Categories
Development Processess Events Prototypes

Roving Rovers: The Newest Experimental Space Simulator

Adelaide's Addition To The "Space Race"

As many of you may be aware, we at Mini Mammoth Games have been working on a lunar rover game alongside multiple universities and space companies. Working with a large group of Flinders students we were able to create a basic demo that allowed players to control a lunar rover and perform the same tasks that the Australian Rover Challengers would have to complete. During the event we received amazing feedback from a wide array of attendees. From children refusing to put down the controller, to students who are dreaming of working within the space industry.

After the completion of the 2022 Australian Rover Challenge Mini Mammoth and the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources decided that Roving Rovers could continue to improve upon the first demo to help support the rover challenge and help to drive more interest into Australia’s growing space industry. So back to the screens we went, updating rovers for a fun and unique, but definitely not realistic rover to bring a bit more personality to the game. This also allowed us to create a mascot to help drive interest and emotional investment into Roving Rovers. This mascot became known as Brum, a fun and personable rover reminiscent of a bug. This next version of RR was taken to the 14th Space Forum in 2022, this allowed us, for the first time, to really reach into and have a look at the current state of the space industry and how it is evolving.

2023 rolls around and we spy another Australian Rover Challenge, this time we had focused hard on allowing the players to both choose pre-made rovers (one being the Adelaide Uni teams rover) and the option to modify and create your own version of Brum. This was a favourite section for many players, especially the ability to play as the rovers they’re watching compete. Furthermore we updated all the tasks to realistically resemble what the challenge’s tasks are. Which was also a big draw for the challenge teams as well, many came over to have a look and see just how similar it was and allowed other team members to be in control of the rover.

If you’re in Adelaide during the month of September 2023 make sure to stop by the MOD museum to play our demo for FREE during the exhibition! If you’re here specifically here on the 1st of September grab a FREE ticket from our Eventbrite page and celebrate the opening of our exhibition!

Meet The Team

Although the team for Roving Rovers includes those outside of Mini Mammoth Games, here are the Leads that will be ensuring it’s success!

Adding on the rest of the Mini Mammoth, our combined skills will allow us to achieve anything we wish for Roving Rovers!

What's On For The Future

In July we attended Avcon and allowed visitors to try out a demo of Roving Rovers, if you want to read more on that check out our blog!

In the rest of the coming year we will be showcasing Roving Rovers at every potential opportunity, these include many upcoming conventions! The first being Gamescom in August, then South by Southwest and the Melbourne International Games Week marathon. These are great opportunities for us to showcase our current prototype as we will be updating Roving Rovers over the course of the rest of this year. With many new opportunities for our community to have a tasting of Roving Rovers’ potential! So we look forward to seeing the rest of what South Australia will be showcasing at these events.

Roving Rovers has been a great opportunity for Mini Mammoth Games and we are very excited to see where it leads us in the future, furthermore we are excited to see what you are able to achieve with Roving Rovers! 

A demo with the chance of completely making your rover from scratch; want only wheels? Sure, go ahead. Want three sets of wheels? Sure, you can do that! No ability to actually perform any tasks? Well, we can’t stop you, I guess. Where is it now? You ask, well, find out through our socials, but you might be seeing us pop up at all sorts of events, games? Space? Small business? Keep your eyes peeled and you might just catch a glimpse of us.

Want to test the current demo?

Want to keep up to date? Join the Roving Rovers mailing list here:

Or join our discord server, subreddit or follow our other socials for any and all updates!!

See you on our journey!

Categories
Events

Melbourne International Games Week 2022

Melbourne International Games Week of 2022

This year Mini Mammoth Games was able to go to Melbourne International Games Week for the first time! We managed to make it to all four events and had an excellent time there, being able to interact with both South Australian developers and developers from across the country. It was an unforgettable experience.

Here is a short recap of our time!

GCAP

At GCAP our goal was to both increase our professional network, while also learning practical skills that can be applied in our day to day game developer work from the variety of talks and panels available. GCAP ended up being a great experience overall with lots of industry connections being made and a variety of talks on a diverse range of topics. Stand out talks and panels were: See That Mountain, You Can Climb It by Osama DorIas and the panel on Queer Games.

We hope to be back next year with more of our team members to learn even more.

AGDAs

Rounding out GCAP were the Australian Game Developer Awards. This was a great experience to see just how big the games industry is in Australia, and the amazing games from Australian developers over the last year. For us, It was also a great excuse to dress up and look fancy (insert photo) while taking advantage of the catered food and drink. Throughout the night we talked to and met different people, not just other developers but the IGEA representatives who helped keep everything orderly too. All in all, the night was fantastic and we are looking forward to returning next year!

Photo of 3 Mini Mammoth Games' staff members and another attendee at the 2022 AGDA awards night

Games For Change APAC

Asia Pacific Convention ran concurrently with GCAP and involved both a teachers summit and 2 days of panels from industry representatives. The summit had a diverse array of teaching representatives from Kindergarten teachers through to University Lectures and educators covering the gap. Between lectures from organisations such as Scienceworks to practical exercises that taught teachers how to teach through games, the first ever Games for Change Festival was a raging success. Each evening allowed Mini Mammoth Games developers to connect with different industry representatives in networking drinks, and we were even able to chat with the managing director of G4C, Arana Shapiro. She had us sold on their mission in moments, and now we are die hard G4C supporters!

PAX

Rounding out the week was the 3 days we spent exhibiting Idle Gangs at PAX! Our main goal here was to get as many people to play the game and provide feedback as possible, while also providing awareness of our brand. Pax proved a huge success in this regard as we estimate around 500 people played Idle gangs over the weekend. This provided us with invaluable feedback and we left with multiple pages of notes detailing ways to improve the game. Feedback covered everything from the speed through which players should progress through our tutorial, to fine detail about the way different effects should feel. PAX is single handedly responsible for the feedback that lead to our muggables being trampled for extra money. Sometimes, it’s all about the little things.

PAX also proved to be a great learning opportunity as our first exhibit at a convention. We realised very early on that we should have bought a dev machine with us so we could update the game each evening, fixing small bugs and providing us with a better way to exhibit the game. Next time we will be far better prepared!

Image of Mini Mammoth Games' booth at PAX 2022

Overall, we had a great time in Melbourne, travelling between venues and meeting a variety of people. Being able to meet developers from around Australia and learn from them was something that Mini Mammoth is looking forward to experiencing again next year!

Congrats to every developer and their achievements this year!