luma arcade (feature)

8/14/2019 Luma Arcade (Feature)

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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

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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.

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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



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.

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luma arcade (feature)

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