What I believe about GarageGames
by Eric Preisz · 10/08/2011 (5:19 pm) · 35 comments
I don’t play games.
Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s not that I don’t play games, I’m just pretty sure that if you added up all of the time that I’ve spent making games, it would far exceed that of playing them. Strange huh? For some reason, I’m more interested in the process of creating a game then I am at playing them. When I do play games, I’m more interested in how the game renders the skybox then I am about getting a head shot or an achievement.
It’s my interest in making games that led me to GarageGames. I’m sure that is true for many of you as well. If not, I’d be really interested in why you are here.
For fun, I thought I would take some time to explain to you guys why I’m here with the hopes that you will tell me why you are here.
I chose computer science on a whim. I didn’t even know what it was. In my past, I was more focused on more traditionally creative endeavors. I sang and played lead guitar in a local band. I was two classes away from having an art minor. The short story is that I choose game development when I was 19 because 1) I was doing well in my computer science classes and 2) I thought game development would be the most creative application of my computer science degree 3) I wanted to be a manager some day and I felt that learning something really, really, hard would make me the best manager.
Learning how to makes games was indeed…really, really hard. And more than anything it was really, really time consuming. I didn’t even have a computer through college. I was from a really poor family and we simply couldn’t afford it. So on nearly every weekend during my junior and senior year of college, I learned how to make games on the computer labs on Saturday morning (ask my roommates, they thought I was crazy). Aside from one computer graphics class on OpenGL, which I already knew when I took it, I learned everything on my own. I read every game developer and CGW magazine I could find. I had no clue what I was reading, but I didn’t stop just because I didn’t understand it. I read it again hoping osmosis would prevail.
I worked on several projects that I created to keep me on track. First, I did a virtual environment of our university using GLUT. I didn’t get very far, but I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to do the math to make my camera spin. I ended up using the same math as a transform, but at the time I didn’t know what a transform was. Texture mapping seemed to be as hard as rocket science. I decided to jump to DirectX. That was way harder. It took me about a month to get a triangle on the screen. (I just found a post where I was asking a question about this bit.ly/qf2GCr). After that, I moved on to a motorcycle game. The track was a parametric equation that I used to define the curves in the road. Then I used the derivative to determine the collision with the road. Curved surfaces FTW! I hand modeled the entire motorcycle on graph paper and I typed the values into GL compiled arrays. I even had rotating wheels and wheelies. It wasn’t great, but it was enough to land me my first job after graduation (btw..that app still runs…it just goes really fast because it was tied to framerate).
So before I bore you with what happened next, let me just re-iterate the fact that it was really hard -and I learned everything by trial and error over the course of about three years.
Eventually, I found GarageGames. I learned a lot and I made a lot of really good friends along the way.
I think my interest in making games has since extended to an interest in helping others learn how to make games. It drove me to be a teacher at Full Sail University. It drove me to take this job. I also think it drove me to push for the 1.2 tutorial. I would have killed to have the tutorial that we are about to release. But this isn’t a commercial for 1.2, it’s just an example about what drives me. At GarageGames, we get to help thousands of people who are driven to learn the same things that I learned on my own and that is really satisfying.
All of these great experiences are why I come to Derek’s desk in the morning and say things like, “We need a chat client accessible from the tutorial so that people can make friends and learn together.” I think it would be really cool if we help introduce new friends to each other.
So to close, let me leave you with some thoughts of what I believe about my experience making games.
-I believe it’s more fun to make games then to play them
-I believe it’s more fun to help others make great games then it is to make them myself
-I believe it’s more fun to make games with other people then to make them alone
-I believe that GarageGames is the best place in the world for these experiences
So now the question is to you. What drives you to be here?
About the author
Manager, Programmer, Author, Professor, Small Business Owner, and Marketer.
#2
I made my first text adventures in '83/'84 ...
