Table tennis from behind your own bat. Barry stands at the far end and gets every ball back; your job is to keep the rally going while it speeds up. There is no swing and no timing — just being in the right place.
The goal
Keep the rally alive as long as you can. Every ball you return counts one, and your score is your longest rally. You have three lives: a miss costs one and starts your rally count again, and the third miss ends the game.
Barry never misses. A rally only ends when you do — so the game is entirely about how long you can keep up.
Controls
- Touch Drag anywhere on the table. Your bat moves with your thumb but is never under it, so you can always see both.
- Keyboard ← → ↑ ↓ move the bat; Space serves.
- Settings The ⚙ beside the Hub button: paddle and net, the bounce marker, sound, your best rally, and progress.
How a return works
When the ball reaches your end, it goes back if it is inside your bat's reach — and misses if it is not. You never swing. The reach is a little taller than it is wide, because height is the hardest thing to judge from behind a bat, but it is the same for every paddle.
Where the return goes is decided for you, fairly: it carries on along the line the ball came in on, steered a little by where it met your bat — off the right half it drifts right, off the left half it drifts left. Every return lands on the table. You cannot hit the ball out, so moving to meet it is never a risk.
Reading the ball
The shadow
The ball's shadow on the table shows its line long before the ball itself is close. Watch the shadow, not the ball, to know which side it is going.
The bounce ring
A faint ring marks where the incoming ball will bounce on your side. It appears as soon as Barry hits, so it is your earliest clue — start moving the moment you see it. You can turn it off in the settings if you want the harder read.
The glow
Your bat warms up as it lines up with where the ball will arrive. No glow, you are well off; a soft glow, you are close; a strong, bright glow, the ball is coming back. The glow also leans toward the ball — up, down, left or right — so when you are nearly there it tells you which way to nudge. Most near-misses are on height, and the lean is how you fix them.
Why it keeps getting faster
Each return comes back about five per cent quicker than the one before, and the increases compound. Around ten returns the ball is half again as fast as the serve; around twenty it is more than twice as fast; by about thirty it reaches the game's top speed — under half a second to cross the table — and stays there. Barry also starts placing the ball wider as a rally builds, and once the pace is up he will sometimes leap for a smash.
A miss does not send you all the way back to a slow serve. Your rally count restarts, but the pace only drops by half, and the next ball comes straight away — so a long game stays quick.
Paddles and nets
You start with the red paddle and the classic net. The rest are unlocked by your longest rally, and stay unlocked on that device:
- Blue paddle — a rally of 20
- Silver net — a rally of 30
- Green paddle — a rally of 40
- Black paddle and rope net — a rally of 60
- Black carbon net — a rally of 90
They change the look and nothing else. Locked ones show the rally they need; tap one in the settings to see how close your best is.
Tips
Come back to the middle
After each return, drift your bat back toward the centre while Barry plays. From the middle you are never more than half a table from the next ball.
Move on the bounce ring, finish on the glow
Get roughly there as soon as the ring appears, then use the glow to settle the last few centimetres. Waiting for the ball to arrive before moving is what loses rallies past twenty.
Small thumb, big bat
The bat follows your thumb at a little more than one to one. Short, calm movements are enough; big sweeps overshoot, especially on height.
Use the edges of the bat on purpose
Meeting the ball off-centre steers the return toward that side, which pulls Barry across the table. It cannot cost you the point, so once you are comfortable, use it.
Good to know
- Your best rally and your unlocks are kept on your device. Clearing your browser data, or Reset progress in the settings, clears them.
- Sign in and your longest rally goes on the leaderboard, with badges for the big rallies and every unlock. Signed out, the game plays exactly the same and sends nothing anywhere.
- Barry's Table replaced the site's earlier, flat Ping Pong game. Old links to it bring you here.