Ages Team
Type: Development Team
Industry: Video Games
Founded: March 16th, 2018; 6 years ago
Founder: Kevin Rogelio-Lopez; a.k.a. @𝓟𝓪𝓹𝓲𝓬𝓱𝓲05
Headquarters: South Carolina, USA
Products: Interactive Software, Online Service.
Revenue: No revenue.
Number of Employees: 15
Subsidiaries: Ages Online Studio
The Ages Team is an American non-profit game development studio headquartered in South Carolina, United States. It is best known for developing video games, Sonic fan games, and its own online service. Most of the team's software was developed using, TurboWarp, which is a modified version of a children's programming language, Scratch, with more advanced features and developer tools, including 60 FPS support and custom resolution size.
The Ages Team was founded by Kevin Rogelio-Lopez on March 16th, 2018, shortly after his remarkable success on a science project with his 4 friends at middle school. Kevin's friends were coming up an idea of making up a group that can create awesome projects. Kevin then showed his friends a programming language, Scratch, which he joined in 2017. His friends were stunned to try it out. 2 weeks later, Kevin created his own team, the Ages Team. Since then, he started to teach the programming language to his 4 friends.
The team produced a free online service and several Sonic fan games, such as Sonic 2 Expanded, Heaven Saga, Sonic & the Son of Ages, Sonic Skylight, and Paper Words. Sonic 2 Expanded was the team's most popular fan game on Scratch so far.
Most games the team has developed were based on the 16-bit and 32-bit games from the 1990s, which includes the classic platformer and RPG elements. Some games, like Ham Trial, uses the FNAF click-and-point elements.
The team was generally successful, but it was somewhat criticized for some of its ideas, personal views or brief on editing artwork and sprites, and development decisions. Although, some of the team's ideas were relatively new and fresh but not everyone had interest in it.
History
In March 2018, Kevin created a website on Wix as an opening of the team's business. Because Kevin is a Sonic fan, he first named the team "Ages, Inc.", considering it as a fake entertainment company. The logo as a fake company was created at Renderforest.com. The website started as a starting template with barely anything changed.
5 months after programming teaching, the team is confident enough to create their own program. Kevin decided to direct a game as the team's first program, which is Kevin & Friends - Video Game. But got cancelled due to confusion and were unable to make the program stable. In September 2019, Kevin directed a Sonic ROM hack remake project, Sonic 3 & Knuckles - Hard Bossed Edition 2 - v400.0. The team decides to make the programming simple by progressing the development very slowly. After 3 months of development, the Ages Team released their first game on Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/347571463/.
Shortly after the Sonic ROM hack release, the team feels more motivated. At that time, the team replaced the logo with a curved swirly icon, similar to the Microsoft Edge browser. The team then decides to revive Kevin & Friends - Video Game and started the entire project over. Because the team does not have a single music artist in business, they used music from 16-bit games and ROM hacks, such as the SEGA Genesis, and claimed it is the best way to avoid copyright due to the music being very old and existing back in the 1990s. By August 2020, the team completely finished the game and Kevin published it on the 16th. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/413490892/
In the beginning of 2021, the team decides to produce a sequel of the first program, even though that the program was extremely underrated. Unlike the previous game, the game includes 5 zones (Including the final boss) instead of 3. On January 2nd, 2021, Kevin published a demo and used the "SAGE" phrase as a string name for the demo. On January 10th, 2021, Kevin published the full version on Scratch. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/469633116/ The game still did not get as many views as expected, but the team still feels proud and confident.
A few months earlier before the release of the sequel, the team's website, Agesite, received legal comments due to the website containing pirated software and the team not having a business license because of the "Inc." phrase after the "Ages" name. Kevin felt downright scared after reading those comments, but the team encourages him to completely remove the pirated software and change the team's name once and for all so that nobody gets hurt. By January 21st, 2021, Kevin published an announcement in the Agesite forum stating that the team is restructuring the name into "Ages Team" which is the final and current name for the team today. Kevin also completely removed the pirated software on the website, which people were glad about.
A few months earlier before the release of the sequel, the team's website, Agesite, received legal comments due to the website containing pirated software and the team not having a business license because of the "Inc." phrase after the "Ages" name. Kevin felt downright scared after reading those comments, but the team encourages him to completely remove the pirated software and change the team's name once and for all so that nobody gets hurt. By January 21st, 2021, Kevin published an announcement in the Agesite forum stating that the team is restructuring the name into "Ages Team" which is the final and current name for the team today. Kevin also completely removed the pirated software on the website, which people were glad about.
After the release of the sequel, Kevin directed a triquel (3rd continuation of Kevin & Friends - Video Game). But only a few of the team members worked on it and those few members also lost motivation of the game because they claimed that they are technically developing the same fandom over and over again. Kevin completely understood that decision and felt the same way and decided to let one of his members direct a game.
In 2021 and 2022, the team continues to produce Sonic fan games that went a little more popular than usual, such as Sonic 2 Expanded, Heaven Saga, Sonic & the Son of Ages, Sonic Skylight, and Paper Words. By 2022, the team was largely praised by many people and the S2E Team due to the success of the revival of Sonic 2 Expanded. Because of the success, the team announced that they are going to develop a next upgrade, lifting the first digit of the version (from v0.9 to v1.0), after they finished v0.9 with final updates.
New Productions
As of August 2022, the Ages Team decides to take a little break from making Sonic games and announced a new Konami game; TwinBee Yahho: Return of the Wind. The fan game is based off of Konami's Japanese Shoot-Em'-Up TwinBee Yahho arcade game, which is the 6th most successful arcade game in Japan on June 1st, 1995.
For the 5th-and-1/2 - year anniversary, a team member, Ex-demon, announced another game, V0LT City, which is an original, sci-fi, platformer, puzzle game, which takes place in a mashed Tokyo and Cyber Space place.
Transition from the Sonic community
In an October 2022 meeting with the Ages Team, the head founder, Kevin, made serious discussions about the Sonic community and suggested to leave and move on. Because Kevin has been discovering many corruptions, unnecessary perfection demands, ridiculously long criticism essays, and angry rants with the Sonic community, he claimed that it would probably be best to leave the Sonic community once and for all, and move on to their own original or non-Sonic fan content. Plus, as the Ages Team continues to grow, the fan content would eventually become a problem as it could lead copyright issues. Leo and Noleon said that they liked the Sonic community, but as Kevin explains more, they were convinced with surprise, as well as all other members of the team. In addition, Daisy reminds the team about the drastic negative comments that she has to suffer from Sonic 2 Expanded, as well as the HP system implemented in the game.
As video games takes a long time to develop as much as animation, they claimed that Sonic games feels like it takes "longer than usual". Kevin also realized that a lot of developers were quitting development of Sonic games on Scratch as it lacks emotion and variety within the programming language.
The team has been discussing for a little while if this is a good idea, and concluded that it is. As the Ages Team continues to grow, Kevin encourages the team to create more original content to fully represent themselves outside of the fanbase of Sonic and other things. After a couple of final discussions with the team, they all agree to move on and transition from the Sonic community. However, they claim to still somewhat stay with the Sonic community because they still need to work on Sonic 2 Expanded and Heaven Saga. This means that the Ages Team will less likely make more Sonic content, while Sonic 2 Expanded and Heaven Saga may be the last 2 official Sonic fan games of the Ages Team.
A team member, Ex-demon, requested another new game development in September, V0LT City, which is an original, sci-fi, platformer, puzzle game. The Ages Team agrees to work on it, and it is officially a 1st-Party licensed game along with a couple 3rd-Party developers.