View
222
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
8/14/2019 Luma Arcade (Feature)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/luma-arcade-feature 1/4
THE HISTORY OF GAME development in SouthAfrica is as fascinating as it is short. Local
game development has historically been
rather ambivalent: caught in the quicksandof an emerging market, hidden in the shadowof much larger global efforts. It’s not thatSouth Africa lacks the talent, ability, driveor street-cred required to succeed in gamedevelopment, even at a global scale. Thelocal industry, market and support structuresimply took this long to finally reach the pointof being able to provide beneficial incubation.Earlier game development efforts were,thus, not in vain but ill timed - too premature,perhaps too visionary.
A quirk of local development has alwaysbeen over-ambition: the urge to run in andfight alongside the big boys from Europe,Japan and America is ever-prevalentthroughout South African culture, a powerfulforce that has served the local technical
industries very well. However, it’s thisovereager attitude that forms the biggestbarrier to local game development becauseit quickly undermines the proper planningand holistic considerations required toreally see the forest from the trees. To startsmall, to tenderly grow and nurture a gamedevelopment studio until it’s strong enoughand capable enough to handle a project ofthe size and scope needed to satisfy localdevelopers must be agonising. Nobodywants to have to make Pac-Man beforebeing allowed to work on the next Quake ,Doom, or Big Name Title... but in business,precedence is a critical factor in establishingthe relations, technologies and manpowerrequired to sustain development.
Game development started in South
Africa as early as the first computer hadbeen assembled on our shores. A near-mystical South African with the online nom
de guerre of ‘Denthor’ paved the way forlocal game development aspirations byreleasing tutorials online on how to programin ASM (Assembler) as well as pulling offsome amazing graphical trickery with it- his tutorials remain world-renowned tothis day. Along the way, many small-timehopefuls registered their CCs and startedworking on their next best thing, but almostevery situation ended the same: no moreeffort, no more time, no more money. Twylyt
DEVELOPMENTSince MINI 37 is based on real-world locations
around South Africa, a lot of time and effort
has been put into recreating the look, feel and
ambiance of the locations. The Camps Baycourse takes advantage of photo references
for proper verities; even some houses are
perfectly recognisable in the game.
“Sometimes to understand your present,you have to go back to your past.”
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
066
8/14/2019 Luma Arcade (Feature)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/luma-arcade-feature 2/4
FEAT URE: L um a
LUMA[http://www.luma.co.za/]
The Luma offices: a big, imposing building that
hides a deceptively jovial interior - although at the
time of our last visit, the biting cold had ever yone
wrapped up in hats, beanies and scarves, making
it look like a ver y dubious operation. The inside
is literally strewn with bric-a-brac, gaming
paraphernalia, posters, figurines and friendly
faces (once they stop concentrating so hard on
the work they’re doing).
Luma began in 2001 as a digital studio
specialising in 2D and 3D animation. Around
2005, the studio started focusing on creating
content and developing technical ability. If you
watch any amount of local television, there’sa good chance you’ve seen Luma at work
in several high-profile advertisements for
Renault, Tracker and Clover.
You may also have caught Luma’s little
stars, Bun and Bunee (http://bunandbunee.
com/), who often appear in advertisements for
cellphone wallpapers and other customisations.
Luma is currently producing three Bun and
Bunee mobile games, the first of which should
be completed by the end of September and
available for download from the official Website.
LUMA ARCADEDavid Baxter - Lead Artist
Dale Best - Creative Director
Chris Cunnington - 3D Artist
Luke Lamothe - Technical Director
Herman Tulleken - Programmer
Diorgo Jonkers - Tools Programmer
LOCAL
DEVELOPMENTALL-STARSLuma’s Technical Director, heavy weight code
master Luke Lamothe (one of the founding
members of I-Imagine), left his position as Chief
Technical Officer at I-Imagine to join Luma
when I-Imagine went dormant. Luke has over
nine years of experience in the industry and cut
his teeth at the original DigiPen in Vancouver.
He graduated from the Di giPen Institute of
Technology in May 1998 and then worked at
DigiPen for a year as Teaching Assistant.
Lead Artist, Dave Baxter, is another I-Imagine
luminary and has the unenviable job, game artist,
in a studio filled with TV and animation specialists.
Diorgo Jonkers, who is currently working
on mobile technology and tools for Luma, also
worked at I-Imagine where he was involved in
an unreleased Game Boy Advance title as both a
sprite artist and programmer. He briefly assisted
local mobile developer, SmallFry Mobile, beforesettling at Luma.
06
8/14/2019 Luma Arcade (Feature)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/luma-arcade-feature 3/4
MINI 37[http://www.mini37.co.za]
“We built a prototype game as a tool to
show our clients a more exciting, further
reaching, and much more immersive way
of communicating and interacting with
people than a 30 second TV or cinemaad.” says Creative Director, Dale Best.
“That said, our intent wasn’t to simply
rehash the superficial existing model of
marketing afterthoughts slapped in the
’cool‘ section of some bland Website in
the form of Flash/Shockwave ’games‘. Our
goal was to make real games that people
actually wanted to play, and wouldn’t mind
actually spending money on. Only this
time round, the consumer isn’t paying to
drive a (insert brand name here) licensed
product, but the (insert brand company
here) is paying for the consumer to be able
to play the game.”
As a project to expand the MINI
brand, both locally and internationally,
Luma is currently developing an arcade
racer for MINI – MINI 37 - which will
be episodic, based on locations around
South Africa and free. Luma is planning
three episodes and each location willhave three tracks. Tracks include racing
through Camps Bay, the V&A Waterfront
and a dock area. Other tracks are set
in the vibrant nightlife of Newtown.
