Thoughtbomb

Sitting here at work on a quiet day has given me some time to sit down and browse GG after not being around much lately. I've seen a number of statements here and there, and I figure I'll just take the time now to just blurt out whatever I'm thinking at the moment.

First and foremost, I'm not really much of a developer. I don't have the time, nor the money to be able to pull off anything more than just doing stuff as a hobby. However, like everybody else here, I'm also a bit of a gamer. I love games. I love sitting and designing games. I may not have the manpower or money to make those sheets of paper in my binder into a game, or the piles and piles of grid paper into big levels for lonely Kork to run around through, but I still find the time to play around with Torque.

Many of us are in the same boat; we just do not have the time or energy to put all our dreams into motion. However we do what we can, and we have fun at it. And we learn. I have learned more about game programming by playing with Torque a few hours at a time than I did in any class, reading books or articles online (though the Torque books sure made it easier!)

While I was on vacation, I spent time with my father outside, carving wood and building a small table, and some shelves. Sure, they turned out lopsided... and not very useable, but I loved doing it, and I learned. Many of those who say Torque has very few published games should look at this and rethink a bit. Sure, there only may be a few pieces of exquisite art published, but there's lots of small little sketches out there being refined.

Personally, off the top of my head, I think about the small things I've done in Torque. Playing with the bitmap controls, figuring out the tiles I would need to make a simple dungeon set. I know a number of projects use my skinned progress bar.

We all leave our little marks here. That definitely makes all of it worth it!

(well, that wasn't very coherent!)