Pingu Pongo
Pingu Pongo is a modern rendition of the classic pong game.
It includes pop culture references such as Among Us and some other memes. The main intention is to create a satirical theme for a pong game where the player can just simply enjoy and have a laugh at the absurdity of the game's overall aesthetic design.
This game was made as a school assignment project.
Game Engine: Stencyl
Project duration: 3 - 4 weeks
Solo project
Play The Game Here
Or play it on itch.io
Design Process
This project was the very first assignment given to me for my 1st semester of game development degree in a module called Fundamentals of Game Tech. This task involves a creating a pong game but we are required to add at least 2 gameplay features of our own to make it different from a classic version.
Concepting
For the very first assignment given to us, the lecturer was pretty lenient with the aesthetic requirements, essentially giving us the freedom to choose any art style we wanted.
As this is the first time I'm using Stencyl to make a game project, I've decided to keep things simple and went with a noir color scheme inspired by the very first pong game which was also in black and white. I also decided to include certain humorous references like among us memes and funny emojis.
For the game mechanics, I've decided to add:
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Sudden death mechanic
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A way to end the game immediately if it goes on for a long period of time.
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Point deduction mechanic
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To make the game more challenging by testing the players whether they can avoid a ball that will deduct their points if collected.
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Pre-production
During this phase I'm spending the time to create my assets of my game. This didn't take too much time as most of it involves tracing and recreating images that can be found on the internet. All of my assets are made in photoshop.
For the design of the ball, I decided to make it an Among Us character in a rounded form.
For overall aesthetics of the gameplay level, shades of black, grey and white were used to create the noir color scheme.
The point deduction mechanic is represent by a simple red colored ball, where I named it "suspicious ball".
Playing ball & suspicious ball
gameplay background
Production
This is the stage where I've began my coding process in Stencyl. During this time, my knowledge of coding in Stencyl is still considered beginner level.
But the overall experience of making this game was very smooth sailing, as the lecturer provided us a skeleton project that already has the classic pong game developed. All we had to do was to implement our unique game mechanic ideas and fulfill all of the requirements in the assignment criteria.
Skeleton Classic Pong Gameplay
SFX & Music
For the music of the game, I decided to use soundtracks that have bouncy, lighthearted and cheerful melodies to go with my game as I believe it matches the goofy and casual tone of my game. This allows me to create a experience that makes the player feel fun and carefree, encouraging them to laugh and enjoy the quirky design of my game.
Links to the music and sound effects I used:
Gameplay Visuals
Screenshots of the gameplay