Hi everyone! The new theme is now available! Just update Game With Balls and you have the 20 new 3D levels for the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch!
Probably the question I got the most after release was “Why not 3D?” and well… So here are 20 levels that are completely 3D and if you have anaglyph glasses, those red/blue paper ones, you can even enjoy it in MORE 3D. Red for the left eye! I even made a couple custom ones that you can order from my website.
Thank you everyone for playing Game With Balls! I have still 2 more large updates in my head that are coming this year, but will make a new announcement when they are ready enough.
DreamLeague has started and for this season I was invited to make a realtime environment that is displayed in the back of the studio. Using Unreal Engine 5 to show the Picks and Bans and a lot of different triggers for small little gags the production can use during the show. It’s always fun to combine creative little things with the technical side of productions and also to return to a production I probably haven’t worked on for over 5 years.
The whole project is fully automated (except for the little joke triggers) needing no operator for the basic functions like starting the Picks and Bans sequence showing what heroes the players have picked for the match. Even starting the project is completely automated so that engineers in the studio can focus on other things and only have to double click the .uproject file.
You can watch the season right now on Twitch or YouTube!
For the startup editor sequence I made four different little plugins that are now also available on FAB.
To check if the editor already has played once after startup. Used to do a set of action only needed at startup for instance loading in textures on dynamic objects and running a couple of custom commands.
To open the Remote Control API Preset at startup so that triggers become available in production after starting the editor. This is because the triggers are not available if the tab is not open somewhere in the editor and found that this is the most reliable way for a starting the editor.
Automatically plays in the viewport or standalone when the editor is started and the level is fully loaded. Also possible to set a small delay on the play action if something else is also needed first.
So that nothing can accidentally be clicked/register keyboard presses in the editor. Everyone in production knows how hectic it sometimes can be so wanted this plugin after a little incident at another rehearsal I had where someone was clicking around my project to show someone else what it could do.
Noticed that I was allowed to submit some trading cards and items to Steam! So why not! 5 different trading cards that you can collect with different kind of mazes, 3 backgrounds and 5 emoticons. I tried to make them as unique as possible, but subtle enough that they could just be something you maybe do not notice. Except the emoticons. If you collect them all it spells Balls!
Click the button on top of this post to get the items in the point shop and to collect the trading cards just play the game (or buy them of the marketplace).
For an upcoming production I need a quick way in Unreal Engine to check if the play button was already pressed in the editor as I run a couple of commands when it starts up the first time. In my case loading in assets for the first time, but there are probably other usecases for it as well. So there is now a little node for it that you can also download for free on FAB.
The upcoming Red/Blue for Game With Balls theme was created entirely on my PC, but I still wanted to bring something into the real world. So… I started drawing on anaglyph glasses that you can own and use to play the new theme! Think of those cardboard glasses you used to get for free with that weird dinosaur magazine, but now redesigned with Game With Balls themes.
You can find the glasses on my own little storepage I build (tested, but let me know if something goes wrong) and follow me on Instagram or BlueSky if you want to know when new glasses are added! As I am not always home you can see the data when the next batch will be send out on top of the page.
Already have one of those glasses laying around? Try them out in the video and let me know what you think!
The new theme will launch in the coming months for the Steam Deck and Switch, but don’t have a set date yet!
For an upcoming project I wanted to make everything easier when things needed to reboot. As I will not be in production myself I wanted to make it that when you start the project everything is automatically booted up and outputting over SDI. Ready to use. Everything is easy to set up in Blueprints, but the only thing I missed was a way to auto play at startup. So that is the only thing this plugin does.
Auto play your project when you start the Unreal Engine editor.
Auto Play in editor viewport when starting up the editor
Auto Play in Standalone Game mode when starting up the editor
Set delay (0-10 seconds) on how long to wait before auto play one of the two modes
You can find out more on the FAB Marketplace by clicking the button below.
