A retro/modern game which is completely unlike any other game you've played. Cubes vs Spheres!
Nintendo Wii U and Sony Playstation 3
PC, Mac Linux via >Steam<
Latest Gameplay Videos:
NOTE: These are all test pre-alpha builds and the visuals don't reflect the final version. Especially the FPS mode.
Interviews:
Kickin' It with NAMI TENTOU MUSHI by 4colorrebellion
PN Interview: Ping 2 by Pure Nintendo
Christopher Arnold guest podcast by Portable Power Podcast
You're looking at this Kickstarter and wondering to yourself why you should even bother pledging to such a strange unknown game. Well the reason why you should is because it's a strange unknown game! It's not another revival of a game series from the 90s that wasn't fun. It's a brand new game series with new goals, a sharp new colorful but geometrical look, and with insanely frustrating challenges! We want to blast your eyes with fun neon colors, an awesome original soundtrack, and help you entertain your guests when you have them over to sit in front of that TV of yours.
We are a team of four inspired people to bring you a new experience that really involves you as a gamer. We aren't focused on beautiful art to make you cry tears or bringing back warm fuzzy cubes of memories from your past. We want to make you scream from all the pure fun you have from playing our game. Gameplay comes first. That doesn't mean we skipped out on a story though. Ohhhhhhhhh it's got a script and everything.
This fantastic geometrical game, PING 2, will be coming to Wii U, PS3, PC, Mac, and Linux! I'm very sure you have one of those systems! We just need help with the costs of the development kits and to help cover any surprise fees before release! Just think of it as preordering this amazing game for 10 dollars. 10 dollars will get you this game on any system of choice that you would like. Even PS3 and Wii U. Even if we can't manage to get download keys from the companies, we'll just send you a 10 dollar gift card for that network. We are determined to get this game into everyones' hands!
"JUST 10 DOLLARS GETS YOU THE GAME ON ANY SYSTEM! JUST 10! OMG THATS AMAZING WHAT A DEAL EMPTY YOUR POCKETS OF ALL CUBES YOU HAVE TO DO THIS NAO!~" - Your Best Friend
We have a pretty low goal for a console game and we would love to include you on the whole process of development. We'll provide you with a 'Hyrule Historia' type of eBook by the end if you pledge enough for that tier. So please, consider helping make this a reality.
Yes, we are an authorized Nintendo developer and we have dev kits in our hands to run this game on now. :) That's how much we've invested in ourselves.
PS3 was added as a release system 10/22/2013 and the $10 pledge will let you pick this version too.
The whole main chunk of the gameplay will revolve around you bouncing a Pong like ball through several obstacles such as bombs, invisible blocks, moving blocks, past enemies trying to kill you, blocks that are easy to destroy, and more! Then you'll be stumped by puzzles too as you try to get through as fast as you can. Such as confusing warp mazes, color coded challenges in where you apply the color of your player cube to the adjoining cubes that you bounce against. It has the same exact physics that you would expect from Pong and the same sounds as it bounces off the wall.
"This game may not sound like it, but it's one of the hardest games you'll ever play." - Not George Takei
The aiming is controlled in a slingshot like fashion of just pulling back and letting go to shoot. If you happen to be using a keyboard or a joystick, it'll still work in a similar fashion to that. Although our demo doesn't have the keyboard or joystick input programmed in yet, just as a fair warning.
The score will be calculated against:
- Time
- Kills
- Bounces
- Blocks Broken
One of the biggest features of Ping 1 was the challenge of the game, making it almost a deceivingly hardcore game. That'll be brought back into Ping 2. You'll feel like one of the few special elite if you manage to beat the full game.
As for the planned FPS mode, it'll be paying homage and parodying old classic FPS games such as Doom and Duke Nukem. Saying ridiculous action movie style lines as he blasts through the sphere base with cube bullets which ricochet just like Ping himself! But we wouldn't want to make it just a simple FPS level! Puzzles will still be involved! Flipping switches, hacking computers, doing mathematical equations which you don't even understand (not really...), even a dead sphere can be rolled into a hole to trigger a switch! We've already got some great gameplay programmed to the Wii U gamepad for the FPS mode. :)
This project is a sequel to Ping on Android. It's still like the previous game in spirit but a lot has changed this time around. It's been about a month and a half into development of this concept to see if it's viable. Our goal is to create a very satisfying and fun game that you'll be glad that you spent the last several hours on the couch being lazy!