Decided on game design in 2004 to get back into the "Real World"/technology after 10 years of being a Bohemian Artist Type stuck out on a dusty hill within SCUD range of Irag, figured it would be a good mixing of the creative and the logical ...
If I thought there was a better place to achieve what I want, I'd be there rather than here, at GG.
Silent Running was a great film :)
Can't believe that image is the best "and my axe" pic I could find ...
10/08/2011 (6:26 pm)
I made my first text adventures in '83/'84 ...
Decided on game design in 2004 to get back into the "Real World"/technology after 10 years of being a Bohemian Artist Type stuck out on a dusty hill within SCUD range of Irag, figured it would be a good mixing of the creative and the logical ...
If I thought there was a better place to achieve what I want, I'd be there rather than here, at GG.
Silent Running was a great film :)
Can't believe that image is the best "and my axe" pic I could find ...
#3
While waiting tables in Boston, it just hit me. The most fun I had the entire time in high school was those late nights I spent messing around with RPGM2K. I wanted to make games. That's all I ever wanted to do from that point on, so I picked one of two potential schools that focused on nothing but game development. That changed everything in my life.
After each class I finished at Full Sail, my path became a lot clearer. I was first introduced to Torque during a final project. By the time I graduated, I had a deep appreciation for GarageGames and the Torque team that responded to my forum posts. I would have loved to be on that team. I went for the first programming job I could find, though, which was a serious games company specializing in creating military defense simulations (using Torque).
That's where I met Eric and Scott. It turns out we all had the same appreciation for GarageGames and Torque. The three of us (plus one other) held the first Torque Interest Group assembly in Orlando, FL. It's more than funny to see the three of us working together at GarageGames, trying to make the best Torque tech we can.
I couldn't keep away from GarageGames.com, during work or after hours. I loved the community, the people running it and the tech behind it all. My wife probably got tired of hearing about them. There was no other choice left. I embedded myself in the community and decided to start writing some tutorials. That led to meeting Matt Fairfax at GDC, which led to getting contract work for GG, which quickly turned into a full time career at GarageGames.
Without hesitation, my family and I moved to the other side of the country so I could work at the only place I wanted to since graduating from Full Sail.
Company gets bought out, stick with them. Company moves to Las Vegas and drops the GG name. Stick with them. The leader of your unit jumps to the rival, stick with them because Eric came on board. Company shuts down, stick with the team because they are working on pulling us back together. GarageGames is reborn and I'm still here, because I love this company, this community and this technology.
-I believe that a strong team will stick together, even in uncertain times.
-I believe a tech company that survives for ten years, is shut down and is reborn, is worth fighting for tooth-and-nail. No matter what side of the line you are on.
-I truly believe this community will grow again and become greater than before.
-I TOO believe that GarageGames is the best place in the world for these experiences
10/08/2011 (6:41 pm)
Growing up, I was always told I have to go to college. After graduating high school, all I knew was that I was interested in tech. I built a couple of computers, so I figured I would head down that path. Before I could get to any of the real computer based classes, I had to go through a lot I really wasn't interested in. I tried normal college and found it to be a waste of time.While waiting tables in Boston, it just hit me. The most fun I had the entire time in high school was those late nights I spent messing around with RPGM2K. I wanted to make games. That's all I ever wanted to do from that point on, so I picked one of two potential schools that focused on nothing but game development. That changed everything in my life.
After each class I finished at Full Sail, my path became a lot clearer. I was first introduced to Torque during a final project. By the time I graduated, I had a deep appreciation for GarageGames and the Torque team that responded to my forum posts. I would have loved to be on that team. I went for the first programming job I could find, though, which was a serious games company specializing in creating military defense simulations (using Torque).
That's where I met Eric and Scott. It turns out we all had the same appreciation for GarageGames and Torque. The three of us (plus one other) held the first Torque Interest Group assembly in Orlando, FL. It's more than funny to see the three of us working together at GarageGames, trying to make the best Torque tech we can.
