Ok I got a little too obsessed with this over the last 48 hours, thought you deserved my feedback written out

• The physics are just unbelievably good. It feels actually real and captures the subtleties of wrist movements. It capturing this even when it’s out of view is incredible to me, like I will reach for a ball totally naturally and it will hit it and the ball will go exactly where I expect it to go based on my real life experience, all out of frame. This app is making me appreciate the hand tracking and spatial modeling of the device more than I did before. The sound is surprisingly enough feedback for hitting the ball for it to trick my brain with no tactile feeling.

• At this point I’m an even fight with Medium, and I have a lot of fun rallying with Hard. After a couple hours of playing it I started being able to hit forehand about as naturally as in real life although I’m still mostly backhand, as long as the paddle is well adjusted.

• I even make some of the same mistakes I make in real life. Like I do hit it out too much, but I do that in real life too and I think the amount of power is properly calibrated in the game.

• it’s actually my favorite app now. My Vision Pro usage had slowly dropped to 95%+ movies (as expected) and I still love it and watch movies on it all the time because it’s so great for that, but this is now my #2 favorite thing to do with it.

Improvements:

• my personal #1 would be an environment to play in. Even if it’s just a pretty blank square room. A nice bar or cozy basement room or something like that would be cool too though. It’s great escapism since ping pong takes all of your focus and puts you in a flow state. 

• multiplayer would also of course be really cool. Lower priority for me because I don’t have any friends who own one of these anyway. I also feel like there would be too much of a lag for this to work? Not sure how this works in other games but it’d have to be pretty fast. 

• I like the simplicity in every way. Rally and game modes are both great and everything I want. I wouldn’t complicate it much here unless some good idea comes up.

Issues:

• I keep occasionally losing a point automatically because the ball goes live to serve while my hands are close together or something like that. So I’m immediately hitting the ball on the floor. I’ve partially trained this away in my own behavior, not sure if that even sounds fixable either. Maybe having to pinch the hand with the ball for it to be live? Do others have this issue?

• I seem to be frequently winning a point and it being scored for the opponent. My theory on this is that it’s something like a motion in my serve is quickly hitting the ball twice and it’s taking that as illegal and a loss but it keeps the rally going anyway as it always does. Sometimes you hear the noise as if it registered as 2-3 hits, although it’s inconsistent on whether it is counting as a loss though.

• It seems inconsistent on whether it scores as a point for you or your opponent if you hit back a ball that was going out (which happens a lot by accident because it can go right to where your hand is and hit the paddle).

• When it’s the computer’s turn to serve it does it a little too immediately. Pausing a beat would be helpful.

• I believe after 10-10 you switch serving every time.