Wow this is very interesting to me. I spend a lot of time watching documentaries on the history of video games. Quite fascinating that you developed an early game yourself like this. Creating a 4 player game must have been fun for all your friends aboard the ship. The way I picture it in my mind, it was necessary for the ball to speed up after 6 hits or the game would never end, because 2 players on a team could probably cover a lot of ground. This is also made the difficulty gradually increase which is important for any video game.