The Ball is a singleplayer action and puzzle mod for Unreal Tournament 3. It competes in the MakeSomethingUnreal Contest, and it has won three first prizes in so far (Best Gametype - 2 x Best Use of Physics), and one 3rd place (Best Mod). Additionally it has won the ModDB MOTY Best Singleplay Mod of 2008 award.

The Ball offers an adventure that puts you in the boots of a geologist who gets stuck in a cavern and bumps onto an ancient and Mesoamerican complex holding a mysterious ball. While making your way through the internal workings of ancient ziggurats, golden cities, and huge caverns, your only companion is a giant gold and metal-shelled ball, a mysterious artifact in its own right, that you use to make your way through a series of rooms and caverns, and to crush enemies with. As you progress through the mod, slowly the real purpose of this gigantic complex becomes clear, and you are sucked into a thousands of years old story of betrayal and secrecy.

The mod is episodic in nature, and knows a release every three to six months. So far two parts have been released: Pehua, and Oztoc. Part 3, Teotl, is set for a release in May 2009.

The Ball is designed and directed by Hourences and has a 13 people strong international team working on it: Toltec Studios.

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28 comments by Hourences on Nov 5th, 2009 digg this super bookmark


Over the past few months we have been working on porting The Ball over to Epic Games' Unreal Development Kit. That means a stand alone build of The Ball, running on the very latest version of the Unreal Engine! We'd like to thank Epic Games for the great opportunity! Check out our page on their official UDK website.

We built a demo that contains two levels. One brand new and awesome survival level with dozens of traps (by Mario Marquardt). And 30 to 45 minutes long singleplay compilation level. It contains parts of Pehua, Oztoc, and Hueca and gives a good presentation of all the features found in our game. If you have played a recent version of the mod, there is likely not much new for you in this demo. If you haven't had the chance yet however to check out our game, or you don't own UT3, here is your chance really!

This also means that we are going to port over the entire project to the UDK, and go commercial (albeit in an indie way) with the game. The full release is set for somewhere in spring 2010.

Minimum

  • 3GHz single core CPU
  • 1024MB System memory
  • Geforce 6800 or similar
  • 650 MB Diskspace
  • Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7

Recommended

  • Dual Core CPU
  • 2048MB System memory
  • Geforce 8800 or above
  • 650 MB Diskspace
  • Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7

The demo is free and does not require a copy of UT3 or the UDK!


We have a thread on our forum with some tips if you are having perfomance issues.

We added a FAQ to our website today as well. Check it out.

We are also bumping up our community efforts! Check out our newly formed Facebook fan page. We will now begin posting weekly updates and keep you people in the loop!


Five more days until the Cahua release!

Media RSS Feed Latest Video
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The Ball UDK Demo

The Ball UDK Demo

Nov 05, 2009 Demo 2 comments

A 40 minute long stand alone demo of The Ball made for Epic Games' UDK Release. Running on the latest version of the Unreal Engine, this demo features...

The Ball - Hueca

The Ball - Hueca

Aug 25, 2009 Full Version 9 comments

The 4th episode of our mysterious adventure. Venture deeper than ever into a volcano and come across an ancient vehicle that will take you across a vast...

Comments  (30 - 40 of 111)
SportingSCP
SportingSCP Jun 22 2009, 1:47pm says:

i would say one of my best mod for ut3, but god damn, why so many cutscenes, can't skip 1 single cutscene. you enter a room cutscene you leave the room cutscene :D nah it's not like that but it got me mad enough i quit the mod 10mins in.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Hourences
Hourences Jul 10 2009, 8:13am replied: Online

UT does not offer the functionality to let people skip a cutscene. We can't do it. And if we have fewer cutscenes we have people complain they don't know what to do. Impossible battle.

+1 vote     reply to comment
strangelet
strangelet Aug 2 2009, 5:29am replied:

aye we spent ages doing cutscenes for planetstorm - nobody cares, they just want to shoot things :)

+1 vote     reply to comment
Regga-Voska
Regga-Voska Jun 17 2009, 8:33am says:

This mod really is the shit!
But it need some kind of coop or multiplayer...

+1 vote     reply to comment
moonfudge
moonfudge Jun 17 2009, 2:28pm replied:

no, no it doesn't. Well, that's my opinion, but I feel it's too talored to single player now that you can't really make it multi. But that's just me

+1 vote     reply to comment
pvt.Johnson
pvt.Johnson Jun 3 2009, 7:58pm says:

Are there working PS3 versions...?

+1 vote     reply to comment
SludgeFactory
SludgeFactory May 30 2009, 12:08pm says:

Ok I have no idea how to make this work, never really used much UT3 mods. I installed it and I click on The Ball shortcut, it looks exactly like the UT3 menu, am I supposed to select some map or something?

+1 vote     reply to comment
Daze
Daze Jun 14 2009, 5:52pm replied:

My guess is you need to patch your UT3.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Hourences
Hourences May 13 2009, 4:09am replied: Online

It does not save progress in a level, it only saves progress per level. We can't do the first thing technically since UT is a multiplayer game and does not offer a save game system we can abuse for the mod.

So as long as you are at the beginning or the end of a level, you are fine, you can just select that level again in the menu later and start.

+1 vote     reply to comment
stenchy
stenchy May 13 2009, 3:35pm replied:

Figured as much - oh well.

+1 vote     reply to comment
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Unreal Tournament 3 Icon
Platforms
PC, PS3
Developer
Toltec Studios
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Release Date
Released May 7, 2009
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Community Rating

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8.9

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Style
Genre
First Person Shooter
Theme
Fantasy
Players
Single Player
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Last Update
3 days ago
Watchers
327 members
Files
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