PC
Overview
Ping! revolves around a character of the same name, who is a small, green ball. His girlfriend, Pingella has been kidnapped by the Boxx Empire, and he must battle their forces to save her.
Gameplay
Players control Ping! with the arrow keys. The space bar drops "Coin Bombs", which are small traps that can defeat enemies. Players can collect diamonds to receive points.
Unlike Chomperman (which released later that same year), Ping!'s take on the Pac-Man formula is more centered on puzzle-solving. Instead of simply clearing the maze and dodging enemies, the player sometimes is required to complete a task in order to collect the level's diamonds or deal with unique circumstances within the level.
Development
The idea for Ping! was developed after Steven W. Hunt had read an article detailing that a Jaguar game called "Pong 2000" was supposed to be in development, where Pong was an anthropomorphic ball in a platforming environment to save his girlfriend. After the game apparently had not been released, he took the idea and went forward with it. Initially there was supposed to be a "prequel" game called Ping (without the exclamation point), where players knocked the character between two Boxx Soldier paddles, like Pong. Ping was scrapped after development on Shady's Poopong began.
Release
Ping! was released in mid-2005 as a downloadable title for PC. It was later included on the disc release "CC & SH Smash Hits" in 2006.
