Pong: A Game for Vision Therapy with a Rich History

Ping Pong, or table tennis, is famously popular in China, but it actually originated as an after-dinner diversion in late 19th century Victorian England, where players used cigar boxes to knock a champagne cork back and forth across the table. The game has evolved over the years to the rec-room staple we all know and love. It’s even become an Olympic sport! Watching a pair of modern professional players is a mind-blowing spectacle of speed, agility, and reaction time. These players have honed their visual systems and sense of spatial awareness to be able to track a ball traveling close to 70 mph (113 kmh), and intersect its path to send it back at their opponent, with volleys averaging 2 hits per second.

Most 21st century vision therapy patients are far too young to remember the addictive wonder of the first blockbuster video game to seep into the public consciousness: Pong. A crude digital Ping Pong facsimile developed by Atari, first appeared as a standing arcade game in roller skating rinks and bowling alleys in the early 1970s. The idea is simple: two vertical lines on either side of the screen act as your “paddles,” while a small square (computer resolution capable of rendering circles was well over a decade away) was the “ball,” which bounced back and forth across the screen. The player used a dial wheel to move the paddles up and down, placing them in the ball’s path, and sending it back to the other side of the screen. As you racked up successful hits, the ball would move faster…and faster and faster, until you couldn’t keep up and your paddle missed the ball and GAME OVER. Fun!

In 1975, Atari released Pong on the first home game console. Now you could play Pong in your own living room! You could even attach a second controller to play against a friend. In the decades since, video games have evolved to include fully realized 3-D environments, with near photo-realistic graphics and compelling cinematic storylines. Still, there is something primally satisfying about the simple challenge presented by Pong.

While it can’t compete with modern video games for fun and bombastic spectacle, Pong’s simple interface can still help to hone the reflexes, visual tracking, and fine motor skills necessary to excel at those modern games, as well as countless other life activities. It’s also great practice for anyone who struggles with predicting the path of a moving object in space. This is why Pong has found such value as a vision therapy tool, and why we are so tickled to be able to offer it as an interactive exercise in NeuroVisual Trainer.

Pong for Vision Therapy

Every clinic has had that kiddo who just does not seem interested in doing vision therapy; they’d rather be playing video games. Basic though it may be, offering up a round of Pong may be just what the doctor ordered to jumpstart their engagement! Any procedure or exercise that you can frame as a game will help to pique their interest and boost their compliance when it comes to home practice.

In its default configuration at Level 1, NVT’s Pong is an almost excruciatingly slow endeavour, but it could be just the ticket for someone recovering from a traumatic brain injury, who has to re-learn how to sync their visual system with the rest of their body. At higher levels, it gets increasingly challenging. You can also add anaglyph glasses to work on binocular vision. Set the paddles for one eye and the ball for the other, or switch things up with randomly alternating MFBF! The beauty of NeuroVisual Trainer is that you can customize it for your therapeutic approach, and for each individual patient’s needs and abilities.

Have fun!