pong.bat

This is a pong written in cmd.exe commands.

Windows batch scripting is the first programming language I learned. It will always be a source of great nostalgia to me. It is so weird and broken, and perhaps just so it is very enjoyable, in a purely masochistic sense. Has some distant resemblance to PHP.

It does not really have inputs, because there is no readkey command or similar in batch scripting. There used to be a "choice" command, but the minimum delay to default choice is 1 second, also it is not present in newer Windows versions. So you can't play this pong, you can only watch it.

This requires variable extension version >= 2. This is a technicality, it means you need at least Windows XP (or NT, not sure) to play this. I do believe it runs under Wine but I am not sure of this either.

Reading the source code is highly encouraged and may be more entertaining than watching the program itself.

Since this is a .bat file, if you use an antivirus program it will likely bitch about it. Feel free to check if it recursively overwrites all your files with random junk before running it, I will wait.

I have previously attempted to write a roguelike with batch commands, only to recall I don't enjoy roguelikes. I also know of a brazilian who made a quite complex adventure game .bat. I'd love to see someone using cmd.exe in a Ludum Dare entry, so do consider the possibility.