The Ball - Action/Puzzle FPS Game

[Hourences]

Edit: Removed super old content to avoid confusion. Short synopsis of our current status:

The Ball offers an adventure that puts you in the boots of an explorer who gets stuck in a cavern and bumps onto ancient Meso-American tombs. While making your way through the internal workings of ancient ziggurats, golden cities, and huge caverns, your only companion is a mysterious big gold and metal-shelled ball.
Innovative physics driven gameplay. Roll the ball around to solve puzzles, overcome obstacles, and crush enemies with. All from a first person perspective.

We started out as a mod for UT3, back in spring 2008, and have since released 5 times. Episode by episode we have built up the game up to where it is today. More than five hours of gameplay, set in a dark and mysterious world!

We recently released a stand alone demo for Epic Games' UDK release, and we are now just days away from releasing our grand finals submission for the Makesomething Unreal Contest. Throughout the MSU contest we have won 4 first prizes, including Best Mod, twice. Furthermore we have also won the ModDB MOTY2008 Best Singleplay Mod award.

We will go commercial (albeit in an indie way) with the game after the contest. We are working towards an expected release in spring 2010.

Join us at Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ball/151208229313?v=wall

And check out our website - http://theball.toltecstudios.com/

Latest version:
UDK Demo - Stand Alone Build - http://udk.com/showcase-the-ball.html


http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/worldmap.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/theballteotl15.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/theballnearrelease1.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/theballteotl10.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/hueca1.jpg

[Lee3dee]

saw this on beyond Unreal a few days ago, looks great! If you need another level designer on the mod, I'd be up for making a map :)

[BrodyB]

This looks COOL. I'll download it and give you feedback later!

[Hourences]

saw this on beyond Unreal a few days ago, looks great! If you need another level designer on the mod, I'd be up for making a map :)

Yeah, I do need one. I will continue the storyline levels myself, but would love to have some random stand alone levels next to "real" levels, to add to the fun. Feel free to give it a shot if you wish, a single room or so, so I get an idea of what you are up to.
I will be writing a little mapping guide during the weekend and post it on our forum. Its not too difficult, just a lot of kismet scripting.

[Hourences]

Bump. Few months have passed. Time for a new episode!

http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/stuff/splash.jpg

The Ball's Grand Finals submission for the Make Something Unreal contest is set for release on November the 10th. We are well on track, and have entered beta 1 a few days ago. Beta 2 set for thursday or friday.

This will be the final mod release of The Ball, and features two new levels. One new survival level, and one new campaign level. The campaign level offers about half an hour of gameplay in an all new environment, with an all new enemy, and a new approach on combat.

In order to start building out a community, we have also created a facebook page!

http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/images/facebook.gif (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ball/151208229313)


And since pictures say more than a thousand words...Our team is proud to present you what we have been working on the past 2 months! Enjoy!

http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/msugrandfinals16.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/msugrandfinals4.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/msugrandfinals10.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/msugrandfinals2.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/msugrandfinals18.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/msugrandfinals5.jpg
http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/media/msugrandfinals8.jpg

[Cacophony]

looks great Hourences! also would like to take this opportunity to thank you, I learned a lot about UE3 from your tutes! cheers

[P442]

oh wow, looks great. I also have learned alot from your site. Best on Unreal

[cholden]

The first thing that happened was I got stuck INSIDE the ball itself. As in, within it's collision mesh. It rolled into me, push me against a wall and somehow sucked me inside. After hitting all the buttons I could for about five minutes it decided to set me free, but it wasn't done with me. The ball's next evil plan was to trap me inside every corner of the level. Giving away the fact that this is just a mod and polish isn't expected I extended my patience until reaching the spike pit.

This is where the game became unplayable. The spike pit is damn near impossible to pass. The dozens of attempts I was certain I as visually over the pit itself, I still died on the wood of the next platform. The ball, remembering how much it hated me, decided that once I did get across and moving to the next area it would somehow bounce me all the way back into the spike pit for another round "let's hope random collision works".

