deutscher text zu EgoPong
The flat ToPong (see applet below) is a Pong for one player. The paddle
moves along
the middle line. The ball is moving on a flat torus (mathematically),
i.e. the movement is periodic (imagine opposite sides being glued
together). In particular the ball hits the paddle from both sides.
It's the goal of the game to avoid that the ball crosses the center line. In the current version the counter counts the mistakes which are done by the respective sides, other counting variants are under discussion, but this is also an ideological question :-)...
The paddle in a one player torus pong is for us a metaphor for the individuum and its reaction to its surrounding. We wanted to carry this metaphor somewhat to its extreme and this lead to the development of EgoPong. In other words -the paddle in EgoPong is the head of the player. It is read in by any simple webcam. The player has to move around in order to move the paddle. The ball is bounced off with the players own head. The player can move the paddle around the whole playground, however the ball forces the player to move as close to the middle line as possible. This is because on one hand the player has to keep the ball from passing the middle line, on the other hand because the player needs as much space for navigation as possible. So its not really the player who controls the ball but rather the ball forcing the player into his/her bounds.
EgoPong is sofar not available for download, but you can watch a video with Tim playing it. In addition you can play the flat pong version in an applet.
A short video in bad quality (our digicam is out of order) with Tim playing EgoPong is: >>here.
play pong against yourself ( daytar's flaches ToPong © 2006 T. Hoffmann and N. Kutz)
move the paddle by dragging the mouse or (depending on your machine and Java version) use the mouse wheel.
"p" pauses the game --- press ESC to abandon a ball and "q" quits the current round
