AIE – Mini Mammoth Games

Roving Rovers at the Museum of Discovery

As many of you have heard, here at Mini Mammoth Games we have a Hard Sci-fi lunar management sim under development, Roving Rovers! In December of 2022 we introduced ourselves to Lisa Bailey from the University of South Australia who runs the MOD. Which opened up a great opportunity we had been looking for, a month long exhibition for the public. This would not only open Roving Rovers up to being played by many different people, but also allow us to get first hand feedback and analytics to help guide on-going development.

With an exciting month-long exhibition ahead of us we thought it was only fitting to host a Launch Party. We could then celebrate the wider games industry,as well as connect with space industry professionals from across the state. With the help of the MOD staff we were able to pull off a great night, with an excellent spread of food and drink choices in the very comfortable and welcoming Gould Gallery.

The night went off without a hitch, everyone was able to find the Gallery and we filled most of the main hall., With our game accessible in an adjacent room, everyone was able to mingle and see what the fuss was all about. We were also blessed to have some great speakers that talked about the idea and conception of Roving Rovers. Thank you to Cameron Mackness from Flinders University, Andreas Antoniades from Saber Astronautics and John Culton from the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources (ATCSR). Their endless support of Mini Mammoth Games and Roving Rovers has been a big help with the project and its development so far.

At the exhibition we decided to show off multiple versions of Roving Rovers, showing how the game has evolved over its development . Starting in late 2021 alongside Flinders University and some of their students, we were able to create a small but enjoyable demo that did an ok job at showcasing the 2022 Australian Rover Challenge. With such a welcoming and encouraging response to the demo we decided to continue to develop Roving Rovers further and so we prepared an update for the Space Forum event later that year. In 2023 we once again worked with (ATCSR) to create a more accurate rover demo while adding in some of the participating team’s rovers used in the physical challenge.

All of these versions of the game were available to play with at our exhibition, as well as a few posters providing context as to why there were multiple versions of the same game and explaining the history of the project. We were also allowed to have Mini Mammoth Games staff members manning the exhibition and working from the space, allowing those who visited to ask more in depth questions and learn more about it’s on-going development.

Alongside multiple builds of Roving Rovers we were tracking analytics from the most recent build. These were also displayed to those who visited the exhibit. We used this event as a way to see how players engage and interact with the rover builder to complete various terrain challenges. With the exhibition open to the public for 20 days we had a staggering 649 sessions, over 61 hours of total playtime with an average of 5 minutes and 45 seconds per player. We did have someone play for a total time of 53 minutes, more than 10 times longer than the average. Players who did play for an extended amount of time enjoyed the rover builder the most and would spend a large portion of their time fiddling with the designs.

Having developers present allowed us to also observe how players would interact with the game between the various builds. From our observations players really enjoyed the rover builder, but wished to have more firm directions/quests like the 2 Australian Rover Challenge builds had.

Our experience with the MOD was fantastic and with over 600 distinct sessions of Roving Rovers it was effective at reaching a large audience. Furthermore, with the MOD allowing developers to work there during its opening hours we were also able to interact and watch those who played the game, which expedited our feedback process.

We would like to thank the MOD. for inviting us to use their space, and all the help and support they provided over the month we were set up there. It was an invaluable experience and we would highly recommend it to any developers given the opportunity.

Thank you to everyone who helped us get to this point and we appreciate all the support!

Click on the buttons bellow to keep up to date and to learn more about Roving Rovers!

Growing the Adelaide Games Scene

Hello everyone!

We think it is incredible when companies help to grow and support the growth, development and evolution of their industry. Here at Mini Mammoth Games we are trying to do exactly that despite still being a SME. We are actively supporting new devs, the growth and outreach of games and how they can be used as more than just entertainment every day we operate.

Before Mini Mammoth Games, our founders were all studying together and being offered occasional placements through our academy. While helpful, they were rarely doing explicit game development work and often the projects were in semi-adjacent fields instead. Although ultimately a bit disappointing, these placements did show us how variable our skills can be but just weren’t what many of us were wanting; a placement where we could build a game, from start to finish. Conception to distribution.

Unfortunately there weren’t any game specific placements available in the state, and from the founding of Mini Mammoth Games we set out to change that. Starting off with our old haunt, the Academy of Interactive Entertainment. It was a slow start, but eventually we had a revolving door of placement teams coming in and out and creating hyper casual mobile games in a pipeline that took them from the design and concept to marketing and release onto the Google Play Store.

With this in place we wanted to offer that chance to the full contingent of educational institutes in the state, but first we needed a small increase in our office size to accommodate the increasing demand. Flinders University and Adelaide University were eager to jump onto the opportunity to be able to find placements for their games students. With having work experience directly related to the industry it also gives students a leg up after graduating as they are able to ask staff here to be a reference for their resumes. We can then provide accurate feedback as to how they work in a studio environment and help to push them into the industry.

Aside from our work to help the learning and integration of new developers into this industry, one of our goals as a company is to grow the local industry. Our mission is to create memorable experiences that promote a positive impact in the world, and we are achieving that through our placement program, and within all aspects of Mini Mammoth Games. With our client and internal projects we aim to scale internally, so we hire on staff from our program. With the extra experience, they can then at minimum get a casual job working in the game industry. Best case scenario they get a permanent full or part-time job here with us. This is another area where we can further help our previous placements, providing them experience and portfolio work they can use to advance their career even if we aren’t positioned to support them long term at the time.

To extrapolate a little further, within our outreach and client work we are continuously talking to industries and companies whose involvement and use of games as an interactive medium has been minimal at best. Our aim with a majority of networking and outreach is to help those outside of the games industry see how an interactive experience can help them connect with their audiences in a more personal, educational and entertaining way. Something small and personal can often make a massive difference in the way they talk with their own customers, and in the big picture we can help a lot of people learn new, interesting things about the world.

This is only a quick look into what we do and try to achieve here at Mini Mammoth Games, but we hope that this not only inspires other developers to help upskill and support new developers, but also other companies. We can’t do everything ourselves and growing the industry here in Adelaide will benefit everyone in the long run.

So if you, or anyone you know is interested in participating in our program, or running your own, please reach out to contact@minimammothgames.com. We will be sure to get back to you as soon as we can!