SAGE – 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 at SAGE 2024!

Off of last year’s success the SAFC held another South Australian Games Exhibition over the course of 16th of Feb afternoon and the entirety of the following 17th. This was something we had waited a whole year for again, a space dedicated to just games and on top of that SAGE worked alongside the Fringe as well to make the event even better and bigger than the previous years.

And boy was it!

As we came into the start of 2024 we were continuing to work on our Rover Simulator alongside the ATCSR and Adelaide Uni in preparation for the upcoming Australian Rover Challenge in March and so we decided that SAGE was also a great opportunity to showcase Roving Rovers.

Throughout the Friday afternoon and following Saturday we had many people come up to our booth at SAGE because they find space to be very interesting, especially since Rovers being the main focus is an uncommon decision. So we had many people specifically interested in space come up and play Roving Rovers enjoying how the rovers are customisable and give more freedom to the player. They enjoyed being able to try what the minimum or maximum they could get away with when creating a bespoke rover.

Despite an implemented built-in tutorial for the rover builder and the overall game controls, many players would spend the whole allotted 10 minutes we provided each player, with players at some points actively finding just how much they could do before the game itself broke and had to be restarted.

I would also recommend that other developers who look for users to follow their socials or keep up to date with the game include a QR code in their setups. We had many visitors using their phones to open up our Linktree so they could look into Roving Rovers later on when they were back home.

Our CTO – Camryn Schriever – attended the networking get together on the Friday night after that afternoon of showcasing Roving Rovers to the public. He was able to catch up with many other developers who had just gone through the stress of setting up and showcasing a game all in one day.

Camryn described that event below:

“The SAFC hosted networking on Friday was a good opportunity to network with other local devs, and relax after a stressful day of setup and showing our game. I am very thankful for the opportunity SAGE presented us, and it’s always good to see local developers get the recognition they deserve.”

On top of Unwind, an SA developer get together, the community here in Adelaide is quite close and it’s lovely to come together and support each other and their projects. We would recommend that everyone in the industry or interested in joining should attend these events as they are a great way to network and get to know the industry and determine where you will fit in best.

With such positive reactions from many visitors it will definitely continue next year and I would expect it to be even more grand that what it was this year, especially since it was only SAGE’s 2nd time running. In 2023 it was something we were confident was going to continue, but didn’t expect it to attract as many visitors as it did this year, it’s fantastic to see the support that our local community and the wider SA has for the growing games industry!

It is definitely an event that is going to continue for years to come and will hopefully become a staple within the South Australian games industry; as an event that we all look forward to each year as a great way to bolster the industry and the confidence in our studios and upcoming talent.

Thank you to all who attended, either as a guest or as an exhibitor, thanks to the SAFC, Patrick and Phillip for keeping our industry connected and supportive. And thank you to Natacha for organising all the stall holders and keeping the event running. We thoroughly enjoyed this experience and can’t wait for it to be even bigger and better next year and to see the improvement on everyone’s projects and studios. Thank you for being an amazing industry and I hope South Australia can continue to show its strength in the coming years!!