Pongs

Pippin Barr

pippinbarr.com

Suitable for: All ages

Pongs is 36 different versions of the classic arcade game Pong, each one imagining the original game in a slightly different way – from one variation in which the ball leaves a trail behind it, to another that asks trivia questions about world capitals, to yet another that transforms the paddles into ghosts.

Pongs shakes up our assumptions about how a game is meant to be. More importantly, it asks players to think about game design itself, and perhaps even to engage in some idle speculation about how they themselves might redesign games.

Pippin Barr is an Assistant Professor in Computation Arts at Concordia University and Director of the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre (TAG). He creates videogames addressing everything from airplane safety instructions and dystopian post-work futures, to re-telling mythological stories as games of chess. Pippin holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and has written a book called How To Play a Video Game.

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