The Ball is Rolling... feature

Even deformed monkeys don't like the old ball. So last release.

ModDB: The ball in part 2 is a different one, any significance there?

Hourences: We decided to redo the ball for part 2 because we weren't really happy with how the old one looked. As the ball is pretty much the main character of the mod, we really wanted to make it look a lot cooler and more fitting to the environment than the pretty generic first ball. We also made sure the ball behaves a bit better in part 2 by fixing the bug where the player can get stuck inside the ball and by allowing you to bring the ball to a full stop when keep holding secondary fire.

ModDB: You've also promised part 2 to have more action in addition to the puzzle elements. Are you having troubles is trying to find ways to blend the moments of action with the puzzle aspect?

Hourences: We haven't succeeded in adding enemies to Part 2, like we had intended. Time constraints have temporarily put those plans on hold, but we are most definitely going to add it to part 3. It is a high priority for us. The action in part 2 is pretty limited right now. There are a number of exploding balls, and three hot balls that will try to crush and burn you. Those weren't that difficult to blend in with the puzzle gameplay. For part three we hope to have an action-puzzle ratio similar to the Tomb Raider games.

The new model is much more shiny. Ooo shiny.

ModDB: It seems like you're approaching an episodic release model with this mod. Is that because of the MSU contest? How many "parts" or episodes do you plan to release?

Hourences: Yes certainly, but we are also doing it to aid our development process. We intend to have a fully fledged total conversion by the end of the contest, and building up such a large project in several parts like we are doing is just a whole lot easier than trying to tackle the whole project at once. That is also the reason why Epic implemented several phases, to motivate people to start small.
We intend to have at least three parts, but likely we will end up with four or five episodes.

ModDB: Can you briefly explain your development process? I mean, a month is a really condensed development time for a mod. What do you think you've done different when compared to most other mod teams?

Hourences: First of all we simply got a very simple but cool idea. We designed it in such way that we could invest most of our time in polishing what we made, rather than trying to make it work. We also greatly cut down on the number of features for the first release, to make sure that we had a realistic goal that would be easy to meet. We [also] simply have a lot of experience. The programmer and I have both been working with Unreal for years. This is the 9th year that I [have worked on] modding a UT game. We didn't have to spend any time on looking up information, reading tutorials, and so on.

ModDB: So by the end of the fourth phase, what do you expect 'The Ball' mod to be in terms of both content and playtime? What's you ultimate goal with this project?

Hourences: We hope to have at least six hours of singleplayer gameplay by the end of the 4th phase, preferably 8, at least three enemies, and two new kind of environments. We obviously hope to win the engine license and go commercial with this. I think that this kind of game would fit platforms like [the] Xbox Live Arcade and Steam really well, so that is the ultimate goal.

If you haven't tried it yet, the cumulative second release—Oztoc—of The Ball mod is available to download on ModDB. Part 3 can be expected to release sometime around the deadline of phase 3 of the MSU (May 15th).