teotl-studios posts

Of all of the games that were involved in the Portal 2 ARG promotion, the one that most resembled Valve's puzzle shooter series is The Ball from developer Teotl Studios. This weekend The Ball dev team posted up its own behind-the-scenes account on making the original Portal 2 content that was put into its own puzzle-shooter.

After putting in a couple of obscure content items in the game, the big new addition is a new challenge level where players navigate the Ball through a series of Portal-related test chambers. The level took about a month to complete. The article also gives clues to some hidden items in the game's terminal screens.

Tripwire is rapidly becoming known as a publisher of former mods, and their latest release falls straight in line with that perception. The Ball, a former Unreal Tournament 3 mod that was a finalist in Make Something Unreal, has finally be released on Steam as a stand-alone project. While it's a fun, visually stunning, and relaxing game, it suffers from a number of problems that keep it from rising above its mod roots. Make no mistake: this is a fantastic indie game that many can enjoy. There's just a number of issues that keep it from achieving the heights that it aspires to.

This demo for the action puzzle game, The Ball, includes levels from the full game along with some Survival Mode maps. System requirements are shown after the jump.

"The Ball is a first person action-adventure game featuring a full single-player experience built on Epic's Unreal Engine 3 technology. As a swashbuckling archaeologist working on the slopes of a dormant volcano somewhere in Mexico, you get stuck in a cavern. It doesn't take long before you realize this is more than just a cave. You reveal ancient ruins that have been hidden from outsiders for centuries and discover a mysterious artifact, a gold and metal shelled Ball. As you progress towards solving the mystery of this amazing place you must unlock the secrets of the Ball and learn to control this ancient artifact. Venturing deeper into the volcano, you reveal some of mankind's greatest secrets and you will start to encounter not just puzzles and traps, but also various strange creatures – the guardians of this mystery. These creatures have to be overcome, using only the Ball to defend you."

Download The Ball Demo (491 MB)
Check out all The Ball downloads

The Ball is close to rolling its way to hard drive. This week publisher Tripwire Interactive announced that the first person puzzle-action game from developer Teotl Studios will be released on October 26. It's the first commercial PC game that will be released that was developed via Epic Games' Unreal Development Kit, the "free" version of Unreal Engine 3.

Pre-orders for the $19.99 game will begin on October 18 via Steam. People who pre-order The Ball and also own Tripwire's zombie shooter Killing Floor will be rewarded with a nice extra. The hero from The Ball will get to also be a playable character in Killing Floor.

It's a game that combines first person shooter elements with exploration and puzzle solving. Nope, it's not Portal or Portal 2. It's The Ball, the game that started out as a Unreal Tournament 3 mod and has now been adapted into a stand alone and full commercial project (a stand alone demo using the Unreal Development Kit was released last fall). The full game from developer Teotl Studios is to be published by Tripwire Interactive. The Ball will be released via download and in retail stores later this month.

Big Download got Teotl Studios' creative director Sjoerd De Jong to give us some more info about The Ball including some hints about future downloadable content for the game and more.

A former Unreal Tournament 3 mod is one step closer to becoming a full fledged stand alone commercial title. Developer Teotl Studios has announced that the first person action-puzzle game The Ball has now "gone gold". The game is now set for release via download and in stores in mid-October from publisher Tripwire Interactive.

The web site has also posted up word about how the developers have been working with creating the look for the transparent ball in the game. You can play the game with an "always on" transparent ball or one where the ball is always solid. The default mode is for the ball to be solid by itself and will turn transparent when the ball is attached to the game's weapon.

It's been a little while since we have reported on the progress of The Ball, the fun first person action-puzzle game from developer Teotl Studios that began as an Unreal Tournament 3 mod. However the game's official web site has been giving regular weekly updates on the upcoming full commercial version of the game which will be published by Tripwire Interactive.

The latest updates states that a release candidate version of The Ball could be ready by tomorrow or Friday and a full gold master for the retail version is still planned for sometime in early September. Earlier updates to the site indicate that a new logo for The Ball is being made, with the site saying that the current logo " .. is too simple, and we think we can come up with something better and more polished." Art for the game's retail box is also being worked on and a Steam version of the game is being worked on that will be made available to the press.

Download The Ball UDK demo (359 MB)

The Ball, this year's overall runner up in the second Make Something Unreal mod contest, has been in development as a stand alone commercial game from its developer Teotl Studios. Today, it was announced that Tripwire Interactive would publish The Ball as both a downloadable and retail game later this fall. The commercial version of the game will be a six hour single player action-adventure game as you control a mysterious "ball" through a cavern filled with puzzled to solve and enemy creatures to fight. You can download a stand alone UDK version of The Ball here at Big Download.

Tripwire Interactive got its start by first winning the Make Something Unreal mod contest with the UT 2004 mod version of Red Orchestra. The developer released the mod as a stand alone game to great success and then turned another UT 2004 mod, Killing Floor, into another successful commercial game.

One of the grand finalists in the recent Make Something Unreal contest was The Ball, the unusual first person action-puzzle mod from developer Teotl Studios. The development team has been busy making The Ball into a full-fledged commercial stand alone title and recently the team showed off some new gameplay footage.

The new video, shown above, shows off what you can do with the title, um, ball. That includes killing in-game mummies in a wide variety of ways such as nailing them with The Ball's nail variation, crushing them, blowing them up and lots more. Hopefully we won't have to wait much longer to blow up, nail and crush mummies with this game.

A few days ago we reported that the developer of the upcoming stand alone version of the Unreal Tournament 3 mod The Ball had changed their name to Teotl Studios. This weekend the developer announced that the first person action-puzzle game is looking like it will be released sometime in August.

The web site also announced that the team got a helpful financial boost from the Nordic Game Program. The grand tprogram, run by the Scandinavian government, gave Teotl Studios a grant that's the equivalent of $45,000. The money should be a big help to the development team as it prepares for The Ball's stand alone commercial release.