The value of Plastic

We at the Garage have been working on improving and revitalizing the GarageGames Associate Program, of which several of the folks at Plastic Games are members. Seeing their recent activity on the site is exciting because it lets GG know we're heading down the right track.

We share early information about engine direction, grant access to engine code repositories, and keep in close communication directly with the Associates. In return they pass their wealth of knowledge back to you, the community. Whether cranking out awesome resources like these "plastic gems," being a helpful presence on the forums, or anything in between, Associates rock.

For those of you who have been too busy making games to notice, the Resources section of GarageGames.com has been richly rewarded lately with the inclusion of what Plastic Games likes to call their "Plastic Gems." Don't let the name throw you though - these Plastic Gems are anything but valueless.

That's right, the guys at Plastic Games have reached into the mine carts of their hearts and ripped valuable, raw, resources right out - and handed them to you for the low price of nothing at all. Let's take a look at just what I'm talking about here.

A little about Plastic Games and their gems, in their own words:



"Plastic Games is a small independent games development company that makes a living generally doing contract game development and generally using Torque. We have been doing this for several years now and we have a policy of code re-use that we call making "gems." A gem is a self contained bit of code and/or art, often along with some useful conventions, that solves a particular problem in a way that makes it easy to use this solution again in the future. The name comes from the famous Graphics Gems and Game Programming Gems series of books.

Over the years we have made quite a few useful gems for Torque, and it has saved us a lot of time and effort. The more we use our gems the more we realize it was worth making them. In an effort to give back to the community, we present Gem A Day! For the next few weeks we will be posting one Plastic Gem per work day as a resource for the Torque game development community."


Like a Be-Dazzler for your project, these guys have provided some truly awesome Gems to use in any way that you like, in both TGE and TGEA.

Artists and level designers will enjoy Kirk Alberts Urban Decay Gems - featuring several interiors and over 370 textures for you to use, links to good places to get textures from, and some tricks and techniques that he uses to improve the visuals in his work.

Coders will enjoy some really cool Gems from Paul Dana. With sample shapes and code, these Gems will help the user by taking you step by step, from one Gem to the next.

With so much content, it's best to just let the Gems speak for themselves. I encourage everyone to check them out if you haven't already, and send some warm feelins' to Paul, Kirk, and everyone at Plastic Games for sharing these resources with the community.

It's great to see such generosity, and I feel that it is appropriate to award to Plastic Games the Official Seal of Awesomeness. Thank you!