I couldn't keep away from GarageGames.com, during work or after hours. I loved the community, the people running it and the tech behind it all. My wife probably got tired of hearing about them. There was no other choice left. I embedded myself in the community and decided to start writing some tutorials. That led to meeting Matt Fairfax at GDC, which led to getting contract work for GG, which quickly turned into a full time career at GarageGames.
Without hesitation, my family and I moved to the other side of the country so I could work at the only place I wanted to since graduating from Full Sail.
Company gets bought out, stick with them. Company moves to Las Vegas and drops the GG name. Stick with them. The leader of your unit jumps to the rival, stick with them because Eric came on board. Company shuts down, stick with the team because they are working on pulling us back together. GarageGames is reborn and I'm still here, because I love this company, this community and this technology.
-I believe that a strong team will stick together, even in uncertain times.
-I believe a tech company that survives for ten years, is shut down and is reborn, is worth fighting for tooth-and-nail. No matter what side of the line you are on.
-I truly believe this community will grow again and become greater than before.
-I TOO believe that GarageGames is the best place in the world for these experiences
#4
At the time, I had written a game engine which was being used by our game studio on box retail games for Valusoft and WizardWorks/GT Interactive. These were churn and burn 4 month development cycle games for the likes of Harley Davidson, Kawasaki, a WWII jeep driving game, etc. We shipped a RIDICULOUS number of games in a very short 2 year window, and I completely burned out.
I moved to North Dakota, and in the meantime the licensing terms for TGE got a hell of lot better. So, I built an MMO with the engine and ran it for a couple years. I also created a kit out of the MMO tech which has been used by several companies to ship their own MMO titles.
I was hired on by InstantAction towards the end of its run. When it was announced that the company was relocating to Las Vegas, I quit. A royal clusterf**k seemed inevitable.
I co-founded Mythos Labs and we have been doing contract work for a number of high profile companies. We are also building original technology and game IP.
Although we're not using Torque atm, I check out the GarageGames site to see what's up with the Torque ball. Kudos on keeping it rolling.
10/08/2011 (8:00 pm)
I was one of the first purchasers of the V12 engine which was subsequently renamed to Torque. The licensing terms were pretty terrible, for instance you had to publish through GarageGames (a limitation of the original Darkstar/Tribes2 source deal). The early community was great and the founders were very active/hard working, and the kool-aid was delicious! At the time, I had written a game engine which was being used by our game studio on box retail games for Valusoft and WizardWorks/GT Interactive. These were churn and burn 4 month development cycle games for the likes of Harley Davidson, Kawasaki, a WWII jeep driving game, etc. We shipped a RIDICULOUS number of games in a very short 2 year window, and I completely burned out.
I moved to North Dakota, and in the meantime the licensing terms for TGE got a hell of lot better. So, I built an MMO with the engine and ran it for a couple years. I also created a kit out of the MMO tech which has been used by several companies to ship their own MMO titles.
I was hired on by InstantAction towards the end of its run. When it was announced that the company was relocating to Las Vegas, I quit. A royal clusterf**k seemed inevitable.
I co-founded Mythos Labs and we have been doing contract work for a number of high profile companies. We are also building original technology and game IP.
Although we're not using Torque atm, I check out the GarageGames site to see what's up with the Torque ball. Kudos on keeping it rolling.
#5
This is what drove me here :)
Ever since then, I was a part of the underground computer arts scene known as the Demoscene - as a composer. Music has been closer to me than coding, especially at a level required to get noticed in that community.
On the commodore 64 I was part of the c64 group Triad and later the PC group Exceed whom with in 2000 we won the main competition of the prestigious global Demoscene meet-up, Assembly in Helsinki, Finland - after which I pretty much became inactive on the music front.
Our Assembly 2000 winner demo (real-time, software rendering) featuring
my music composed under the alias "generiq"
This versatile community of coders, graphic designers, hackers, choreographers, musicians, etc.. provided me with the know-how and connections of friends who eventually invited me to work in a small studio under the wings of SEGA as a composer.
