Xibalba Studios FAQ

What does Xibalba mean?
In Mayan mythology, Xibalba (also spelled Xibalbá or Xibalbay) means underworld ruled by Mayan spirits of disease and death. It is roughly translated as “place of fear”. Cool, huh?

How do you pronounce Xibalba?
It’s pronounced Shi-BAHL-bah.

Why did you choose the name Xibalba?
According to Ricardo he got the idea from the Popol Vuh but, to be honest, everyone in the office thinks that some monkey showed up in another one of Ricardo’s dreams (check his profile) and told him about it. But just like the man on the moon debacle we might never know for sure

When are you going to release Space Monkey?
It’s done when it’s done… Actually, it was not meant to be a full game, just a tech demo to test the functionality of our engine, but you never know…

What game engine are you using?
Our Space Monkey Tech Demo was made using our in-house engine. For our newer games we licensed Vision, an engine developed by the German company Trinigy.

Is your new game going to be released for PC or for Consoles?
We have an open platform strategy, but currently we are aiming at a console release. What console? Well, that’s another question…

What type of games do you develop?
Casual, family-oriented, 3D games.

Are you a school?
No, but we have given several conferences at Mexican universities like UDEM, UANL and ITESM (Monterrey, NL), Universidad del Mayab (Mérida, Yuc), Universidad Vasco de Quiroga (Morelia, Mich) and more recently a workshop during Creanimax(Guadalajara, Jal)

How many people work at Xibalba?
14+ and the cleaning lady (without her we wouldn’t be able to find our keyboards ).

What programming languages do you use?
Normally we program in C++ and Lua.

What do you play more at Xibalba, PC or console games?
During our breaks at the office, there is some serious PC multiplayer action, but after work consoles take most of our time.