Battle Paddles

Shipped Side Project

Battle Paddles is Pong with a boss fight. You control both paddles at the same time as a mirrored pair, and instead of trying to get the ball past an opponent, you're trying to destroy the boss in the middle of the arena.

Rings shatter into extra balls, and the boss shoots back once its shields start dropping

Each boss is protected by 3 armour rings that take 3 hits each, and a core that takes one final hit. When a shield shatters, it turns into a bonus ball, so every fight gradually escalates into multiball chaos. Hit the boss directly without bouncing off a wall first and it drops power-ups, like triple multiball, a powerball that punches through every shield, or bigger paddles.

The boss starts out stationary, but once it loses the first ring of shields it starts moving up and down. Once it loses the second ring of shields, it fires lasers that chew holes in your paddles. The ball can slip right through those holes, but I made it so that all the paddle segments push together when up against a wall. I like my games hard, but it didn't seem fair to make some return shots impossible.

Originally I just had a static face on the boss character, but things really came alive when I replaced it with a single animated eye. It flinches when you hit it, looks nervous when it's about to be hit, gets bored if you keep missing, and laughs at you when you lose a ball. Sometimes small changes can have an outsized impact on the entertainment value.

The whole thing is a single HTML file with no frameworks, and it works on desktop and mobile in any orientation. There are 8 boss types (different shield shapes, some that rotate) that cycle through 16 levels, a scoring system that rewards speed and keeping your paddles intact, and all high scores are saved locally.