'Make Something Unreal' Contest Finalist The Ball's Commercial Release Rolling out This Month

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The commercial version of Teotl Studios' Unreal Tournament 3 mod The Ball--which placed second in this year's Make Something Unreal contest--is slated for a Steam and retail release on October 26 for $20, publisher Tripwire Interactive has announced.

Described as a singleplayer "first person action adventure puzzler" with "innovative physics based gameplay" using the titular sphere, The Ball is set in cavernous ancient ruins beneath a Mexican volcano--unfortunately inhabited by mystical monstrosities.

"We are really happy to see The Ball get a full commercial launch. It is the first UDK-based game to get into stores and the previews show just how much a group of talented developers can achieve with the toolset," said Mark Rein, vice president of Unreal Engine creator Epic Games, in the announcement.

"Like previous success stories from the Make Something Unreal contest, such as Red Orchestra, it is a highly-polished standalone product--and a great fun game, too! This is a great example of why we put the effort into supporting the community with the UDK and the MSU contest."

Priced at $19.99, The Ball will be released for download on Steam and "eastern European" retail stores on October 28. Steam pre-orders will begin on October 18, offering the "special exclusive bonus" of unlocking a playable version of The Ball's main character in Tripwire's co-op survival shooter Killing Floor if you own both.

"Soon after" launching, Tripwire says, The Ball will also roll out to other digital distribution platforms and receive a worldwide retail release.

To get a taste of The Ball, head on over to FileShack to download a 360MB UDK standalone version of the original mod--though of course it's not representative of the full game.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    October 6, 2010 8:41 AM

    Thanks for posting this.

    I just want to point out that the UDK launch demo is not really a good representation of the final game. The demo is almost a year old now and we have done a lot of work since then. That said, if you like the demo you will hopefully also like the game :).

    New media is coming out soon too.

    • reply
      October 6, 2010 8:58 AM

      The launch date is set to 26 October, not 28 October as written in the news post.

    • reply
      October 6, 2010 9:45 AM

      I remember playing the demo of this game ages ago!! Looking forward to the final release.

    • reply
      October 6, 2010 3:37 PM

      I love the game so much. Even though i played through a lot of the mod, I found myself sitting at the tripwire booth for a good 40 minutes playing it :S

      • reply
        October 6, 2010 3:40 PM

        So you where at PAX? I wish I could have been there myself. However Sweden is too far away from Seattle.

        • reply
          October 6, 2010 3:43 PM

          yeah, first time there! I was hoping to see you there - i even asked one of the tripwire guys! But yeah understandably, Sweden is kind of a distance.

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