Witty Pong (2011)

Witty Pong is the first release from French publisher MyWittyGames, which invites gamers to fund projects that they want to see released.

As far back as 2005, designer Antoine Bauza was trying to encapsulate the essence of ping-pong in a board or card game, but his design efforts never came to fruition, so the project was shelved – until mid-2010 when he chanced to show the prototype to Bruno Cathala. Cathala suggested a few changes, then the pair worked together to bring the game to the table.

In Witty Pong the ping-pong table is recreated by laying four cards in a 2x2 square, with a ball token being placed on one of the cards. On a turn, a player flips a card and places it on one of the three cards not covered by the ball. Two situations can occur:

• If the card depicts a ball somewhere in the artwork, the player must move the ball token to a new card. If he says anything or hesitates too long, he loses one of the three banana tokens with which he started the game.

• If the card doesn't have a ball on it, the player must say the "proper" word, with the word being determined by the letters and colors on the three uncovered cards. The word starts with "P" or "T" depending on which letter shows more frequently, and ends with "ong" or "ing" depending on whether more blue or red paddles are showing. If he says the wrong word or takes too long, he loses a banana.

Lose all your bananas, and you're out of the game. Last moneky standing wins. The game includes advanced rules that change what to say if the same letter or color is on all three paddles; additional rules allow for competitive play in which players can steal bananas from one another if they say the right word first.