Hundreds of Games in the Torque Powered Database

As some of you may know, we attended Casual Connect in Seattle last month. I was the primary booth coordinator for this show, so once we got to Seattle, I sat behind a desk and answered every conceivable question you can think of about Torque. As expected, there were quite a few questions about Torque's technical capabilities, and fortunately, we had a lot of demos to show off things like the new river and road editor in Torque 3D. However, you may be surprised to learn that the most common questions had nothing to do with Torque's feature list. In fact, the following questions were, by far and away, the most asked questions at the booth:

1. "I want to make a rhythm game for the iPhone. What other rhythm games have been made with Torque?"
2. "How many Torque games have been published on Big Fish? Is that even possible with your engine?"
3. "I heard Torque can only be used to make FPSs. Is this true?"

Unlike our nice, shiny demos, I never had a way to answer these questions to my satisfaction. Sure, I can spout a few games off the top of my head, but that's about it. Nothing impactful. Surely, there's no "wow" factor in saying "X" person made "Y" game without being able to show off the game itself. However, I can't anticipate every question, so I can't possibly have enough games with me to show off everything the engine has done. It's a shame, really, since having something to show would be better not only for us, but also for a lot of you guys out there that have made awesome Torque games. And being able to connect developers who are working on similar projects is always good too, for future business and marketing opportunities for your games.

Enter the new Torque Powered database.

Over the course of the last month, our marketing intern Kris Nelson has scoured the Internet and found over 300 games made with Torque, all of which were then put into the Torque Powered database. This isn't like the simple list of games that I made in static HTML for the old website. This is a truly extensible list that will be able to generate both more interest for Torque and also steer some of our web traffic to your site.



This screenshot shows the basic database interface. You can choose pre-set searches on the left or customize your own search in the database.

Marketing Your Game with the Torque Powered Database

The reason I'm stoked about this database is that when you win, we win, and vice versa. We're keeping this baby up-to-date and will be using this to better promote all Torque games on the site and around the web. For example, we've already used the database to power our Best of Torque pages, and we'll soon use a version of this to populate games on each engine product page. All entries have a link back to the game's website, so every time a person sees your game in the database, they are a click away from learning even more about your game.

Each game entry has a basic description, a picture, a link to the developer's webpage, game genre tags associated with it, and the platforms it has been published to. If we have a link to buy the game, a developer interview, or a video on our Vimeo channel, we'll include those links as well. Below is an example from "Lore: Aftermath" made with Torque 3D.



This isn't a simple list of games. Each entry includes a screenshot, link to the developer website, platform information, and more to get people interested about your game.

Using the Database

Right now, the database can be found on the Best of Torque pages. You can either click the "Search Torque Games" button to search it or go directly to a preset list by clicking "see all games" at the bottom of each Best of Torque page.

The database has nine preset customer searches including "3D Games" and "Xbox Games." Of course, the true power of the database is that it can be custom searched, and you can post that search URL anywhere you want. To use the search function, click "Search Torque Games" and you'll see the pop-up screen below. You can search games by choosing a Game Genre, a Platform, or a Torque Engine, or you can select any combination of these to narrow down your search. For example, if you select "action-adventure," "Windows," and "Torque 3D," you will see this list of action-adventure games that have been published to Windows made with any version of our Torque 3D engine (going all the way back to TGE). The search terms are saved in the url (i.e. http://www.garagegames.com/torquepowered/action-adventure/Windows/torque-3d, so you can share it with others if you so wish. Holding the Control key (or Command on Macs), you can select multiple terms within a search category (i.e. search for all action-adventure or FPSs on Windows made with a version of Torque 3D.)



The search option makes it easy to customize which Torque games you want to look at. You can store the search URL and send it via e-mail, post it on the forums, or share it anywhere on the web.

Remember those questions people asked me at Casual Connect? Now, if people were to ask the following questions, I could simply pull up a website and say:

1. "There have been 8 rhythm games made with Torque, three of which were ported to the iPhone."
2. "Of course it's possible to publish Big Fish games with Torque. We've got 35 games and counting so far."
3. "As you can see from this ridiculously long list, Torque can definitely be used to make all sorts of games, not just FPSs."

So there you have it: the Torque Powered Database. Even though this is a fairly small-scoped project, I feel that this is the most exciting thing that I've launched at GarageGames since I started working here the summer of 2007. Obviously, though, the work on maintaining this database will never be done, and that's where I need your help. If you know of any games that need to be added or simply want to edit your own games on this list, feel free to drop me a line. With the amount of data that went into this database, there is probably an error or two still floating around, so don't hesitate to tell me what needs to be fixed. I'm also always on the prowl for more developers to interview and smarter ways to market your games so we both get more exposure for our efforts. Whatever your needs, my e-mail is deborahm AT garagegames DOT com.

I look forward to hearing from you, both in e-mail and the comments below. Cheers and as always, happy game development!