Initially, working on music for small games that would become published was the best job I could think of. Yet it got me nowhere in designing my own games and in actually creating them. So through my teammates, I started to pick up some game design and coding skills so that one day I could get started on my own.
In around 2001 my first game got published by my own startup. It took 14 years, but I did it. The platform was the web and the entire server-client architecture was an entirely new thing for me compared to what I learned previously at the studio. I had to pretty much learn everything myself, but I was now confident enough to believe that I could do it. Eventually I ended up with a game that operated for about 8 years and - until I sold it after the first 3 years - it had accumulated 50 000 registered users.
In 2008, we (along with my previous partner, a friend who always wants to be kept nameless) formed Bitgap, and started working on Xenocell using Torque 3D.
10/09/2011 (12:25 am)
In around 1987 (~ the age of 10) I played Pitstop II on the Commodore 64 at a friend's for the first time. On my way walking home, I decided that this was what I needed to do for a living. I had to wait 2 years until I could convince my parents to get me a Commodore 64. Long before that I started to code on paper though, so that one day I would be able to try out the programs I wrote. I am still very proud of myself, that I grasped the idea of binary number systems at 10 with no computer around me on my own. It would probably not be such a big thing today with all the gadgets around, but back then - living in Hungary behind the iron curtain having very limited access to any literature on the topic of computers in general, I'd like to believe that it was. :)This is what drove me here :)
Ever since then, I was a part of the underground computer arts scene known as the Demoscene - as a composer. Music has been closer to me than coding, especially at a level required to get noticed in that community.
On the commodore 64 I was part of the c64 group Triad and later the PC group Exceed whom with in 2000 we won the main competition of the prestigious global Demoscene meet-up, Assembly in Helsinki, Finland - after which I pretty much became inactive on the music front.
Our Assembly 2000 winner demo (real-time, software rendering) featuring
my music composed under the alias "generiq"
This versatile community of coders, graphic designers, hackers, choreographers, musicians, etc.. provided me with the know-how and connections of friends who eventually invited me to work in a small studio under the wings of SEGA as a composer.
Initially, working on music for small games that would become published was the best job I could think of. Yet it got me nowhere in designing my own games and in actually creating them. So through my teammates, I started to pick up some game design and coding skills so that one day I could get started on my own.
In around 2001 my first game got published by my own startup. It took 14 years, but I did it. The platform was the web and the entire server-client architecture was an entirely new thing for me compared to what I learned previously at the studio. I had to pretty much learn everything myself, but I was now confident enough to believe that I could do it. Eventually I ended up with a game that operated for about 8 years and - until I sold it after the first 3 years - it had accumulated 50 000 registered users.
In 2008, we (along with my previous partner, a friend who always wants to be kept nameless) formed Bitgap, and started working on Xenocell using Torque 3D.
#6
I played it constantly and watched everyone else play it when I wasn't.
When I was 10 I saw a tv show and it had some uni students making there own game. I never thought about it been possible before, and so I started to learn Pascal, VB and later C, OpenGL.
But it was pretty confusing at my age.
I also used programs like Klick and Play to make little games. And modified Doom.
When Quake 3 came out I was 14 and then I really had a great game to work with and learnt heaps with its C-script and modeling/BSPs with it. Really great engine.
But I soon wanted to make a game that would really be mine and not just mods.
I looked about and tried the engines available, to no success, there was nothing comparable to Quake 3.
When V12 came out it was perfect. It first didn't have much to get you started. But it was a real engine that I could use!
I worked for a long time on a Vietnam game with TGE. It was OK. But I always got bogged down with modeling and artwork.
Also when I became a software engineer, my drive has hit an all time low for about 4 years now. It just takes a lot out and I don't have the passion to sit down and do what I REALLY want to do. Still figuring out to snap out of that. And get back to making my game.
