PAX Aus – Mini Mammoth Games

Happy New Year to 2025 and continued excitement

2025 brings new tidings for us here at Mini Mammoth Games and also ever closer to the full release of Roving Rovers! Whilst 2024 was not the best that Mini Mammoth Games has experienced it has certainly led us to a position of being able to further develop Roving Rovers and a client’s project as well!

Keep an eye out for both at SAGE 2025!

Firstly a short recap!

2024 started off like previous years, working on updated Roving Rovers to fit with the upcoming ARCh and SAGE events; giving us a strong start to the year. Which was then promptly stomped on by a client pulling out from signing a contract 3 days before; this was a client we had spent approximately 6 months pitching and negotiating with to get to that point. A large disappointment would be an understatement, however it also affected those we had spent time interviewing for positions we were sure to have in the coming year.

Thankfully we were also starting another project for a different client, so despite that drawback we weren’t going to let it get to us too much and so we trekked on! With the support of the University of Adelaide and the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources we brought Roving Rovers to a myriad of events, including:

The Australian Rover Challenge – held by the University of Adelaide
The South Australian Games Expo – held by the South Australian Film Corporation
PAX Australia; Australia’s biggest game based convention

With many companies behind us and Roving Rovers our CEO, David McCann was given the opportunity to attend the International Astronautical Congress that was held in Italy. Giving us the ability to network with the (much) wider space industry and also showcase the potential that the games industry can provide the space industry. A partnership between these two industries is only inevitable as they continue to expand across the world. The biggest example of how they can benefit each other is Kerbal Space Program, which has been around for years at this point (since 2015) and it has been used by astronautical engineers and amateurs alike to learn and play around with what specifics makes a rocket go to space.

Obviously not for actual testing when it comes to the professionals, hopefully, but much like flight simulators and city builders, they often attract those that are involved in the professions mimicked by the game. Games like this are often what drives a child’s or person’s interest into things like becoming a Pilot, Engineer or Astronaut; something that is often credited for their interest in pursuing a career in those fields too.

A surprising fact for those not in the know is that many programmers got their start in Redstone – Yes the red dust to make pistons move in Minecraft sparked many children’s interest in programming and computer engineering.

But to get back on track, keep an eye out for Roving Rovers being credited for bringing the next generation to the space industry – maybe, don’t quote us yet.

What is the herd up to? I hear you all say!

Well, to start off with we are in the final development stages of an internal project. This will be the first fully developed project of Mini Mammoth Games that isn’t a mobile game. This is a large step forward in our story! This project is also perfect to use as an example of our capabilities and will be used to showcase ourselves to potential clients.

On top of that exciting news we are also hosting a few workshops over January and February, with the January workshops being a partnership with the Australian Space Agency. Though this particular workshop has since passed and was a great success, with 2 of the 3 sessions selling out it is clear that this is a great opportunity that we will continue to take advantage of this year.

The second workshop is set for the 15th of January and is a partnership with the West Lakes council, so keep an eye out for when that is properly announced on our socials!

To no surprise you will find us at both SAGE and ARCh 2025; despite previous iterations of Roving Rovers having minimal mechanical updates from previous years it’s time to get real excited about what we will be presenting to you this year!

With the continual support of ATCSR we are doing a large overhaul and update to Roving Rovers to truly reflect our intent for the game’s future development and full release. It will genuinely showcase, not just the basics of the Australian Rover Challenge, but the mechanics, story and gameplay that the final release will have. This is something we are ecstatic about as we haven’t had much time to truly showcase the potential of Roving Rovers in the past, so this is a great opportunity to take another peak at what Mini Mammoth Games is developing!

Australian Rover Challenge’s winning Rover from 2024
Improved physics
Improved Rover building
Job specific Rovers
Humans!

Whilst our current future is full of lunar rovers, we have many game ideas that we would love to bring to fruition, ranging from Idle mobile games to interactive horror novels.

We will also keep supporting and growing the games industry the best that we can, so if you or anyone you know needs work experience or a placement within the games industry please reach out. We had a continuous flow last year and had many great games made by the students!

For more information on our placement program: https://minimammothgames.com/our-placement-program/
And if you want to check out the placement games from 2024 follow the link: https://minimammothgames.com/2024_placement_games/

Although the start of 2024 had many hiccups we have ended up in a great position with the support of many companies and the Australian space industry on top of that!

Make sure to keep an eye out for Roving Rovers at any games or space events near you and a quick shout out to our friends over at My Colourful Mind for their Christmas demo release of Taming Yore Dragon; with the full-release not far behind!

