toltec-studios posts

It was one of the finalists of the Make Something Unreal contest and now Toltec Studios, the makers of the Unreal Tournament 3 mod The Ball, are making a stand alone version of their first person action-puzzle game using the Unreal Development Kit. However, due to some business issues, the name of the development team had to be changed. So say hello to Teotl Studios.

The game's official web site has also revealed a new look for the game's mysterious character The King. We are promised that we will learn more about this being in the new commercial version. Meanwhile the site hints that an actual release date for The Ball might be announced soon.

Epic Games has supported mod makers by releasing tools for their PC games ever since the release of the original Unreal game. Tons of new levels, weapons and total conversions have started out as mods based on Epic's games like Unreal Tournament, UT 2004 and UT 3. A few have even made the jump to becoming full stand alone commercial games like Tactical Ops, Red Orchestra and most recently Killing Floor. All of those games required the developer to buy a full Unreal Engine license from Epic.

With today's release of the Unreal Development Kit by Epic, mod makers who previously needed to have one of Epic's commercial games installed no longer have that limitation and can now make stand alone games that they can release for free or as a commercial game. Toltec Studios, the UT 3 mod team behind the unusual first person action-puzzle total conversion The Ball, have already released a stand alone free demo version of the game using UDK. You can download the demo right now at Big Download.

Big Download got to ask some questions to the mod team's leader Sjoerd "Hourences" De Jong to find out more about their UDK version of The Ball, whether mod makers will gravitate to Epic's new free release and their plans for a commercial version of The Ball.