WestudioGames's New Game
Hi everyone who's reading this.
We are an indie studio called WestudioGames located in the East of Pretoria. And we have been working on a game called Rolling Ball Zero for the past 4 months. After all the hard work we put in it, we now think it's now time to share bits of it with you.
Rolling Ball Zero's Description:
How well do you know Balls? Good? Not good or not at all? It doesn’t really matter because all of that is about to change. With Rolling Ball Zero, it’s all about discovering and finding new balls in the open fun world of Toy Makers. With more than 40 different balls to choose from, each with its own abilities and has its own unique challenges hidden in the world for You to explore. Introducing the new ‘Smart Nav-Ctrl System’ for easier handling and more fluent interaction within the world. Rolling Ball Zero brings to You an experience materially different, from any ball game that has ever been created before.
Release date: TBA
Platforms: Mobile devices (features Limited), Pc, Mac and Linux.
Store : SteamPowered
For more info like us on www.facebook.com/WestudioGames Or feel free to drop us an email at westudiodm@gmail.com or me directly at thato@westudio.co.za
We'd like to hear your thoughts about it.
- Thato Mkhize
We are an indie studio called WestudioGames located in the East of Pretoria. And we have been working on a game called Rolling Ball Zero for the past 4 months. After all the hard work we put in it, we now think it's now time to share bits of it with you.
Rolling Ball Zero's Description:
How well do you know Balls? Good? Not good or not at all? It doesn’t really matter because all of that is about to change. With Rolling Ball Zero, it’s all about discovering and finding new balls in the open fun world of Toy Makers. With more than 40 different balls to choose from, each with its own abilities and has its own unique challenges hidden in the world for You to explore. Introducing the new ‘Smart Nav-Ctrl System’ for easier handling and more fluent interaction within the world. Rolling Ball Zero brings to You an experience materially different, from any ball game that has ever been created before.
Release date: TBA
Platforms: Mobile devices (features Limited), Pc, Mac and Linux.
Store : SteamPowered
For more info like us on www.facebook.com/WestudioGames Or feel free to drop us an email at westudiodm@gmail.com or me directly at thato@westudio.co.za
We'd like to hear your thoughts about it.
- Thato Mkhize
Comments
Is this the first game you're working on? That must be really exciting for you! What are your goals with this game?
You say you've been working on it for 4 months; do have a prototype or something further along? I'd be interested to see more information about what the gameplay is about :)
Why not show something here? Screenshots? Video? Art? Playable prototype?
Put yourself in our shoes, go through this forum, read some topics. Do you compelled to email anyone specifically or go to their facebook based on a couple lines of text? I'm not saying this to offend - I'm pointing out something that could help you get people engaged with what you're doing :)
I strongly recommend coming to the local meetups to get feedback on your games, meet other devs and share problems/solutions that you've encountered. They're also a lot of fun ;)
And to answer your questions -
No this is not the first game I'm working on, I've worked on something called Deathly Maze and it failed. I left the team and started my own company. WestudioGames
My goals for this game is to see it being released and players enjoying it and sharing it, that's the main goal I have.
I will post the video gameplay footage soon as I'm done working on it.
The game is on post-alpha, Lot of work still needs to be done.
And I might be meeting you guys for the first time this Tuesday :), I'll bring my laptop with and you'll play the game.
- Thanks for the warm welcome. (Almost felt like summer)
The same thing happens with videos as well, RetroEpic are great at polishing their videos with forum feedback, so we followed their lead with our new Desktop Dungeons video and it made a ton of difference.
Every kind of response is useful: Even if people don't respond at all it can mean a whole bunch of different things. Thankfully the forums are pretty open, so asking why someone said (or didn't say) something usually gets really helpful answers. Check out some of the project threads here for examples of this going on.
By the way so far this Community has been really good, the advices I'm getting are really opening my mind even wider. Thanks to everyone.
Here's the latest Development picture Up-Grades of Rolling Ball Zero.
The camera can now look only to the Back(Default), Right & Left.
The Mini map also is added. Which gives the players the exact position in the world. And is also on the pause menu.
//Share your thoughts and what else do you think we can add to make the game look of feel better.
The mini map is working great. Is basically a 2D bigger scene of your location, 'Real-Time'. And many people at my school have been testing the game and they think is working great, I placed the coins in the world as the paths to challenges, (And I know what you thinking, But that's a easier way of giving the player hints on where to go). But overall, the mini map really helps a lot. I tried to make it Big as possible. Thus far people are loving it, Can't wait to show the guys, the next meeting.
I'm looking for Local SA music producers. I'm working on the music in-game.
This is a reveal trailer of Rolling Ball Zero.
Here's a YouTube link:
Good luck with it :)
But I'll see what I can do to it.
Thanks for the feedback :)
This isn't meant to be overly harsh, but you need to understand the purpose of the thing you're creating. It's a tool to sell.
