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Teenagers...people wouldn't even know

by Maximillian Brewer · 01/11/2010 (8:30 pm) · 51 comments

Hey guys,

A little something about Young Devs

Well, i've been thinking a lot, as I spend time around the blogs and forums. I think people who use these forums for get who the people they are talking to are. And especially the younger developers here. It's no secret, that most people know of Matt Young, as the awesome teenage developer (which i agree with, and think he is doing some awesome stuff!) but there are others out there.

I think it would be good for Torque Powered to make some sort of note of this. Because I know from personal experience (being only 14) that it is hard for us to compete. We face lake of funding, limited resources, and time. One example of this is my wish to develop an iPhone game. For me, this involved spending a lot of time to earn enough money to buy the necessary engine. And after more than 3 months, I was finally able to afford iTGE. And from this, and other stories of teenagers using their enthusiasm and commitment to work towards a dream, I think more recognition of "Young Devs" needs to be made.

Also, making it known who we are, and that we are teenagers would be great, because I know that for example, Alexander (a friend of Matt Young) didn't even know I was 14 until 2 weeks ago.


My Projects

Well, I haven't posted much about my development porject of late, and many of you may not have seen me around here before, but as an introduction, my name is Max Brewer, teenager developer, and have a dream of making iPhone and Nintendo Wii games.

1) Project: Goth

Through these holidays (extending in Australia :D) I wanted to make an iPhone game. Came up with an idea, and started developing. Just wanted to share with you guys some of my concept idea for the game.

Sarai is a borderline schizophrenic teenage girl, who wears black boots, a short tartan skirt, white shirt with a heart image on it, and multiple chains and bangles. One day, Sarai goes to visit an ancient temple with her young brother, where they find a secret passageway. The two siblings follow the passageway, until they reach a secret chamber. Inside the chamber is a stone of Yantium. Sarai and her brother slowly move towards it, and reach out to touch it. When they touch it, a dark entity known as The Juggernaut is summoned, and takes control of Sarai and her brother. Sarai infiltrates The Juggernaut and sees how to kill him, but when she recovers, her brother is gone, captured.
The Juggernaut spreads, gaining power through this rare rock, Yantium. Sarai knows that burning all the stores of Yantium will remove his source of power, and therefore weaken him. Once he is weak, The Juggernaut is vulnerable, and can be killed.

So that's my concept idea, and have started working on levels with a bit of help from fellow "Young Dev", Alexander.

Project: Art

After spending time working on my 3D iPhone game, I ran into some problems with the 3D iPhone engine (which are being fixed as we speak, thanks Luma) and so wanted to look into the 2D engine which seems more successful at the moment. I haven't got much of a detailed idea, but am planing on making a colourful 2D platformer. My vision is to have it set in a beautifully coloured and painted (PD particles :D ) environment.

JESTA

A project that is quite weird, but I have been asked by my school to make an educational game! So, another task a head of me is to work on an educational game designed to teach Year 10 Chemistry (being in year 9, that could be a problem XD)

Plan is to make a sci-fi game built with Torque 3D. Unfortunately I only could afford the binary on the super awesome deal for $100, so i'm not sure how i'm going to do this, when AFX is necessary for the complex battle system, and that means i need the source :( *fingers crossed for a miracle*

Finsihing up

Well i hope that my blog has been a good read, and informative on the stresses and conditions that Young Devs face. I wish you guys luck in all you project (especially you awesome young devs!) and hope you have a successful year.

Thanks for your time.
#21
01/12/2010 (12:14 pm)
Quote:
After about two years of coding on paper that is, which was freaking my mom out

Making computer software without a computer .......
#22
01/12/2010 (1:19 pm)
@bryce1&2
So there are more of us 15 years old devs here? yeah, I'm 15 years old but no one knows because i haven't told anyone yet.

Quote:I think people who use these forums for get who the people they are talking to are. And especially the younger developers here.

Does this means we want to be treated differently?

Great blog btw.
#23
01/12/2010 (1:32 pm)
Yes there are more young devs around here than most people realize. Which I think is testament to their work ethic and how they conduct themselves on the forums. I've had many of the same "Wait, he's 13!?" moments over the years.

I kind of envy you Young Devs. With all the tech and resources available to you today and all that free time to put it to use.

@Max
Great blog, and I'm looking forward to seeing more those projects!
#24
01/12/2010 (3:03 pm)
Quote:When I was 14 I received my first Commodore 64

Brings back memories. Recently I had to go through some stuff cleared out of my mums loft and there packed up in its original box was my old Commodore Vic-20. With it was a book of computer games in basic that you had to type in yourself - talk about getting the engine source!. I can't remember if I ever got any of them to work, but I do remember that the really cool looking game on the front cover that made me buy the book, wasn't even in there!
#25
01/12/2010 (5:58 pm)
Wow! I wasn't expecting so many posts! Thanks everyone for the support.

@Matt Young: Yeah, I looked into the C4 engine too, but realized that apart from having no real visual design component (eg. world editor) it also has a very minimal community.

@Scott Burns: I love those "wait your 13!?" moments. I wrote a resource on how to ad drivable cars to the fps starter for TGE, and was helping out a guy at uni! And i'll keep you guys informed with my projects...hopefully very soon.
#26
01/12/2010 (7:07 pm)
Ahhh... I remeber my days with the C64 and the XT8088 assembly and Norton books.

Well, if you want to learn, there are always books and demo versions. You can start by getting those and after you grasp the basics and create a basic level you can go with your parents and tell them... here... I did this but I need bigger guns... I need the binary edition...

