🛰️ Space Ping Pong

An arcade-style, neon space-themed ping pong game built with Python & Pygame

Built with the tools and technologies:

Python | Pygame | dataclasses | Enum | JSON (local storage) | OOP

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Table of Contents

• Overview
• Features
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation
  • Configuration
  • Usage
• Project Structure
• Controls
• Difficulty & Power-ups
• License
• Contact

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Overview

Space Ping Pong is a colorful, fast-paced desktop game. It features a starfield background, particle effects, power-ups, screen shake, a high-score table, and both Single-player (vs Computer) and Local Two-player modes. The animated menu lets you pick a mode, toggle difficulty (E/M/H), view high scores, and exit.

The game stores high scores locally (JSON), so your top results persist between runs.

Project Highlights

• Two Modes: Play vs Computer (AI) or Local Human vs Human.
• Dynamic Feel: Particle bursts, pulsing menu text, starfield, and subtle screen shake.
• Power-ups: Speed Boost, Paddle Grow/Shrink, Shield, Multi-Ball, and Freeze.
• High Scores: Auto-saved locally and shown in a dedicated screen.
• Lightweight: Only external dependency is pygame.

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Features

• Animated main menu with difficulty toggle (E/M/H).
• AI opponent with difficulty scaling.
• Local 2-player option (separate key bindings).
• Multiple power-ups with visual feedback.
• Particle effects for hits/scoring and a trailing ball effect.
• Persistent high scores (JSON file).
• Clean, modular Python code split across multiple files.

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Getting Started

Follow these steps to set up and run the project on your machine.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• pip (Python package manager)

Installation

1. Clone the repository (or download the source code):

   git clone https://github.com/brej-29/space-ping-pong.git
   cd <repo-name>

2. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Configuration

This game runs out-of-the-box. Optional tweaks:

• Window & FPS: edit SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, and FPS in settings.py.
• Default Difficulty: in game.py (self.difficulty = Difficulty.MEDIUM), change to EASY or HARD.
• High Scores file path: adjust in storage.py if you want to store it somewhere else (e.g., a data/ folder).

Usage

Run the game from the project root:

python main.py

If you’re using a virtual environment, activate it first (see above).

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Project Structure

.
├─ LICENSE
├─ README.md
├─ requirements.txt
├─ gifs/
│  └─ space-ping-pong.gif        # gameplay preview (update name if different)
├─ main.py                       # entrypoint (runs the game)
├─ game.py                       # Game loop, states, drawing, event handling
├─ settings.py                   # screen size, FPS, colors, etc.
├─ enums.py                      # GameState, Difficulty, PowerUpType
├─ vector.py                     # lightweight Vector2D
├─ ball.py                       # Ball entity, physics & trail
├─ paddle.py                     # Paddle entity, player/AI logic & effects
├─ particles.py                  # Particle & Star classes
├─ powerups.py                   # PowerUp entity & visuals
└─ storage.py                    # load/save high scores (JSON)

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Controls

Menu

• 1 → Play vs Computer
• 2 → Play vs Human
• 3 → High Scores
• E / M / H → Change difficulty
• ESC → Quit

Gameplay

• Player 1 (Right): Arrow ↑ / ↓
• Player 2 (Left, only in Human vs Human): W / S
• SPACE → Pause / Resume

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Difficulty & Power-ups

• Difficulty

  • The AI paddle behavior changes based on Difficulty (EASY / MEDIUM / HARD).
  • You can toggle it from the menu using E, M, or H.
  • To change the default, set self.difficulty in game.py.

• Power-ups

  • Speed Boost – temporarily increases ball speed.
  • Paddle Grow / Shrink – temporarily changes paddle size.
  • Shield – gives a paddle a one-time protective barrier.
  • Multi-Ball – spawns an additional ball.
  • Freeze – briefly pauses ball/paddle updates.

Power-ups spawn periodically and are collected when the ball collides with them. Particle bursts and highlights indicate pickups.

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

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Contact

Questions or feedback or want to collaborate? Reach out via my
LinkedIn: Brejesh Balakrishnan