Fine Tuning and Other Diversions
If you consistently fail to defend the human species, it may not be your fault. It is just that the programmers did not spend enough time with the appropriate focus group ;-) They left the burden of tuning some parameters to yourself.
Just click on the bottom area of the window where the scores are displayed. A tool chest will open. (You can do this also from the menu Game->Tweak)
A tab named "Ball and Paddle" has everything you need to cheat.
The first slide control (with snail-rabbit-fox icons) controls the base speed of the ball. We find strong correlation in the preference of the speed chosen and the overall age of our focus group. It is interesting to note that while children generally prefers slower speed initially but move to the fastest very quickly, the opposite happens with most grown-ups, reflecting their misplaced vanity on their physical capability.
The one below, another slider with flat and bent paddle icons controls the curvature of
the paddle surface.
In our earlier take on the pong (it was called "myPong"),
we had tried a way to control the way ball bounces
by tilting the paddle through pressing some keys on the keyboard.
This time, we improve on the idea by allowing a curved paddle surface, thereby freeing you from the cumbersome keypad manuevering.
The more you make the paddle curved, the more flexibility you gain in controlling the direction of the bounced ball by hitting it on different point.
A small penalty for this will be that you enhance the risk of missing the ball especially when you try to hit it on the edge of the paddle.
The slider control in the right is good only for playing against a human over the network. You use this to control the frequency the position of your opponent's paddle is updated every second. When chosen to be minimal, it will be updated only when the opponent hits the ball and will gradually fade away. This adds a certain amount to the challenge, as you may feel like fighting against a fleeting ghost, having no way to anticipate your opponent's move. Increase the frequency, and you will have a visual feedback of where your opponent is at a given moment. The reason we are limiting the frequency to a certain level is to lessen the burden on the network.
If you have persistent network congestion during the match, you may need to minimize this updating function for the next match.
To remain true to our company name, we offer a way of gaining an upper hand (legitimately) during a match by solving simple math problems. We do not have any fanatic belief in doing arithmatic calculations fast, but we are convinced that acquiring proficiency in the skill have positive effect in keeping one mentally alert.
We also hope that we are doing some service to kids worldwide by offering a way to ease into their multiplication table drills, which unfortunately, is a necessary step in most curriculum.
If you choose the math quiz option of appropriate level, you will be presented with a question from time to time. Type (yes, while manuevering the paddle on one hand!) the correct answer before the question dissolves away. If correct, you will hear the cling! sound and have acquired the special boost. With the boost, your next paddle impact will be a surprise to your opponent.
Another trick to harass the opponent is by hitting the ball dead on the center of your paddle and acquire the boost point.
Current implementation of the special boost turns the ball momentarily to pulsate with red color. It also requires the party receiving the red ball to counteract in a specific manner. The speed of the ball may be jumped up momentarily.
The paddle of the receiving party will display a small white glowing spot to indicate the point on the paddle to be hit to counteract the offense.
If one fails to match the spot, the paddle will spin out of hand and will remain uncontrollable just long enough to embarrass you.
The impact position should fall fairly exactly on the white hint spot to defend against this boost.
Fine-tuning Challenge Parameters
In the Advanced Tab, one can fine tune the values of three parameters which affect the challenging level of
the game. If you do not choose either math or target challenges, the parameter values here will not affect the game play.
First, the "Paralysis Duration" controls how long your paddle is paralyzed when you fail to counteract
successfully the attack from your opponent. (Your opponent attacks you with advantage when he or she successfully solved a math problem or
met the target challenge condition.) The default is barely enough time for the ball to traverse the whole table at the current speed setting.
If you find the paddle is paralyzed impossibly for a long time, nudge the control a little toward "easy" side and vice versa.
The second controls how easily you can gain attack point when you chose "Target Trick" on.
This parameter controls the fraction of the length of your paddle in the center area in which the impact should occur to give you the
advantage. If it never seems to happen for you, nudge it toward "easy" to make it happen more frequently.
The last parameter controls how easily you can counter-act on the opponent's attack. The easier you make it, you will have easy time
avoiding the paddle falling into paralysis when hitting a ball attacking you.
You can easily switch back to our carefully chosen factory setting by pressing the button on the right.
It will also resize the window to the default setting.
If you happen to see another button saying "send to developers", you can press the button to let us know your
current favorite parameter values. This will help us refine the parameters for future versions of
rendezvousPong with data polled from many users. Please send us your choices only when you feel confident that your choice is
far bettern than our factory setting. [When you send us the information, no other information other than the values of the three
parameters are registered. So, you may be rest assured that your privacy is not invaded.]
Synchronizing Options
Most of these options are available to change only when you are not engaged in an active match.
That is, you can change them only when the game is not on.
When you are connected to someone across network, you can change these and then start the game. The current choices on the defender's side are communicated to the challenger.
The changes are immediately recorded in the local preferences file. The next time you run rendezvousPong, the last configuration will be applied unless you change again.
Statistics
One of the universal joys in competitive game playing is to appreciate your steady progress among your peers or maintaining an invincible champion status for a stretch.
RendezvousPong assist you cultivate your vanity by recording the win and loses of your matches against your peers.
The statistics tab in the tool chest will show you your current standing. If it becomes too embarassing to look at, use the reset button or claim that you just outgrew this stupid pong business. The mileage you regain by doing so may vary and depend on who your friends are.
Quotes on Quits
When rendezvousPong is about to quit, it flashes a short one line messages. You may find some amusing, while others may leave you puzzled. Depending on the choice of quote options, (you can choose a G-rating or R-rating in the General tab of the tool chest.) it may display a message which may make you pause to think about something.
Whenever available, rendezvousPong will grab messages of the day from our web server. Or it may randomly choose to flash one of the built-in messages. Of course you can choose to disable this feature.
Panic : ` or Cmd-`
For those multi-taskers, you can press the grave (`) key (located on the left-upper corner of the keyboard, right below the escape key on most keyboards) or Cmd-` to make the pong window semi transparent. Place the window on top of your web browser or any other application window which you want to monitor while playing.
Of course you can use this function when you see your boss coming your way.
Maintaining Your Pong Table in Good Condition
Please maintain your pong table clean and beautiful by changing its color to your liking from time to time.
It is generally a good idea to pick a color which is not too intense or bright, as it strains ones eye.
Here are our favorite color schemes:
