Earlier this year, developer Sean Kearney released One Play Pong (Free) on iOS. It was a “circular Pong" style game that allowed you to bat a tiny ball back and forth without the messiness of interacting with other people. It was a simple and fun game that had a hilarious and catchy trailer. Well, when the Apple TV was announced and Kearney decided to bring One Player Pong to it, rather than simply port the existing game he decided to take things up a notch by adding new music, new graphics, local leaderboards for couch competition, and special power-ups. The result is Super One Player Pong, now available on the Apple TV. He also took the trailer-making up a notch, check it out.
Wow, if this whole video game thing doesn’t work out Sean definitely has a future making funny trailers. As for the game itself? It’s pretty good, and not too dissimilar from the original One Player Pong. The goal is still the same, to rotate your paddle around the circle and bat the ball as many times as possible without letting it get by you. The power-ups are cool and add some variety, though they’re the typical ones you’d find in various Pong or Breakout games. My biggest gripe is the controls. You swipe on the Siri Remote touchpad to move your paddle, and something about it just feels off. Sometimes it feels too sensitive, sometimes not sensitive enough. I’ve lost many a game just because I couldn’t get my paddle where I wanted it to go when I needed to, but perhaps it just takes some warming up to.
For a buck though, it’s hard to go wrong with Super One Player Pong, as it still does provide plenty of moments of frantic fun. And at the very least you get to laugh at the trailer for free. If you’re interested in checking out Super One Player Pong, just click the link below… er wait, that doesn’t work here, the Apple TV still doesn’t have links! Well luckily it’s easy to search for by simply putting “OPP" in the search bar in the Apple TV App Store.
