Volley

Each player guards one side with a vertical paddle. Bounce the ball back and forth and try to slip it past your opponent's paddle to score. Where the ball strikes your paddle changes its rebound angle, so positioning is everything.

• Move your paddle up and down to intercept and aim the return.
• Hit the ball with the paddle's edge for a sharp angle, the center for a flatter shot.
• First to the target score wins the match.

• Desktop: left paddle uses W / S, the right paddle (in 2-player) uses Up / Down. A time-slow assist is on F (left) and / (right). Keyboard recommended.
• Phone & tablet: keyboard play recommended, this paddle duel is best on a physical keyboard.

• Vs CPU, the computer steers the opposite paddle.
• 2 Players, pass-and-play on one keyboard.
• Online, face another person remotely.

• Meet the ball with the paddle edge to fire returns at angles your opponent can't reach.
• Stay centered between shots so you can cover both high and low replies.
• Spend the time-slow assist on the fastest rallies to set up a winning angle.

Volley is a tribute to Pong, released by Atari in 1972 and written by Al Alcorn as a training exercise — Nolan Bushnell gave him the task partly to see what he could do, with no intention of shipping it.

The idea was not original and Atari knew it: Ralph Baer's Magnavox Odyssey had a tennis game first, and the resulting lawsuit was settled. What Alcorn added was feel. The paddle is divided into segments that return the ball at different angles, so where you hit matters, and the ball speeds up the longer a rally lasts. Those two touches are why a game with one rule was worth standing in line for.

Volley is an original tribute to the table-tennis-style paddle arcade that launched the whole genre, a free, instant-play browser game.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.