10/09/2011 (3:41 am)
When I was young I always loved playing games on the Master System 2 and Commodore 64. When I was 6 we got a 486, and the games we got where ok, Duke Nukem and Commander Keen where good, but then something amazing - Wolfenstein 3D.I played it constantly and watched everyone else play it when I wasn't.
When I was 10 I saw a tv show and it had some uni students making there own game. I never thought about it been possible before, and so I started to learn Pascal, VB and later C, OpenGL.
But it was pretty confusing at my age.
I also used programs like Klick and Play to make little games. And modified Doom.
When Quake 3 came out I was 14 and then I really had a great game to work with and learnt heaps with its C-script and modeling/BSPs with it. Really great engine.
But I soon wanted to make a game that would really be mine and not just mods.
I looked about and tried the engines available, to no success, there was nothing comparable to Quake 3.
When V12 came out it was perfect. It first didn't have much to get you started. But it was a real engine that I could use!
I worked for a long time on a Vietnam game with TGE. It was OK. But I always got bogged down with modeling and artwork.
Also when I became a software engineer, my drive has hit an all time low for about 4 years now. It just takes a lot out and I don't have the passion to sit down and do what I REALLY want to do. Still figuring out to snap out of that. And get back to making my game.
#7
It took quite some time to load up games from K7s and would sometimes fail the load, so one day, after a load fail, i picked up a few books on ZX Spectrum programing and started inputing those samples and examples and playing around with them, changing stuff. I was hooked.
Soon enough i was doing my own characters (8x8 grid of pixels) aand changing the ghosts on pacman to other weird looking beeings.
That went for a while until my sister crashed the keyboard against the floor and most keys stopped working.
Later my uncle got himself a 286 PC and i there i was applying what i gad learned from ZBasic on the spectrum in the old QBasic that came with DOS, and making my own simple games - a boxing game with tetris like characters, spaceship battles, etc. - in 94 i went to 10th grade and decided to take an informatics course. Had some programming classes on C++, Pascal and some basic Assembly. By 95 when my parents bought a 486 i started making games in Pascal (still have some of them and working till today using DosBox).
By 98 i started my first job (not programming related) that made me be able to buy my first PC - a Pentium. By then Windows 98 came out and DOS programing was out the door with no more DOS Real Mode straightly available.
So i stopped programing for a while, then thought myself Delphi and made my first release of non-game software - contract work from a small Soccer team's coatch for a program to manage the teams results and overall league. Had a version 2 released of that with a few extra features later on.
Then by 2004 i decided to get back to learning and got into university on a Informatics and computer engeniering course. Most classes i didn't feel like it was interesting to me but i did learn a bit here and there.
By 2008 strawling around the net looking for game engines (since i had previously attempted to create my own just to be stomped at the sheer volume of work and research i would ned to invest on it before i could even dream of starting to make my own game, and guessing by the time i managed that, all was outdated already) and i came across TGE - that lead me to the GG site and there i saw TGEA.
It didn't really took much for me to realise how great a deal it was so i bought TGEA.
Since then, i bought TGB Pro, TorqueX, and jumped in on early adopter programm for Torque3D.
In true honesty, after 3 years i haven't finished any project with Torque yet - although i do have one with TGB in the making.
It's just that past two years time has been fleeting and life hasn't been easy. This year alone i got a familly (am now with my girl and her daughter), got a job, left univesity on hold since i can't afford it anymore, moved to a new place and saw my countries economy go down the drain.
And because of that last point, my girl lost her job so i have a familly of 3 to support on my own with very little money, wich leaves little time for my projects.
And yet i feel confident that the best Torque has to offer me is yet to come so why would i be anywhere else?
10/09/2011 (4:04 am)
At age 12 i got a ZX Spectrum 48k +It took quite some time to load up games from K7s and would sometimes fail the load, so one day, after a load fail, i picked up a few books on ZX Spectrum programing and started inputing those samples and examples and playing around with them, changing stuff. I was hooked.
