Paddle Trouble is a new game app for mobile phones – not normally the kind of thing I talk about on this blog.
However… it just so happens that the creator of the game is an old friend of mine called George. We met about ten years ago on a geeky forum called Guru 3D, but George was always the true geek, not me. 😉
To cut a long story short, I wanted to have a look at George’s game, but I have yet to work out how to download apps onto my mobile phone [yes, I know, I’m ashamed of myself].
After much nagging Out of the kindness of his heart, George made it possible for me to play the game on my pc. And now I’m sharing that link with you. 🙂
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28554951/PaddleTroubleWeb/web.html
After Paddle Trouble loads [may take a few seconds], click start and away you go.
The aim is to use your mouse to knock the blue balls away from the middle, and into the ‘gutter’ on the outer edge. Left click flicks the paddle at the blue ball, and if you time it right, you can hit it for six. For non cricket people that means hitting the ball right out of the playing field.
I confess my score is pretty low, but last time I played I managed to get past 2000 points. That sounds like a lot but believe me, it’s not. 🙂
If you like the game, and know how to download apps, you can follow the links on the page to download it to your phone.
Enjoy. 🙂
Meeks
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NANO 2012
August 22nd, 2013 at 5:27 pm
Hehe, thanks for the plug 😀
You know you didn’t have to 😛
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August 22nd, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Let’s just say I didn’t get to a score of 2000 on my first attempt. :p Besides, you’re an indie too so why not?
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August 22nd, 2013 at 4:48 pm
I’m happy to say I’ve never bothered to even open the games that came with my PC or I’d be on the damned thing 28 hours a day.And now they have them on mobiles where I have problems enough just sending messages with those small keys and huge fudging fingers. Aaarrrggghhh, I have the motor skills of a 120 year old and I’m not about to embarrass myself even more. Game on……….
xxx Huge Hugs xxx
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August 22nd, 2013 at 6:22 pm
You know, what you mentioned is a really interesting matter on usability altogether that needs to be researched more. Because really, there is no person out there that has the motor skills on their fingers required to be able to precisely move a tiny analog stick like the ones on today’s gamepads. If you observe people playing, we just flick the stick all the way and hunt for the right position. While with a mouse we just aim there. And i found that out the hardway on this tiny game. Mobile devices have so many new ways of interacting that take advantage of a different motor skill (Like the whole arm, not the fingers.) and yet we still haven’t taken them into account when designing most mobile games. And of course i’m talking about the screen that is a touch panel WITH the accelerometers. I couldn’t find a way to control the paddle well enough without using a virtual joystick. You can’t tap the screen to where you want to hit as that would hid the arena. However, imagine a small game where you had a tray with balls in it, where the tablet would take into account all of its other sensors and you had to keep the whole thing level as to not spill the balls. 1 week’s worth of effort, but that game could be used to teach/train people back into their motor skills after they’ve lost them due to an accident or something. It’s giving them a tangible goal for those 5 minutes, and being on a tablet they can just reach out and grab it instead of wait for the physiotherapist to come and help them *exercise* instead of play.
Sorry for the huge reply 😛
Hm. i think i’ll try and make a small test game where you don’t touch the screen at all.
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August 22nd, 2013 at 7:04 pm
George, I think you may have had a brilliant idea there! Many years ago I remember going to visit a family friend who had had a stroke. She had recovered well but the motor skills in her hands were still poor. The only thing the medicos told her to do was squeeze a small rubber ball. 😦 I can’t think of anything more boring. Or frustrating.
Do it I say! [I may need it one day. ;)]
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August 22nd, 2013 at 6:58 pm
lmao – it’s okay …. GRAMPS! -runs away-
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August 22nd, 2013 at 3:16 pm
I’m a sucker for these sort of games… until I get bored and forget about them. I’ll download the player on my pc at home which will keep 5 year-old me amused for a little while, and then I’ll have to apologise for ignoring the G.O. like I did when I had free games of Zombies vs Plants.
I looked for Paddle Trouble in the Google Store, where my phone apps come from, and couldn’t find it. Is it Iphone or Android I wonder, or just not available through the Google Store.
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August 22nd, 2013 at 5:29 pm
It’s available through Play, as well as from the links below the game.
If play doesn’t show it as available though, it may be that Play may think that the device doesn’t have the right Android version or something.
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August 22nd, 2013 at 5:32 pm
(Plus, the web version may play even better since it has a mouse, than with the android version on a mobile screen… There i go again, shooting my self on the foot)
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August 22nd, 2013 at 7:00 pm
I’m glad you answered that George because I wouldn’t have a clue.
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August 23rd, 2013 at 2:50 pm
Neither did I…obviously… but I found it 🙂
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August 23rd, 2013 at 4:04 pm
lol – good!
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August 23rd, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Thank you. I found it via the Google Store by scolling further through my search results 🙂
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August 23rd, 2013 at 4:05 pm
Ah hah!
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August 22nd, 2013 at 2:15 pm
I used to think that when people were heads down on their phones that they were checking emails, Facebook, Twitter etc. Now I suspect that mostly they are playing games!
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August 22nd, 2013 at 3:29 pm
lol – I think you could be right. I’ve heard that game apps are the biggest growth trend in smart phones.
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August 22nd, 2013 at 12:56 pm
Aargh! Like I don’t waste enough time on apps as it is! Thanks for the recommendation and thanks in advance for the excuse to waste more time. 😀
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August 22nd, 2013 at 2:07 pm
lmao – I’m sorry? Not!
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