The Ball - Indie FPS Action/Puzzle Game

Edit: All old links and media removed - see the later posts for a good view on the project's current status!

A Portal style game mixed with some Indiana Jones flavor! No portals however, but loads of physics fun instead!

http://www.toltecstudios.com/theball/

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The contest runs until tomorrow so we had to release. There is a small bug with the ball sometimes messing up your collision, and the menu is very simple. Other then that it's quite polished. It's not a beta or rushed release.

I made the design, all art, and the entire level minus the scripting, which RenderMonkey did, in 1.5 month part time work. The whole mod was done by just three people.

The screenshots are slightly outdated, but the differences are really minor. The lamps arent as simple anymore in the final version for example.

If you know exactly what to do, 8 minutes:P

But it should take half an hour the first time.

And yes we will continue. We expanded with two character artists, so the new version should be a whole lot bigger. There will also be arrow turrets, water, big boulders, and so on in the next version. And more blood and scary things like dead monkeys:)

Bump, never had a lot of replies on this.

We just won first place Best Mod, and first place Best Use Of Physics in the 1 milion dollar MakeSomethingUnreal contest phase 1.

We are a month away from the release of Oztoc, part 2.

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In Oztoc, the player will...# Meet the ruler and guardian of the temple (shown in the screenshots, by eLuSiVe with additional help from Manti). This monstrous king will observe the player as he progresses through the level and occasionally activate traps.

# Enjoy improved ball behavior and a simple but efficient hud. Also fixed was the irritating "getting stuck inside the ball" bug.

# Puzzle their way through a level that will be at least three times the size of the Pehua level, and twice the complexity.

# Experience a whole number of new gameplay mechanics such as water, rains of arrows, big and very hot balls that don't like you very much, and more low gravity!

# Meet a bunch of "friendly" but semi dead monkeys who inhabit the temple (shown in screenshots, by Tores)

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There will be a CTF Krodan for phase 2, allowing me to also compete in "Best graphics in map", which should turn out well. The map will be part of the next CBP release.

There are 4 phases, the 4th is in late 2009.

I won a first prize with a ONS level before, first prize best gametype before with a mod I only worked on, and a lot of nominations, 3rd or 4th places, etc. with other levels.

[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/Hourences/newball.jpg]

Brand new ball by Tores - will replace the old ball.

We just went beta. We will release within two weeks.

Video later this week.

Oztoc ended up being four times larger than Pehua - we expect there to be around 2 hours of singleplay gameplay right now, at a medium pace.

Video of the first few minutes of part 2 Oztoc.

(Doesnt seem to start - direct link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znMp74YUCOM )

The puzzles shown are simple. I didn't want to show the complex ones as that would spoil the challenge of solving those. We now have between an hour and a half and two hour of singleplay gameplay dependent on your playstyle.

Couple of small issues left, and also the monkeys are missing. Working on those. Release is planned for this weekend.

Our Core Team:

Hourences - Environment Art, Game and Level Design, Art Direction

Rendermonkey - Level scripting

MrE - Character modeling (the king)

Tores - Character modeling (the ball and monkey)

SolidSnake - Programming

Setheran - Level design, Environment Art, Level Scripting

Additional Help:

David Green - programming

Utz - Animation

Zynthetic - Voice Acting

Manti - King skin touch up

Thanks

Also see the Oztoc thread for the second part

ModDb did a special and an interview about us:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-ball/feat ... is-rolling