Note: Part of the Wii U features are already programmed in too. :) Just so you know we are already working on it.
We plan on developing ideally for Wii U first, then kinda go backwards and back port it for PS3 and PC. :) So the Wii U is 100% if this gets funded. It's not a 'eh if we have time to portz i guss' it's a we will make it for Wii U especially if we do get funded. With something like Kickstarter, our goal should be inspiration and passion versus which consoles provide the most profitability for us.
Wii-U planned features:
- 5 player FPS local multiplayer
- 2 player swap main story mode (think of Super Mario Bros. in taking turns.)
- Gyroscope aiming for FPS mode
- Off TV play
- Asynchronous gameplay for when playing on TV mode
As you play this demo, just keep in mind. It's a concept demo. It's going to have bugs. It's going to be completely different in the final version probably. (TONS BETTER) But this was created in about 2 weeks of development. We are at now 6 weeks of development with the other modes just not ready to be shown.
Windows: https://app.box.com/s/sbo1jzxoduerur74mcs0
Mac: https://app.box.com/s/mtlv7c2nbxuszt7eccpa
Linux: https://app.box.com/s/xkltocz4htm47921iecc
The music is being composed by @Bass_Ganon, who is a fantastic music composer who resides in London. It gives off the perfect retro and techno vibe that Ping 2 thrives on. And the beats feel good vibrating off your eardrums.
In the beginning there were only dots and lines. Slowly, the lines began to twist and contort, forming shapes. The first of these evolutions were primitive triangles. Next were the squares, trapezoids and rhombuses. Many other polygons formed as well. The most advanced of these shapes were the circles, who formed by bending their ends perfectly to each other. The other shapes were envious of these circles. The circles were perfect; they had no flat edges or jagged corners. They were one perfect continuous line that needn’t stop at a corner. As time went on, all of the shapes began to form a third dimension. When the circles formed their third dimension, most of the other shapes thought they would turn into a cylinder. Circles still had no flat edges. The circles became spheres, yet they remained perfect to the other shapes. This only fueled some of the other shapes’ jealousy. The tetrahedrons were too stupid to do anything about it. Most of all, the octahedrons and the dodecahedrons didn't really care. They thought they were “pretty much” spheres anyway, so why bother? This left the cubes, and what is the only logical thing to do when enraged with envy? War!
After the first level is done, a wild cutscene appears. He comes out of a portal to meet the Death Sphere. After a predictable formulaic monologue of how Ping has met his doom and Ping tells him that he'll kick the Pi out of him, all of the minions fire upon him and a dramatic cutscene ensues of Ping floating off into space as movie style credits flow by. He then lands on planet Cubeto creating a cube crater in the process on the planet. (Of course a cube would make a cube crater, they wouldn't make a circle one of course!) Way far off in the galaxy and nowhere near the Death Sphere. He awakes to his Cubedec (Codec) ringing and Colonel Cube wakes Ping. After a back and forth conversation, Ping realizes that a captured base is nearby. He immediately floats back off into space and continues going through levels until he reaches there...
With the funds, we plan on paying the licensing fees, rating fees, get better artwork and modeling to help bring this game to life. Also cover translations to European and Asian regions. The text in the game isn't too much and that was for the sole purpose of making it easier on the team to localize to other locations. But if funded, the game WILL be released. This is literally the amount we need to release it successfully. We're not going to come back asking for more. We will give a polished finished product which you will enjoy. You can hold us to our word!
For people who do decide to back, I make it a habit to post very frequent screenshots and videos as to show what it's like to develop a game and how it looks before it gets to you and to also get feedback from fans. It helps shape the game into the commercial product that people want and still happens to maintain our vision! There's no reason not to get input from others' nowadays with the internet making it so easy to share content almost immediately.
