Gyrocade has released a futuristic 3D take on the classic game of Pong with a distinctive Tron feel through the iTunes App Store. Vector Pong uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to control the player’s paddle, enabling him/her to serve, deflect, and spike a puck down a 3D corridor against a computer opponent or another (human) player thanks to WiFi-enable network play.
The game features three levels of difficulty, but even at the “Easy" setting the game is quite hard and the “Pro" level is apparently designed for robots. However, due to the fluid gameplay and pleasant retro-future feel of this title, I feel compelled to keep at it in hopes of eventually getting a few consecutive victorious matches under my belt. An “Easier" setting would be welcome, though.
Vector Pong has a feel reminsicent of the 80s classic Shufflepuck Cafe (which, incidentally, exists for the jailbroken iPhone as remake tuxPuck) and provides the player with the same satisfying sense of “WHACK!" with each successful deflection of an incoming volley. Despite the game’s difficulty, it’s a lot of fun and seems well priced at $1.99.
Game Details
Name: Vector Pong
Developer: Gyrocade
App Store Link: Buy
Price: $1.99
Compatibility: iPhone and iPod Touch
I got the poker game after seeing the dev's video talking about their technology. He made it sound like the action of shaking effected the movement of the dice. I was hoping to see that sort of interaction: shake a little, the dice wobble a little; shake vigorously and the dice jump around. Sadly that wasn't the case. It's a beautiful app though, and it's cool they've got out a freebie.
I too was disappointed that the shaking does not affect the dice roll. While the animation looks nice, all the "impressive" talks seems a little overblown since the shaking (which only works if the device is partly vertical) is simply a trigger to a random animation of dice rolling.
Yeah, agreed with the previous commenters. It'd have been really nice for the dice's movement to be 1:1 with the movement of the device.
The problem with pure 1:1 movement I think would be that you'd have to keep the device flat or the dice would "fall" to the bottom of the screen......... which would be necessary if you were going to go for "realism". I guess it would be kind of cool if it was more sensitive to how you were "shaking", but it doesn't seem like a dealbreaker to me. I went ahead and bought the Poker app based on this demo, and am really enjoying it (very polished, and some cool niceties like tracking your stats, unlocking various dice, keeping track of achievements, etc.).
Wow them dice are jittery. I dunno what physics solver they're using but it's really bad.