Plan for Dan "Nerseus" Jones

The "What's Next" question at six months

When developing with Torque you often have to take a step back and think "hmm... what's next?"

In the beginning most everyone tries a few mods to script, maybe the engine, and adds some content. Around 1 month you ask "what's next?" - sometimes to yourself, sometimes on the forums. The question comes up because there's SO much to learn that it's hard to know where to start.

For many, the next step at 1 month becomes a little more deeper "playing around". That involves trying to do more advanced scripting, maybe implement your own custom scripts with the knowledge you have. It may mean doing more advanced modelling - actually creating your own content and getting it into the game (instead of just converting some model that you found or like). It usually also involves reading a LOT more documentation and, optionally, asking where you can get *more* documentation or complaining that you can't find *enough* documentation or that it's too hard to find what you want.

At some point you start to feel better about scripting and engine code. You start to grasp the bigger picture of what's happening and start to feel like you can actually do something with the engine - something grand!

By now you've had Torque for three, four, maybe six months - heck, maybe even a year or more. You've probably downloaded a "fresh" copy of Torque from CVS at least once, maybe played with Realmwars, and you've learned to navigate the GG site fairly well.

At this point you find yourself asking "What's next" again. You have a good grasp of Torque's script, it's engine, and a decent idea of how to get content into the game. At the very least, you know that if you DO run into trouble getting something implemented you have the confidence to get by that obstacle. You feel empowered!

So... What's Next?

For me, I had to first decide what was important and what wasn't. Some possible next steps included:
1. Playing around more with Gamespace (very tempting with the new exporters)
2. Implementing some engine mods (doors, ladders)
3. Tweaking the player physics (refactoring the player code and putting in what I want)
4. Fixing the GUI control layouts (for changing resolutions)
5. Cleaning up my game's website

I've narrowed it down to two possibilities that I think *most* people will come to as well. I narrowed it down to these two because I feel they are more important than all the items listed above which, while fun, don't really get me much farther into getting my game *done*. At this stage in my life, I like playing around but I also want the satisfaction of finishing my game.

One possible next step is to loosely document (ie, write down) what I want my game to look like and do. This isn't the formal "Design Document" that is lauded by so many developers, new and seasoned. Instead, it's a general purpose document to get my thoughts and priorities straight. It may include rough sketches of some UIs (not detailed screenshots, but general menu flow). It should definitely include some general "game features" for a Phase 1 game. This is not a wishlist of features (ragdoll physics, shaders, etc.) which I like to keep in a "blue sky" document, but rather a minimum set of requirements to get the "game" working.

The other next step is to document, at the ten thousand foot level, what I have at my disposal. That means listing out common functions provided through the existing scripts, the known class and/or datablocks that *I* care about, etc. This may include adding more comments to existing code/scripts and refactoring code to make it so I can understand it better.

The basic idea behind these two next steps is simple: at the six month mark I have the skills and knowledge to make some changes but I don't have a firm grasp on *everything* that's available or what might be affected as I make my changes.

For me, the next choice is obvious: I want to document that "big picture" of what the current engine/scripts provide. Luckily, Doxygen gets you some *great* documentation of the engine. That leaves the scripts. While there are numerous documents on the scripts, I haven't seen a document that shows what the "common" scripts has or even what the "starter.fps" or realmwars scripts provide. My next step is to document what those scripts provide. As I've already printed and read through and written down the full flow of starter.fps scripts, I'll likely start there.

What does that mean? Well, I'm thinking of two options. First, write my own documentation extractor for the scripts. Or second, tweak Doxygen to work with cs files. Since my needs are fairly simple, I may just write a simple VB6 or C# program to extract the comments. The TorqueScript language is pretty simple and, from what I've seen, most files do NOT take advantage of classes and hiearchies very much - especially the scripts in common.

Once I have some rudimentary documentation, I would like to put together some diagrams. I'll likely use Visio as I'm most familiar with it, though I have looked into some free tools so that the results could be shared with the community.

The goal of this documentation: To get some high level documents of the common functions provided by scripts, when they're used and when *I* might use them and to get some diagrams of the flow of starter.fps. I'd like to do the same thing for Realmwars as it's closer to a full game than starter.fps. But I know *because* of all the extra features in Realmwars that I shouldn't be using that as the starter documentation.

Chances are I'll be writing another "What's Next" scenario plan in about another 6 months, at the 1 year mark. If I keep typing this I might be there before I finish my current goals!