Videoball

Videoball plays as a two-dimensional hybrid of air hockey and soccer on a single screen. Players form two teams of one to three players. Each player uses an analog stick to control a triangle-shaped avatar and presses a single button to shoot triangle-shaped projectiles. The object of the game is to knock one or more circular balls into the opposing team's goal.

Players hold the button to charge a shot, which fires upon release. The projectile can propel the ball, block other projectiles, and incapacitate opponents. Since the shot is triangle-shaped, it can only drive the ball for some distance before the ball veers off-course.

Videoball designer Tim Rogers describes the game as "an abstract minimalist electronic sport". Its development began as a dare from QWOP developer Bennett Foddy, Rogers's friend, to make a "one-button StarCraft". Rogers, the founder of Action Button Entertainment, made what he estimated as 40 or 50 inconsequential prototypes before adding an analog stick to the button. Videoball evolved from a slow-paced strategy game to a fast-paced sports game as it graduated from early prototypes.

Rogers compared the game's design process to the austerity of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, wherein Ramsay convinces failing restaurants to reduce their menu size and make those few dishes well. Rogers commented that this emphasis on fewer elements makes each element's nuances more prominent. Polygon's Tracey Lien described the development team's process as "chasing a certain purity". Rogers conceived Videoball as a sport without narrative or artifice and thus sought to avoid traditional video game metaphors, such as knowing the triangle avatars and projectiles as "ships" or "bullets".

Pre-release reviewers all cited Videoball's minimalism both in aesthetics and gameplay, and compared the game with the skill and strategy of football and basketball. Before its release, PC Gamer's Wes Fenlon found himself thinking about Videoball daily after last playing two weeks prior. He credited its "addictive sort of fun" and his own excitement for local multiplayer on PC alongside titles such as Hokra and TowerFall. He felt that the game's tagline of being appropriate for both a child's birthday party and prison was correct albeit silly.

Fenlon praised the game's minimalist visuals, "peppy music, and chirpy sound effects". He compared the player's controls to that of Asteroids and contrasted its simplicity with the 100-hour onboarding process for League of Legends, having learned how to play Videoball in just "a couple minutes". Jason Bohn (Hardcore Gamer) wrote that the simple controls made the game accessible for new teams to quickly strategize. Polygon's Tracey Lien compared the game's feel to basketball, football, and hockey.