Also, there is absolutely no reason your trailer should be 1.37 minutes. No way. You can cut it down drastically and capture your game better, but you'll see that most people will never watch that far into a video trailer for a non-AAA game. 60 seconds should be your max. And your intro to your studio is too long. Needs to be snappier because people will click away before even seeing the game footage (I know this from experience - even with a shorter logo intro, we saw drop off from our video trailer at that point - and I'm looking at data from over 10 000 views from our android release).
Its been a while since I posted here. I guess exams have been holding me back, but I'm glad I'm done with my finals for 2015. And now I'm back to making games :). First things first, I'm gonna share all the work I've done on the project for the past 2 months and the company's progress.
Well, the biggest change I almost did was shifting from Unreal 4 to Unity 5. Both engines have good sides and bad sides. Here's what I've learnt. Now as we all know Unreal is epic in visuals and it's stunning in field of view and all the other effects needed to make a game as realistic as possible. And as for Unity 5, is about reliability. Unity 5 is a lot more indie friendlier than Unreal and it doesn't need a beastly Pc to run the games u make with it, it's requirements are reasonable and affordable. It gives uncompromising performance. Many people on other forums and on social medias did not agree with this. Share with us what you think.
Due on that issue of Unity vs Unreal, we decided to make things easier for ourselves and took a final decision. Since Rolling Ball Zero is going be on over 5 different platforms, which are iOS, Android, Mac, PC and possibly Xbox one. We are going to use both engines and then decide for which platforms are more suitable and compatible. Since Unity is very good in frame rate and mobile gamers never complain about how the game looks, all the mobile versions of the game will be made in Unity. Pc gamers likes to brag about how good the game looks and how realistic is it. We'll deliver just that from the help of Unreal.
Here's footage of comparison. keep in mind the Unity is targeted for Mobile devices. (Please I don't want to hear from Unity developers on how good you can better the looks of it. Keep it to yourself.) And thanks for reading.
- Thato Mkhize ( Creative Director & Co-Founder of WestudioGames )
This is another thing WestudioGames thought is really epic and I'd to share with you all.
2015 rAge Expo experience from the eyes of Westudio Devs.
Exhibiting your game in a big event such as rAge is no joke. Especially when is your first. This year it was our first, and hopefully not last. When I realized that over 30 000 people will be at rAge I was petrified. Because I didn't know what to expect whatsoever. Here's what was on my mind all the time : 1.) Will people like my game ? 2.) There's huge number of serious AAA games, will anyone even think on not playing Black Ops 3 and come to play my game ? 3.) is my game even on standard ? 4.) Will investors even believe WestudioGames is owned by a 17 years old ? 5.) What the 'F' have I done ???
But then it turned out that all that was on my mind was false. The correct answer to all those questions is simply 'YES' (except the last one). People did come and test out our game and we asked almost everyone who played it, if they enjoyed it, most people's replies was 'YES, where can I download it?' I felt so bad that it was not yet ready for release.. Damn it... But overall thou we were so proud that people really did enjoy the game, especially kids. like 3+, 7+. 12. They really liked it, some were crying, others cheering, laughing and having fun which is the main purpose of Rolling_Ball_Zero, to bring a smile on one's face.
Some other pro-gamers and game designers who played the game shared with us, some cool ideas that really helped us to make the best of Rolling Ball Zero. (If you shared with us and you're reading this I would like say THANK YOU).. I'll post the new look of Rolling Ball Zero here.
Another sharp curve I took is advertising with posters in different schools. My school was first in-line obviously. But we believe in-order to reach a certain audience for our game, a little risky hard work never killed a man. And since this is more of a casual game, we have mostly youth fans. People from the age of 3 until the age group of 16. (Please don't feel bad when you're playing this game and older.)
Our biggest aim for now is Releasing the game. Especially on mobile devices. iOS and Google Play. Our target date is 04 December, I hope nothing goes wrong and the game finally reaches it's audience. (It's gonna be free on mobile devices. Which is basically just a demo for bigger consoles. And once the PC demo version is ready I will post it here for you to play.
Woow, I can't believe I had to much to say... But I'm done talking for now, Check out the footage at the bottom of this post and share with us your thoughts. Have an awesome day, and thanks for reading.
- Thato Mkhize ( Creative Director & Co-Founder of WestudioGames )
A few days ago we just had our first Rolling Ball Zero Demo Release on Google Play Store. I'll leave you a link below to check it out it's free, just encase you were wondering. Our next focus is to release it on iOS App Store and to also start a Kick-starter Campaign really soon. Please leave us a comment if you're an experienced iOS developer. We would just like to know what we should avoid and focus on to better the game on iOS before its released.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.WestudioGames.RollingBallZero
Thanks :)
It will also very likely mean that your physics is different depending on which platform it is on - so you can never compare scores. It isn't really a comparison if they are targeted at different quality levels.