Code What You Know

Looking over my account history, I just realized that it's been over 5 months since I first found and bought the TGE, and over 2 months since I bought TGB. I don't have anything to show for it yet, but I figured it was about time to introduce myself and let you know what I've been doing with these fine tools anyway.

I'm a programmer by trade, and a decent one at that, but I've never done any game development before. Oh, I've lurked around gamedev.net and read all the beginner's articles. I've probably installed PyGame on 3 different computers. And the first time I ever compiled ANYTHING was as a newly-minted Wizard on a MUD back in my college days (I declared a CompSci major shortly thereafter). But honest-to-goodness, start-to-finish, pretty-graphics and many-frames-per-second game development? Never.

But I always WANTED to, of course (and who doesn't?!?). So when I left NJ to move in with my girlfriend (now wife) in NYC, I suddenly found myself with fewer social obligations than I'd had in years and loads of free time to spend. So I decided to take another crack at it.

I don't even remember how I found Torque, but at the time I was happy that I did. The choice at the time was obviously between TGB, TGE, and TSE. As a complete novice to the world of beautiful, computer-generated things, I figured that TSE would be jumping into the deep end too quickly. And TGB...2D only? That seemed like the opposite. It didn't even come with the source code (at the price I was willing to pay)! So I decided to purchase TGE.

I knew going in that I had keep my expectations low for my first game. This was "3D programming"...scary stuff involving Linear Algebra and lots of other classes that I either loathed or didn't take back in the day. So my first game design was going to have a minimum of trickiness to it...standard "between you and the evil wizard's castle stand 1000 of his twisted minions...and they know you're coming" type fare.

Unfortunately, my 3D modelling skills left much to be desired. While I found the programming environment of Torque to be quite pleasant, I found that modelling was really serving as a bottleneck for me. Having never participated in any mod communities before, I was completely new to tools like Milkshape and Quark. I know that I could have gone with a content pack or two to help get me started, but I just felt that I needed to learn all of the ins-and-outs if I was going to be successful. But since it was so slow-going, I was losing motivation.

Wow, this is getting long. I'll try to speed it up.

Enter TGB. This thing is amazing. I'm no Picasso, but I actually to put pen to paper and draw from time to time, so working with 2D graphics is _so_ much easier for me. Everything in my current project still looks like programmer art, but I'm fine using that as a placeholder because I know that when it comes time, I already have the skills to improve it. And the programming? Well, TorqueScript has its idiosyncracies, to be sure, but it gets the job done well. I'm certainly not wishing that I was working in another language at this poing.

If you've stayed with me this far, you deserve the bit of wisdom that I alluded to in the Subject Line..."Code What You Know". It's a little twist on the advice that's often given to budding writers. For my first TGB game, I looked to my own life for inspiration...I've practiced Kendo (Japanese Fencing) for about 3 years now, and while I'm definitely still a beginner, I still feel inspired to build a game based on it. It certainly won't be as intricate or as beautiful as the real thing, but it will still (hopefully!) be fun.

Anyway, as I've said many times...I'm a total game-development white belt, so definitely take my advice with a bag of rock salt. But "coding what I know" has had two tangible benefits, thus far: it lets me combine two things that I'm already passionate about, and I _always_ know what I have to do next :)

I don't write very often, so it may be awhile before you hear from me again. Maybe there'll be screenshots! But happy creating, all.