References

What is Kerbal Space Program:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program#Scientific_community

Kerbal Space Program’s impact

https://www.christopherroosen.com/blog/2021/1/16/kerbal-space-program-ksp-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-interesting-spaceflight-simulator

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/mar/06/kerbal-space-program-helping-space-flight-experts-of-the-future

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/22/kerbal-space-program-why-nasa-minecraft

Minecraft’s Redstone impact

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45vp3O77CfQ

Minecraft’s Redstone similar to IRL circuitry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg-VeGSuf-Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV_lf1kyV9M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUHdgWg_WZo

Roving Rovers: PAX 2024 Expedition

With the impact that PAX can have for Indie Developers, it may be surprising to hear that we weren’t initially sure if we were going to attend this year’s convention; with a client’s project as our main focus it was initially hard to see how we would fit an interstate convention into our busy schedule. But we at Mini Mammoth Games are nothing if not a little stubborn, so as many are probably aware we did of course attend; we made it work no matter what!

(Ensuring it didn’t hinder our client and their project)

Despite our focus not being centred on our own projects, we always made some room for our much beloved Roving Rovers whenever we could; ensuring that we playtested the demo ahead of PAX Aus with the help of our friends over at AUSS (Adelaide Uni Space Society). They organised, marketed and ran a playtesting event a few weeks before ensuring we were able to make the demo playable and of course enjoyable on top of that!

Just another quick shout out to them, they are a great group and if you have any interest in space I would suggest keeping an eye on them and their achievements!

Furthermore, we have kept up a yearly tradition with the support of ATCSR (Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources) of bringing Roving Rovers to their annual Australian Rover Challenge (ARCH); which had allowed us earlier in the year to make drastic changes to how the game was played since PAX Aus 23! We made it more driven and less just playing around the mechanics in their concept stage; adding a mission system, story and more interaction with the environment than we previously had. Feedback from ARCH 24 had been that they enjoyed having a much clearer sense of direction, even if we hadn’t quite figured out how to make sure the rover wouldn’t consistently flip at any turn.

Like many Indie Developers the travel to and from interstate conventions may not be the most comfortable or simple; sort of. We chose to travel by road over to Melbourne to save on money and to ensure that all our hardware would get there and undamaged. We did thankfully get there with little difficulty and had some time to relax before having to bump in on Thursday and showcase on Friday.

With our arrival in Melbourne it was only a matter of time before thousands of people would be swarming into the expo hall and getting to see what Australia’s Indie Developers had been up to this past year; excited to see what they will be buying when they get back home!

We had a lot of fun talking about and showcasing Roving Rovers, especially with the chance to do so to a much larger audience than what we usually get with South Australian conventions. With a large number of SA Indie Devs getting interviewed, including some of our own devs; there was a much larger microscope on how big the games industry is becoming in South Australia, but also the country as a whole!

Now Mini Mammoth isn’t one to get all down, but despite not being able to work on Roving Rovers as much this year and not having the game in the state we wanted for PAX Aus 24; we still had many people telling us how much they enjoyed the game and how they are going to be keeping an eye on its development. This was a much needed uplift that many of our devs needed; due to this year being quite slow for us. The joy that you feel as a developer when you get to see in-person the amount of fun people have when playing your game is genuinely something you can’t get anywhere else, except for conventions. These events bring so much more to the industry here in Australia and a lot more passion back into Indie Developers who may have become burnt out the past few years.

On top of that, it was fantastic to be able to keep Roving Rovers fresh in the public’s mind and keep bringing it to multiple events so that the public can see it’s progress and how much it improves every time they play it! Attending these events enables the public who may have their social feeds swamped by all sorts of game content up to date on Roving Rovers and able to play and feel the progress themselves.

I will also take this time to give a shout out to April Benjamin and her company My Colourful Mind who attended and shared a booth with us! Her game, Taming Yore Dragon is a gorgeous game and deserves as much recognition as Roving Rovers!

You can find more information about Taming Yore Dragon here:

My Colourful Mind – Home

Enjoying your time at PAX Aus is a must and we didn’t miss out on that rule; with it being one of the best tools to create awareness and build hype around a project you’re working on, furthermore it’s also a great way to test your game to the max and find all the bugs!

With the whole of Melbourne International Games Week (MIGW), it is great to be able to connect with so many more amazing game devs from across Australia!

Now the biggest question that probably isn’t on your mind; are we going next year?

Of Course! We love attending, no matter how stressful it may be; Pax and all the other MIGW events are such a joy to attend and be a part of!

But for now continue to keep an eye out for any updates to Roving Rovers and Taming Yore Dragon, but also keep an eye out for next year’s Australian Rover Challenge, cause we will most certainly be there!

And maybe in a few surprising places too!

Roving Rovers: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2447240/Roving_Rovers/

Taming Yore Dragon: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3267650/Taming_Yore_Dragon/