At least if my son come to me and shows me dedication into something (anything) I would probably help him as much as I can. Parents are usually trying to get their sons tap their potential. If you show something working the probability to get a full engine completely multiplies. Look your parents as your publisher and indeed you are in the way of being a true indie :)

Luck!
Guimo



#27
01/12/2010 (7:54 pm)
Quote:Does this means we want to be treated differently?

I don't. Infact the best thing about the torque community is I never get told thats pretty cool for a kid. I just get told its pretty cool. I have had a few other project contact me to see if i was still making my project and weather i wanted to help them out. Its awesome to know that i am working on something as well as any adult.

@Guimo,

I ams o lucky to have my mum! My dad would never see the value in any bit of software i wrote. My mum on the other hand got me tgea the second i made a complex game in gamemaker 7!

I started showing my mum images of what t3d lookedlike and sure enough she believed i could do something well enough to make money, and if not get skills for a career in game development in the future.(i have already made my mind up on that, though i dont know what i should be doing at school uni so much)

and thats how i go my hands on the full version, guess your theory was good Guimo!
#28
01/13/2010 (12:45 am)
How about the good old Timex Sinclair ZX81. Bought it from Heath Kit and soldered all the parts in. The monitor was a B&W TV had a whopping 2K of ram and used an over the counter cassett tape deck to store your programs.

God do I feel old.......

Don't every give up on your dreams!
#29
01/13/2010 (3:10 am)
Nice blog. I'll stick up another hand for teenagers, being 18 meself :). I agree with Dave Young, though... now is probably when we have the most time! Let's make use of it!

EDIT: Scratch that. 19 today ;)
#30
01/13/2010 (4:26 am)
@Jackie
+1 for the ZX! nah, I was a 48k boy
Uhhh ... I feel like such an old frrrt ...
Oh, hang on, I am ...

@Daniel
Yeah, use it or lose it baby!
Why wasn't I this clued up as a teenager!?
#31
01/13/2010 (4:50 am)
wow! so many of us Young devs! Well i'm happy i found out about this at my age XD
#32
01/13/2010 (10:07 am)
$YoungDevCount++;

Turned out 16 a few weeks ago.
I was introduced in Torque tech a few years ago by Eric Hartmans Blockland.

Anyway, It's pretty surprising that we have so much you people here!

By the way Max, your profile pic is cool!
#33
01/13/2010 (1:36 pm)
I am 16 so my parents have control of my money. It was really hard to convince them to allow me to buy t3d. I bought it while it still had the $200 discount and i think that was the main reason they allowed me to get the pro version. I agree that a discount for younger people would be great.
#34
01/13/2010 (2:49 pm)
Turns out there are a lot of young Devs around other than me..

There are a couple of kids in my community who would like to become a game dev, they just don't have the tools. There are actually people who walk up to me and say "So Matt, what type of games do you make?" and my only reply at the moment is "Everything". Then they usually go on with a really cool idea for a game and say "Maybe you should try making that." and they are cool ideas, so I want to say back "Maybe you should". Then I realize they don't have an engine. That whole thing pretty much tells me that there are a lot of kids out there who want to be a developer, but are limited to their recources. They usually don't have the cash, or their computer isn't the best.

My honest oppinion is there should be a program for kids and teens that offer a student version of Torque that teaches them all about the coding and the design of games. Then they can publish them and the site should have a kid developer game store or something and the kids can make up to a maximum of $500 or a decent little number. It will teach them about the buisness side of the game as well, and everyone can give them support.

And if we really went into detail, we could have contests for the kids to win a copy of Torque, engine varying on the catergory of 2D or 3D game in the contest.

Whole idea seems a little much, but I'm fortunate enough to have a couple engines myself.
#35
01/13/2010 (6:08 pm)
All I can say is... open-source TGE?
#36
01/13/2010 (6:41 pm)
I think Matt's idea of allowing the younger developers to make up to a limit before they pay the full price for the engine is a very good idea. Garage Games only stands to gain by doing that. It spreads the word about Torque and allows young people to begin developing with it. Also if the game that was made begins to become successfull, Garage games recieves the full price of the engine.

Autodesk does something very similar. As long as you are a student (you prove it by sending them a coppy of your class schedule, etc.) You can get Maya, 3Ds max, and a lot of other software for about $400. once you do anything non profit, you have to pay for another licence. I have heard that they even give a discount of 50% for the full licence but i have not looked into it yet.

In my opoinion it would be much better if the teens did not have to pay the full price until their game started to make money rather than as soon as the release, like is required for the Autodesk software.
#37
01/13/2010 (6:54 pm)
I think that gg could easily run a competition where teens that can prove it may download tge and make a game. I mean come on gg, why is tge just going to be forgotten? Bring on the open source.


Imagine comunity that would spring up if there was open source. We would get a new resource every 5mins o.O
#38
01/13/2010 (8:34 pm)
I agree with the TGE open source, and with the contest we can give away a couple of copies of Torque3D or something.

It's going to be a whole new community if we go to open source on TGE, and i'm sure there will be a lot of questions being asked. Someone needs to write a TGE for dummies...
#39
01/13/2010 (8:50 pm)
If TGE went open source, I am sure that there would be 100000 tutorials and resources. And the community would increase by 100s if not 1000s.

Look at other communities of open source engines, they are massive.

Who knows, we might even get a version of TGE thats more powerful than T3D lol.
#40
01/14/2010 (11:23 am)
Could be possible. I don't know how successful it would be with unity being released for free and all those other engines being released free lol.

Anyway I think open source TGE would be pretty cool and I suggest GG do it. Contents would be great and i don't know about 100000s of tutorials and resources but there would be quite a lol hehe.

Oh and delete the end bit bryce lol your only scaring GG.