Rising Star to publish Pang: Magical Michael in Europe

“The idea for Pang came from one of our first year game designers back in 1989. He initially created a game about splitting balloons, but only he and myself thought it could be fun. We decided to continue anyway and completed the game for coin-op. Initially, it was not received well by distributors, but luckily it is not the distributors who decide but the cashbox. In Europe, (Germany, Italy and Spain especially), it got a big following, selling more thank any other game that year and winning the PCB Game of the Year from a German distributor. Pang sold more that year than Street Fighter, and was ported to various other formats shortly after. Since then, we went on to create Super Pang, Pang 3 and Mighty Pang, all for coin-op and each more successful than its predecessor. I guess the reason for its success is that the game concept is easy to understand for non-gamers and challenging to gamers. Our data shows that many females like the game. We decided to bring Pang back after receiving a lot of fan mail asking for a new Pang game. We asked Cubed3 to post a questionnaire and got very good feedback, which ultimately lead to Pang: Magical Michael.” - Mitchell president Roy Ozaaki

“We will re-establish the IP with gamers. Pang has been out of the limelight for too long, and Magical Michael will reignite the fans’ passion.” - Rising Star’s product manager Yen Hau

No word on a stateside release for Pang: Magical Michael just yet, but I wouldn’t my breath. This doesn’t seem like a game that a publisher would rush in to bring out in the states.

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