Amongst these dozens of failed attempts I began to notice every time I was about to die there was a stutter. It was small at first, but it seemed to cumulate on itself. So every time I was dying, I'd have up to a one minute pause while my character floated in air awaiting death. I imagined again that this was all for the ball's amusement. These stalls in game play were not limited to death, however. Every time I respawned my frame rate would drop a little bit more, and the ball itself was immobile for an amount of time relative to how long it took me die. Again, after these dueling stalls between death and respawning breached minuted I simpled exited the game and deleted it to cease it's further destructiveness. And my personal vengeance on the ball itself.

Enough of my narrative. Here's hoping these bugs can be hammered out, and you guys can implement user difficulty versus developer difficulty.

[Hourences]

The first thing that happened was I got stuck INSIDE the ball itself. As in, within it's collision mesh. It rolled into me, push me against a wall and somehow sucked me inside. After hitting all the buttons I could for about five minutes it decided to set me free, but it wasn't done with me. The ball's next evil plan was to trap me inside every corner of the level. Giving away the fact that this is just a mod and polish isn't expected I extended my patience until reaching the spike pit.

This is where the game became unplayable. The spike pit is damn near impossible to pass. The dozens of attempts I was certain I as visually over the pit itself, I still died on the wood of the next platform. The ball, remembering how much it hated me, decided that once I did get across and moving to the next area it would somehow bounce me all the way back into the spike pit for another round "let's hope random collision works".

Amongst these dozens of failed attempts I began to notice every time I was about to die there was a stutter. It was small at first, but it seemed to cumulate on itself. So every time I was dying, I'd have up to a one minute pause while my character floated in air awaiting death. I imagined again that this was all for the ball's amusement. These stalls in game play were not limited to death, however. Every time I respawned my frame rate would drop a little bit more, and the ball itself was immobile for an amount of time relative to how long it took me die. Again, after these dueling stalls between death and respawning breached minuted I simpled exited the game and deleted it to cease it's further destructiveness. And my personal vengeance on the ball itself.

Enough of my narrative. Here's hoping these bugs can be hammered out, and you guys can implement user difficulty versus developer difficulty.


What version did you download. By any chance the one linked to in the very first reply?

The getting stuck in ball thing was a bug in the June 2008 release and was fixed in July 2008. You cannot get stuck inside in the latest version. What you have played is probably our very first prototype. Check out the UDK Demo instead.
That is a good one actually, I didn't notice that the first post of this thread had such an incredibly old links and info. Just updated it now. Thanks!

[Hourences]

A stand alone demo build of The Ball is now available, operating on the very latest version of the Unreal Engine.

http://www.nijnka.com/hourences/theball/images/udk.jpg

Over the past few months we had been working with Epic Games on porting The Ball to the brand new UDK. That got released today. The Ball UDK Demo is one of the example games that showcase this new engine license from Epic Games.

http://udk.com/showcase-the-ball.html

The demo consists of two levels. One brand new survival level. And one 40 minutes long singleplay level. The singleplay level is basically a compilation level made from parts of Pehua, Oztoc, and Hueca. It does not require UT3 or the UDK to be installed!

http://download.udk.com/UDKInstall-TheBallDemo.exe


We hereby also announce that we will turn this project into a full and stand alone indie game, with an expectant release in spring 2010.

Interview about our plans, the UDK, and The Ball in general - http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/11/05/interview-toltec-studios-chats-about-the-udk-version-of-the-bal/

Join us on Facebook! - http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ball/151208229313 or check out our website http://theball.toltecstudios.com/

[Hourences]

Slightly later than planned, we ran into some upload and mirror problems, but we are on :)

We have released Cahua! This final mod release features a good set of new features and content. We were on a tight schedule for Cahua. We had only two and a half months to create everything, and we also had to work on the UDK demo in the mean time. So the level is a bit smaller than what you are used to from our previous releases, but it has a new style and new types of gameplay to compensate for that.

This is not the last level of the mod. There will be a commercial release later that contains the actual last level, among other new content and areas. Cahua level I takes you through a big cave near the heart of the volcano and have you fight a number of Tlaloc's. The guardians of Cahua. At the end of this level the player arrives at the "factory", the last level and home to "them". This release is more combat focused than previous releases. There is not that much puzzling.

DOWNLOAD - 509MB
http://www.fileplanet.com/193016/190000/fileinfo/Unreal-Tournament-3---The-Ball:-Cahua
http://www.filefront.com/14908109/2009-11-11-TheBall-Cahua.exe
http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-ball/downloads/the-ball-cahua-final-mod-version (not up yet - will be hopefully later this evening/night)

You do NOT need any previous The Ball episode to play this. This release includes ALL previous releases too. You only require UT3 with patch 2.1. Also make sure to completely remove any old The Ball install you may have first or it will not work.

