EgoPong & ToPong
Creators: Tim Hoffmann & Nadja Kutz (Germany, Berlin)
Date: 2006

EgoPong is a Pong for one player...

Here you can´t loose... EgoPong & ToPong is programmed by Tim Hoffmann & Nadja Kutz in 2006. ToPong is a pong for one player, which lives on a Torus (=doughnut) in 3D space. The movement of the ball is along geodesics on that torus. Geodesics are locally shortest or straightest connections of two points. EgoPong is also a pong for one player, however it lives on a "flat torus" and hence the geodesics here are just straight lines.

EgoPong - coded in 2006

Gameplay 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.

Pong on a Torus (geodesics version)

ToPong is a pong for one player, which lives on a Torus (=doughnut) in 3D space. The movement of the ball is along geodesics on that torus. Geodesics are locally shortest or straightest connections of two points. There is a flat version next to the 3D version in order to get a better understanding for the mathematical content. (We were thinking of extending ToPong to higher mathematical genii). ToPong can be played online via a Java-Webstart application.

• http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~hoffmann/interactive/toPong2.shtml

Credits and sources

Some images and information came from the following sources, in no particular order:

• http://www.daytar.de/art/pong/EgoPongE.shtml
  

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