Previous Accolades for Ping 1
"This Android game starts off pretty simple but gets very challenging very quickly, which will get you scratching your head trying to figure out the key to passing each level." -android-apps.com
"I give it PIN out of PING (3/4)" - Portable Power Podcasts
"Personalmente abbiamo amato Ping, quindi non possiamo non consigliarvi il download. Un gioco gratuito che vi terrà incollati allo schermo, ma che per fortuna non sarà teoppo difficile da portare a termine!" - tuttoandroid.com (in Italian)
translated:
"Personally we loved Ping, so we can not advise you download. A free game that will keep you glued to the screen, but fortunately teoppo will not be difficult to accomplish!" - tuttoandroid
At 30,000+ "Online" Multiplayer will be integrated!
More stretch goals will be made once we exceed our original goal and see what the funders would like to see added as stretch goals.
Risks and challenges Learn about accountability on Kickstarter
The biggest challenge would be is to meet all the technical requirements of the platforms that we release on. If required we could bring outside professional help for the last bit of refinement.
And one of the biggests risks is if this Kickstarter happens to fail. We've invested as much as we can into ourselves, but with such a big game and project, we just need some external help to bring this to life.
Although no matter the challenge, I will release the game onto the systems said. There is no doubt about that. The money is to pay off the fees, not to feed the team comfortably throughout the whole time working on it. 1/3 of the gameplay code is done, we've just need to finish the other 2/3rds of gameplay code and then flesh out the levels.
FAQ
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The main difference will be is that the Wii U version will contain local multiplayer. To compensate for this in the PC version, we'll be heading top internet connected scoreboards via the PC, Mac, and Linux versions. The reason why we don't do this with Wii U is because of all the hurdles that we'd have to jump through for internet connectivity to private servers. We'll make sure to make the Computer versions and the Wii U versions have their own set of exclusive system features to make them both worth the price of 10 dollars separately.
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- First created · 0 backed
- Christopher F. Arnold 286 friends
- Website: NamiTentou.com
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--Ad-Free Ping 1 for Android-- Ad-free DRM free copy of Ping 1 for Android phone and a personal email/digital letter to you from Christopher Arnold thank you for being simply amazing. <3
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Have your name listed on the founders wall on the website, with a message of yours added to when you hover on your name. + previous reward.
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--Ping 2: Attack of the Spheres-- DRM- free version of Ping 2 for PC, Mac, Linux, or Wii U. Your choice. (Wii U version will obviously not be DRM free for legal reasons.) + all previous rewards.
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--Digital copies of Ping 2 Soundtrack-- A digital copy, drm free to load onto any device you want. + all previous rewards.
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==Ping 2: Design of the Cubes== a eBook formatted for all popular readers and mobile devices of the design bible for the game. You'll be able to read my notes on the whole process and will have a chance to view the sketches and mock-ups I created while moving from concept to Alpha, Beta and up to the final release version plus screenshots showing the ugliness of the cubes from the beginning and so much more! + all previous rewards
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==Beta Tester, Personal Letter, Collectible Stickers and Posters== Help us test out the game before release time! [Non Disclosure Agreements will need to be signed digitally before getting the download come Summer 2014] Collectible exclusive stickers and movie style posters of Ping 2. ALSO! Christopher Arnold will write you a personal letter thank you. + all previous rewards.
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==Geometrical stylish sexy gear!== You'll be able to pick 1 from 3 designs of our custom Ping 2 t-shirts for you! Perfect to wear on a date, to work as business attire, or even to propose marriage in! Maybe wear it to your next baby birthing event!
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==Hide a message in the game== We can hide a message of your choice in the game. It's a secret to everybody. + all previous rewards.
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==Name in Credits as Executive Producer== Name in credits as Executive Producer along with your own personal message that you would like! Also, you'll receive all 3 designs of t shirts! + all previous rewards.
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==Be a part of the process!== You'll be added to our online workspace to help with huge decisions regarding design, gameplay, music, visuals, and be credited as whatever you would like in the game with a short message as a 'shout out'.
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Funding period
- (30 days)