Join us on FaceBook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ball/151208229313) or Twitter (http://twitter.com/TheBallgame), or visit our website (http://theball.toltecstudios.com/).

[Vrav]

I played the demo, was pretty fun. Enjoyed the motion blur on the ball. Then I got the awesome vehicle (love the first person view in it) stuck on some rocks and decided I'd had enough for a demo, but it was totally cool.

[cholden]

Downloaded the latest. It all looks better and plays smoother, but some of my concerns still stand.

The first is the death lag. Again, you can only die and respawn so many times before the game becomes unplayable. Every minute it stops for a cumulative time based on how many times I died and respawned. I played to till I got to that second area with the big pyramid, and stopped there due to the unplayable stuttering.

Which is a part of my second concern. That first spike trap with the tiny logs you have to jump on is too difficult. It's developer difficulty or secret difficult. Nowhere near demo or tutorial puzzle difficulty. It's such a tiny space to land on, and the precision of jumping in this game pretty much doesn't exist. Again, I chalk it up to developer difficult. You guys have been playing this forever so it's easy to you, but to the average gamer it's so frustrating that they'll never play beyond this point.

Anyway, it all looks neat, but neat not greater than fun or functional.

[Thegodzero]

I like the new beast, but where did the gorilla go?

[achillesian]

these guys got balls

[Hourences]

The first is the death lag. Again, you can only die and respawn so many times before the game becomes unplayable. Every minute it stops for a cumulative time based on how many times I died and respawned. I played to till I got to that second area with the big pyramid, and stopped there due to the unplayable stuttering.

Good catch. It kicks in after about 15 to 20 times though. You died 20 times before reaching the pyramid...? We will fix the issue later this month.

I like the new beast, but where did the gorilla go?
This is a new level, and so a new monster. Gorilla is in a previous level.

[Hourences]

The Ball Hueca has won Best FPS Mod in Phase 4 of Makesomething Unreal. We also won 4th place Best Art in Mod.

We now hold 9 top-5 places, and 5 first places. We won Best Mod in 3 out of the 4 phases.

Furthermore we have half a page large screenshot in the latest edition of Game Developer Magazine, as part of an article on Unreal Engine 3 - http://www.gdmag.com/

And the Swedish PC Gamer has given us a page in their latest edition as well

http://www.toltecstudios.com/theball/newsimages/pcgamersweden1.jpg

Newspost on our website - http://www.toltecstudios.com/theball/2010/01/best-fps-mod-in-phase-4-of-msu.html

More news soon! Two more interviews scheduled, grand finals results set for mid February, and trailer coming up.

You can still vote for us over at http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-ball or at http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/best-of-2009/mods.aspx

[nrek]

Congrats guys, The Ball is a great game and it deserves every bit of attention it has been getting. Good luck with the grand finals!

[Hourences]

Update! Long tme no update, a lot has happened!

Three videos have been released in the mean time. One action packed video, one showcasing the atmosphere and mood, the revamped first level, and the new menu. And a trailer. The trailer is a bit outdated though, it is from February.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzbnMoCmEvs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzbnMoCmEvs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsOuFYREhBc



Pictures of our King


http://www.theballthegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/king2.jpg
http://www.theballthegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/king1.jpg


And last but not least, out of 93 games, we've been selected and awarded a ~45 000 USD development grant by Nordic Game!


http://www.theballthegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/nordicgames1.jpg


Here is us picking up the award at the Nordic Game Conference award ceremony. I am the guy with the mic :)

Release is set for in a couple of months, so we are going to ramp up our online presence. Help us get word of the game out!

http://www.theballthegame.com/
http://www.facebook.com/theballthegame

[brandoom]

Nice guys, awesome news. Congrats!

best of luck with development :)

[Taylor Hood]

Seriously, this stuff is amazing.
Well done guys!

[Justin Meisse]

Well I'll be, guess what I just saw advertised on steam? Great job guys!
pre-order The Ball (http://store.steampowered.com/app/35460/)

[pior]

Wait where did your hair go!!!
:D