Ping Pong (Imagine Software — 1986)
Author — Bernie Dugggs (that’s me)
Ping Pong was released by the Ocean-owned incarnation of Imagine in 1986 as part of the series of Konami coin-op conversions.
Download Ping Pong (.z80 snapshot — loads in any ZX Spectrum emulator).
I used to think the reviews were a lot more to do with Ocean/Imagine’s advertising budget than the quality of the game, but it’s amazing how many people still remember this one. I think it probably captured the simplicity of a fun game. The major technical achievement is that the entire game loop runs in a fraction of a TV frame — probably about 1/200th of a second (not that you’d notice). I can’t imagine that could be anything to do with only having four things moving on the screen at a time! Who cares — it’s funny how playable I still find it.
The most common memory people have of this game is the extremely high quality of the in-game music. That was entirely down to other people — Joffa Smifff’s ace music routine and Martin Galway’s cool tunes. Oh, and that ‘Bernie Dugggs’ thing was Joffa’s idea as well — Dougie Burns becomes Bernie Dugggs. I have no idea how I let him talk me into that one…
How to play
To start playing, just click in the window and press Enter. Select the number of players, then use option 5 from the opening menu to define your own keys, 1 to select keyboard and 0 to begin play.
First, pick a level to start at, from 1 to 5. I’d recommend you start at 5, particularly on a ridiculous modern CPU, which already needs to be slowed down. Press Serve (Down) to throw the ball up, then Drive or Cut (the Left or Right keys) to take a swing at it. The fire key switches your bat to backhand. Other than that, I’ll leave it to you…
Reviews & links
Crash Smash · Your Sinclair · World of Spectrum · the comp.sys.sinclair newsgroup community.