Noodle Rally

A flat yellow room, a white table and two stick figures with arms like garden hose. The ball comes to your end, and you tap the side it's on at the moment it gets there. That is the whole control scheme. It takes about a minute to learn and a good deal longer to stop getting wrong.

Noodle Rally is table tennis boiled down to timing. How well you timed it is the shot: early pulls it cross-court, late pushes it down the line, dead on is a smash that punches the screen in behind it. Press before the ball is in reach and hold, and you wind up instead. Let go on time for a curling topspin, or keep holding for a lob that slows down a rally that is getting away from you. Miss, and something happens to your stick figure that the small crowd finds very funny: a faceplant, a paddle that leaves your hand and comes back down on your head, a ball that finds the one place you weren't looking.

Eight opponents stand on the ladder, and each has a habit you can learn to read. The Chopper lifts his paddle before the backspin that stops dead after the bounce. The Show-off twirls before a curve that changes sides. The Mime winds up for a smash and freezes, and the freeze means it's going short. Good players return most smashes; string perfect shots together and watch them start to sweat. Every opponent has three stars to take off them, and stars earn new paddles. Beat the Grandmaster and a harder ladder opens. There is a two-player mode for one phone and two thumbs.