Prompt 2: Describe the challenge of the game as if the designer was working to thwart you.
The game doesn’t make it necessarily easy to win, by always having the ball move at least in some direction. There are no extra external forces and it is up to you and your paddle, letting you have control over the gameplay, but the velocity of the ball persists at least a little despite your best efforts. It’s not forgiving of mistakes either. As soon as you make a quick movement to save the ball, everything quickly goes downhill. Your velocity is transferred to the ball and if the ball has any horizontal direction, you’ll be in a tough spot.
Even in the off chance you don’t make a mistake as the ball continuously moves across the screen, you have a paddle and a ping pong ball, you naturally have a feeling to see how your movements affect the ball. You are punished for this, just like in real life when you’re learning, with the ball flying all over the room you’re practicing in. This makes it more challenging, but it definitely is more fun than just slightly moving your paddle, so you can easily feel encouraged to continue this more wild style of play. Sure gravity is your primary, concrete enemy, but in reality it almost seems like your self control is the true enemy.
Luckily, the designer gives us a little wiggle room, with the handle also working to hit the ball instead of just the primary paddle surface. It feels satisfying just like if you would use the handle in real life and gives you a bit of an extra leeway while still not completely nulling the existing challenges of the game.