Mortal Pongbat

Mortal Pongbat is David Hirschfield's gleefully violent reinvention of Pong, born out of the Mortal Kombat craze at Carnegie Mellon University. The 1.4.1 release adds beam weapons, autonomous mines, multiple pucks, and pickup pods on top of the classic two-paddle layout, turning a 1972 design into chaotic, friend-losing party fare.

How it plays

The base rules are still Pong: bounce the puck past your opponent. Layered on top are a paddle-burning beam weapon, mines that drift into the play field, and pods that block pucks while hiding power-ups inside.

Power-ups and chaos

Cracking open a pod can reward you with Invincibility, More Pucks, a Bigger Beam, or a Fix Shield repair. Multiple brightly colored pucks can be in play at once, so defending the back wall quickly becomes a juggling act.

Modes and requirements

Two-player and player-vs-computer modes are both supported. The 68K build needs a 68020 or better Mac running System 7.1 with about 700 KB free; a separate PowerPC build was released alongside it.

Origin

Hirschfield credits dozens of CMU students as playtesters, and the readme's pitch is unusually direct: 'this one is really fun.' Distributed as shareware through the Info-Mac archive.