New cars will become available as
downloadable updates and with future
releases, all of the MINI cars will
eventually feature, including vintage
MINIs and tweaked sports models like
the GP and the JCW.
You can race Single races on any of the
unlocked tracks in Arcade Mode, while
Championship Mode lets players compete
through a series of tracks in Grand Prix
style - both game modes will be playable
single-player or multiplayer. Players will
be able to register with the Website, which
lets them download the game, get updates
and eventually post best l ap times. Luma’s
ultimate goal for this project is to develop
“the official MINI game”.“We have other projects in the
pipeline, but that is only par t of the big
picture in terms of where we want to
go with regards to game development,
and that is what in my opinion motivates
an answer to your next question: ’Why
should anyone care?’. Well, our plan is to
develop ability and build a strong team
that would grow over time. Our business
model includes projects like MINI 37 ,
which fund reusable technology and in
the process create know-how. This will
enable us to fund and develop our own
projects in the future. So, instead of
having to answer to an outside i nvestor,
or even perhaps a publisher, we can
make decisions on our own, and develop
titles that would be distributed using
alternative methods to what may be
considered mainstream,” explains Dale.
“Besides that, our ethos is platformindependent. So, developing mobile games,
Web-based games, PC, whatever, would
be dictated by the project. The common
denominator would be a level of quality in
terms of gameplay and polish. Our intent
is to build a strong, self-sustained game
development company. Being on the
southern tip of Africa means coming up with
new ways of being a global player, and we
believe that the plan we have put together is a
good way we can create a platform of growth
in the local market.”
068
8/14/2019 Luma Arcade (Feature)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/luma-arcade-feature 4/4
FEAT URE: L um a
Productions and Celestial (practically thesame people) represent the Genesis of gamedevelopment in South Africa: they produced
two games, Toxic Bunny and The Tainted .Both were published locally and sold onSouth African store shelves alongside everyinternational title from that era. Neither wasvery successful and in a few short years,Twylyt/Celestial slowly disappeared from thepublic eye.
If the early pioneering efforts of thesedevelopers were the Genesis, then the nextvisible developer would form the Exodus.Late in 1999, I-Imagine was formed andstarted prototyping and developing their firsttitle, Chase (released late 2002). Developedfor the Xbox and not retailed locally (due topublisher restrictions and involvement, notto mention that the Xbox was never launchedhere, unlike it’s successor the Xbox 360), veryfew locals have ever heard of Chase except
in this magazine. It’s this lack of exposurethat kept Chase from being anything but “justanother” title in the Xbox range regardinglocal enthusiasm. I-Imagine’s next title,Final Armada (released early 2007), wouldfollow roughly the same path. Retailedpredominantly in Spain due to its publisher,Final Armada appeared on the PSP as wellas the PS2. You can even find a few localretailers that still sell it. However, out ofsight, out of mind.
Right now, game development in SouthAfrica is finally leaving its metaphoricalprimordial soup, questing its way throughthe cacophony created by local ancillarydevelopment industry osmosis. It seems thatthe groundwork has finally been laid andthat local developers are now finally ready
to approach game development with thepragmatism and patience required, if there isto be any hope of putting South Africa back onthe game development map.
These are incredibly exciting times andanything is possible. With anteriority, a newlocal game development studio is quicklyearning itself a reputation for having all thosepesky little duckies in a row. Birthed from thestructure and talent of an established digitalstudio, Luma Arcade is perfectly poised to putthe pedal to the metal and come screamingout of the starting gate, bringing local gamedevelopment with it. NAG
THE TAINTEDBy all regards, The Tainted remains South
Africa’s first large-scale commercial game
development venture. Developed by Twylyt
Productions (whose most visible face was
a man by the name of Travis Bullford), The
Tainted was actually their second published
title: the first was a Jazz Jackrabbit clone
titled Toxic Bunny , which was published under
the EA Classics range due to a publishing
deal with EA South Africa. Toxic Bunny received no major interest or attention, but
ironically ended up being a bet ter game than
The Tainted .
“Afrikaanse weergawe ingesluit” aside,
the high retail price of The Tainted (R300
back then was no small amount) combined
with little to no adver tising and wounded
development (the developers claim they
had their computers stolen near the end
of development) quickly resulted in South
Africa’s first large-scale commercial game
development flop. The unstable South African
gaming industry at the end of the 1990s didn’t
help matters and the whole thing practically
collapsed in early 2000, taking most local
game development with it. As a point of
trivia: the big game distributor of that era,
Multimedia Warehouse, brought in Quake III
(released at the end of 1999) but had such
lacklustre sales with it that they eventually
closed the business (after a long run of
struggling to sell gaming stock to the local
market).
At the role-playing and comic book
convention, Icon/Gencon (now known as
Gencon), back in 1998, the same year as the firstStarCraft competition in the country (held at the
same venue - the Edenvale Community Centre),
Twylyt Productions was there previewing The
Tainted to anyone who would listen. “Game
development isn’t a good job,” the developers
stated. “We all have three regular j obs.”
CRASH COURSE!Luma took its MINI 37 game on a
nationwide road show with MINI as part
of the “All New MINI” campaign, but on
route from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town,
the truck rolled. The driver sustained non-
critical injuries (ribs, broken arms, cuts
and bruises) and thankfully recovered
quickly. The overturned truck spilled its
contents and apparently a lot of equipment
disappeared, but the smashed-up racing
seats and Logitech MOMO steering
wheels were recovered. Luma proudly
displays their wrecked seats and wheels
at the Luma offices. “It makes us feel all
hardcore,” says Dale Best.
06
Recommended