qomp is best known online as Stuffed Wombat. He describes the project as a “small game about freedom.” Although qomp uses aesthetics and iconography that will be familiar to Pong players, it’s actually more of a platforming game. Starting at the moment the table tennis ball races past the paddle, this short game takes anywhere from one to three hours to finish, but fills every second with clever design ideas.
Movement is all handled with one button. Clicking the mouse button reverts the direction of the ball, turning the simple act of movement into a brain-contorting, puzzle-solving exercise.