My first little plugin on the FAB store… I don’t know why I kept holding off publishing some of my plugins on FAB, but here is the first one. A little plugin that can lock your editor with a password either manually or with a timer that auto locks after the amount of minutes you set.
This idea came from a production where I was responsible for the Unreal Engine part of the show. We mixed it with other means of playout so it was only used for a certain segment of the show. Most of the time I am not near the actual PC that has Unreal open and just trigger everything remote. Only logging in when something needs restarting or changing. But… during rehearsal all kinds of things started to happen… To keep it short, someone wanted to show how cool Unreal was to someone else and started clicking around backstage. So now this plugin exists. You can check out more about it by clicking the button below.
Hi everyone! I can finally announce the next full theme coming to Game With Balls: Red-Blue, Cyan-Red, Anaglyph… or just 3D.
The comment I got the most when releasing Game With Balls was: “Why not 3D?!” So this upcoming theme is completely 3D! I know most people meant the kind of 3D they experienced in the old iPod Touch game Labyrinth, but I wanted to do something different while still keeping that nostalgic feel. Remember those days when you got cardboard glasses with a poorly written dinosaur magazine that kind of looked 3D? The glasses I used for testing and implementing I ordered from Amazon, but I am also looking in maybe getting a pair custom made… Or even making a custom one…
And don’t worry if you don’t have those glasses lying around, or if the idea of anaglyph 3D already makes you nauseous you can turn the effect off.
For this new theme, I had to rethink the entire maze system. Not only is the ball moving, but the 3D maze itself also moves within a certain space. At the same time, it still needed to feel like the other mazes already in the game. On top of that, the anaglyph effect uses a different method on the Steam Deck compared to the Nintendo Switch, as the rendering capabilities differ. The original method I developed didn’t work on the Switch, so both versions look slightly differen, but I actually like both.
Below are two examples showing how they differ: the Steam Deck version has more depth with lighting and shadows, while the Switch version is cleaner and more straightforward. Not going to indepth the Steam Deck version uses a method involving 2 scene captures in Unreal Engine 5 that repesent the two different eyes. Comparable what is written in this forum post on the Unreal Engine forums. The Nintendo Switch version uses a post processing material that gets the depth and then converts it to the anaglyph effect. Similar, but with some tweaks, as what Tronnix does in this video.
The theme will include 20 new levels and is coming in the next few months. You can already play one level right now on the Steam Deck in the Mixed section (level 14), with the Switch version coming later.
At the moment, I have two more large updates planned, along with some smaller levels to add. And… I’m working on something extra that I think a lot of people will like, but I can’t announce it yet. I want to be sure it works as I imagined.
Game With Balls is available on Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch, and will be getting semi-regular updates throughout 2026!
When I was working on Better With A Friend somebody commented that it would be cool to make airhockey for the Steam Deck that you control with the touchpads. Now, two years later, I started working on it as a standalone game! No release date yet, but the Steam Page is already live if you want to check it out or wishlist the game!
Mini AirHockey is handmade again just like Game With Balls and this time I am working with somebody else on the project! Thomas will make the soundtrack! You can check out his Instagram to see what awesome projects he normally works on.
With the coming implementation of Easy Anti-Cheat within Rocket League, the use cases will be limited for RLBuddy, so from now on the Production Edition will also be pay-what-you-want on Gumroad. The base version was always free to download. As far as I can read in the statement, you will be able to use BakkesMod with the SOS-Plugin, which is required for RLBuddy, in LAN matches, so that will give you the capability to use the OSC functionality. Just note that I am not the maintainer of BakkesMod and the SOS-Plugin, so I will not be able to help you with providing updates to those if that would be needed.
One of the first times RLBuddy was used during RLCS
Whenever another official method for getting data out of the game becomes available, I will try to implement this in a new version. Until then, I want to thank everyone who used RLBuddy, as I never imagined that it would be used outside of some of the productions I was part of back in the day. Click the button below to claim a copy on Gumroad.