Soon enough i was doing my own characters (8x8 grid of pixels) aand changing the ghosts on pacman to other weird looking beeings.
That went for a while until my sister crashed the keyboard against the floor and most keys stopped working.
Later my uncle got himself a 286 PC and i there i was applying what i gad learned from ZBasic on the spectrum in the old QBasic that came with DOS, and making my own simple games - a boxing game with tetris like characters, spaceship battles, etc. - in 94 i went to 10th grade and decided to take an informatics course. Had some programming classes on C++, Pascal and some basic Assembly. By 95 when my parents bought a 486 i started making games in Pascal (still have some of them and working till today using DosBox).
By 98 i started my first job (not programming related) that made me be able to buy my first PC - a Pentium. By then Windows 98 came out and DOS programing was out the door with no more DOS Real Mode straightly available.
So i stopped programing for a while, then thought myself Delphi and made my first release of non-game software - contract work from a small Soccer team's coatch for a program to manage the teams results and overall league. Had a version 2 released of that with a few extra features later on.
Then by 2004 i decided to get back to learning and got into university on a Informatics and computer engeniering course. Most classes i didn't feel like it was interesting to me but i did learn a bit here and there.
By 2008 strawling around the net looking for game engines (since i had previously attempted to create my own just to be stomped at the sheer volume of work and research i would ned to invest on it before i could even dream of starting to make my own game, and guessing by the time i managed that, all was outdated already) and i came across TGE - that lead me to the GG site and there i saw TGEA.
It didn't really took much for me to realise how great a deal it was so i bought TGEA.
Since then, i bought TGB Pro, TorqueX, and jumped in on early adopter programm for Torque3D.
In true honesty, after 3 years i haven't finished any project with Torque yet - although i do have one with TGB in the making.
It's just that past two years time has been fleeting and life hasn't been easy. This year alone i got a familly (am now with my girl and her daughter), got a job, left univesity on hold since i can't afford it anymore, moved to a new place and saw my countries economy go down the drain.
And because of that last point, my girl lost her job so i have a familly of 3 to support on my own with very little money, wich leaves little time for my projects.
And yet i feel confident that the best Torque has to offer me is yet to come so why would i be anywhere else?
#8
I was introduced to GG by a Canadian online gaming friend of mine, this company had a game engine that could make my dream come true. My dream was to take my fictional Pen&Paper world and tranform it into a persistant game.
Coming from a simple background in the late 70's, I had sniffed to coding up through the 80 & 90's, so diving into this fantastic 'create your game' engine dident scare me.
Because I believed that this game-framework could aid me in creating 'my' game, I have ignored the workload I have to put into not only making the game, but also tweaking and fixing the engine.
I still think it can -Thats why I'm still here!
10/09/2011 (5:12 am)
Why I'm here?I was introduced to GG by a Canadian online gaming friend of mine, this company had a game engine that could make my dream come true. My dream was to take my fictional Pen&Paper world and tranform it into a persistant game.
Coming from a simple background in the late 70's, I had sniffed to coding up through the 80 & 90's, so diving into this fantastic 'create your game' engine dident scare me.
Because I believed that this game-framework could aid me in creating 'my' game, I have ignored the workload I have to put into not only making the game, but also tweaking and fixing the engine.
I still think it can -Thats why I'm still here!
#9
Where do I start? Guess a brief on my history.
I liked playing pacman on my older brothers atari? (think that's what it was) so I took the only computer class available in high school. Key punch. I was a junior (11th grade) and it was sooo boring. I learned it tho, just to think, "Anyone who likes this computer programming stuff is a true geek". Not for me. After 4 years in the Navy, I started driving truck, but spent most of my free time playing "the pheonix" at our corner store. Loved that game. I drove truck for a while, but decided to stop that and go to college. (was a premed, biology major). I bought a "coleco vision" computer to type my homework on. (Thought that thing was the greatest) While in college, I found their computer lab and fell in love with those "little" computers. I picked up a book on dos from the school store and found it really easy to learn. I was a trekki, so wrote my own star trek game. In dos, that program was massive, but it worked. umm, mostly. I spent too much of my study time on that, and failed out of college, so went back to driving truck.
skip ahead...
