We had the great opportunity to get a few questions answered on Ping 2 from Christopher F. Arnold, President and Founder of NAMI TENTOU MUSHI and the Director for the Ping series.

 

PN: What is Ping 2?

Christopher: Ping 2 is a sequel to Ping 1 in the way that The Legend of Zelda for NES was to the Ocarina of Time. A lot changed because it went from a 2D mobile game to a 3D console game. This time, the story revolves around playing a cube who’s part of the military to destroy spheres. In this universe, spheres have taken over the cube’s bases. The reason for this hatred towards spheres is because the spheres have a big ego and decided one day to just take over most of the universe because they felt they were superior in shape.

The majority of the gameplay will revolve around shooting Ping through mazes, around blocks, through obstacles, avoid enemies, and racking up as high of score as you can. It’s basically a lengthy arcade game with the level of difficulty there is in the core gameplay.

 The second half of the game is done in the style of a first person shooter. It’s basically retro in a new way if that makes sense. There are several 8bit revivals going on, but this is more of a throwback to the Nintendo 64 days. It was mainly added in because of the Wii U gamepad’s gyroscope feature. After playing NintendoLand’s Zelda mini-game, I wanted to see a shooter make use of that type of aiming. It’s so precise and makes you feel like you’re really a part of the world.

 

PN: How did the idea of Ping become a reality?

Christopher: I was trying to figure out what would be a good idea for a mobile game, because I wanted to try putting out my first game. I just learned how to program 2D games and I was very excited to create something. After coming up with ideas and drawing them out in an idea book I have, Ping seemed to stand out to me. It wasn’t called Ping at the time and the graphics of the game weren’t originally going to be Atari influenced. It was just gameplay concepts I drew/wrote down. Bouncing a ball off a wall at an angle to reach a goal at the end of a puzzle was basically the concept.

 

PN: How big is Ping’s development crew?

Christopher: At the moment, it’s only a size of 4 people. A programmer, artist, music artist, and writer.

 

PN: For those who played Ping. What are some difference between Ping and Ping 2?

Christopher: The biggest difference will be that it’s not meant to kill time anymore while you’re on the bus. It’s now aimed at capturing your whole day playing a game on the couch and with friends. The length of the levels are now averaging about 5 minutes and the difficulty is tougher this time around too. I know I abuse my fans by making it so difficult, so there is the option to play this on easy too.

 

PN: Can you describe some of the Wii U features in Ping 2?

Christopher: Asynchronous gameplay is a goal. I don’t want to simply just clone the TV screen to the Wii U Gamepad screen and call it done. It should offer something different than the PC and PS3 versions too. Also the gyroscope will be used in the FPS mode to aim/look around the world to make it easier to exactly shoot where you want. The camera will be used also to put your face on the cube doing the game if you would like. I found this feature very hilarious on NintendoLand and I want to try and make Ping a social experience too. Something you turn on when you have company over. We’ll be announcing more specific Wii U features as we learn more about the hardware. Lots to learn about the system in and out.

 

PN: Any game features besides singleplayer?

Christopher: Multiplayer local play is going to be available for the PS3 and Wii U version. 5 players for Wii U and 4 players on the PS3. They’ll be FPS death matches in the style of Goldeneye/Perfect dark. Also being able to take turns in the story mode is another way to play with a friend. Think of how the score keeping is done on Super Mario World for the SNES. You take turns and each player has their own score and set of lives.

 

PN: How was the process of becoming a Nintendo Developer? Has Nintendo been supportive or given in support for the game?

Christopher: The process was actually pretty easy for us but that could be because Ping 1 had 25,000 downloads. They have an application online for developers to fill out and they contact you later on if they are interested. They’re pretty supportive in helping get you the info that you need to develop for Wii U. They want to remove that barrier that people think is there. It’s actually not and I would be willing to say that they are becoming very indie friendly now. We’ve been authorized Nintendo developers since September.

 

PN: How much money you looking to raise through the Kickstarter? How will the money be used?

Christopher: We are hoping to reach our goal of 20,000 dollars. The costs of developing for major consoles like PS3 and Wii U are the whole reason we started the Kickstarter really. Console development costs a lot of money upfront and we would love to try to bring the game out to more people. About around 5,000 will cover the fees and costs of getting our game onto Wii U and the costs of hardware. Licensing our game with Sony will cost quite a bit. The rewards include posters, stickers, and downloads for the PS3 and Wii U. We are expecting to have to pay our share of money to the respective consoles for getting the keys to give to our backers. 10% belongs to Amazon and Kickstarter. Bass_Ganon, our music composer, will be receiving some money for providing music for Ping 1 and Ping 2 without any charge to this point. Almost all of it will be used just to get this game out. We expect the profitability and to start getting our own paychecks after the game releases.

 

PN: What will happen if the Kickstarter goal falls short?

Christopher: We’ll analyze what went wrong with our campaign. We’ll get more work done on the game. There’s also Indiegogo and open source Kickstarter alternatives too. We could just work from pledge/pre-order funding month to month to get this done too. We’ll try everything we can do to try to get Ping 2 out, but we really hope that our Kickstarter is successful because it’ll enable this game to come out much faster and speed everything up. We can’t make it onto Wii U or PS3 without some type of support.

 

PN: The question I always end with. Why should someone support Ping 2?

Christopher: Someone should support Ping 2 if they would like to see a new idea instead of a clone of a popular game franchise from the 90’s. My first objective while designing it is to make the gameplay fun and engaging. I’m not designing this to be another beautiful art game or an emotional tale. It’s just supposed to be pure fun and interactive. Also by supporting Ping 2 at the beginning, you’ll be able to follow along with an indie studio at what it’s like to see a game from the very beginning in its ugly stages all the way to the finished polished product. In one of our tiers, we provide an eBook documenting this. It’s going to be basically the Ping version of ‘Hyrule Historia’.

You can support the Ping 2 Kickstater HERE.