I found the myst series of games. Those games made me really want to make another game of my own, so I picked up several books on c++ to learn. Just as I really started grasping it, I had an accident that left me with memory problems. I didn't let that stop me tho. I joined a group of friends from the myst community and really got into making a viable, sellable game. The engine we used was bought out by adobe systems, and after reaching release, adobe shut it down. The team broke up, yet I still had that game in my head that I really wanted to make. That led me here. tge 1.4 was awesome. It wasn't as good or easy as the engine I used before, but with a large community and owners who had the same passion I did, I knew this engine would be around for a long time.
I've made a couple of mods from the examples that came with torque, but nothing that I would even think of selling. I made them for my grandson. With my memory problems, it's a difficult process. I normally take already written code, then pound it into submission to get it to work. (that and ask a lot of questions here)
I'll never make that game in my head, but that's ok. I love being around this community and playing with the tech here. I've looked at all the other engine communities out there, and this one is the best.
I'll probably play with torque till the day I die. I love it here.
10/09/2011 (6:30 am)
Wow, this has got to be the best blog ever. So why am I here?Where do I start? Guess a brief on my history.
I liked playing pacman on my older brothers atari? (think that's what it was) so I took the only computer class available in high school. Key punch. I was a junior (11th grade) and it was sooo boring. I learned it tho, just to think, "Anyone who likes this computer programming stuff is a true geek". Not for me. After 4 years in the Navy, I started driving truck, but spent most of my free time playing "the pheonix" at our corner store. Loved that game. I drove truck for a while, but decided to stop that and go to college. (was a premed, biology major). I bought a "coleco vision" computer to type my homework on. (Thought that thing was the greatest) While in college, I found their computer lab and fell in love with those "little" computers. I picked up a book on dos from the school store and found it really easy to learn. I was a trekki, so wrote my own star trek game. In dos, that program was massive, but it worked. umm, mostly. I spent too much of my study time on that, and failed out of college, so went back to driving truck.
skip ahead...
I found the myst series of games. Those games made me really want to make another game of my own, so I picked up several books on c++ to learn. Just as I really started grasping it, I had an accident that left me with memory problems. I didn't let that stop me tho. I joined a group of friends from the myst community and really got into making a viable, sellable game. The engine we used was bought out by adobe systems, and after reaching release, adobe shut it down. The team broke up, yet I still had that game in my head that I really wanted to make. That led me here. tge 1.4 was awesome. It wasn't as good or easy as the engine I used before, but with a large community and owners who had the same passion I did, I knew this engine would be around for a long time.
I've made a couple of mods from the examples that came with torque, but nothing that I would even think of selling. I made them for my grandson. With my memory problems, it's a difficult process. I normally take already written code, then pound it into submission to get it to work. (that and ask a lot of questions here)
I'll never make that game in my head, but that's ok. I love being around this community and playing with the tech here. I've looked at all the other engine communities out there, and this one is the best.
I'll probably play with torque till the day I die. I love it here.
#10
TGE/A
Then, the initial character artwork needed to be upgraded as they just didn't look great in TGEA, so after several prototypes later I was happy with the outcome.
After migrating the artwork over to TGEA and getting all the code created to work again took some time. Money ran out, so I had to find work. This slowed down the development a bit, but I was still working on my game in the evenings and weekends and determined to get a good game out the door, sooner or later.
Some development time had past...
Then, BAM! It happend, one of those Eureka moments!! Torque 3D early adopter was laid out on a plate, it was another tough decision to make, do I migrate yet again! The quality/tools was just too tempting not to, but did I want to delay the release of the game yet again? I think I made the right choice initially, but at a cost of certain functionality not working as it should, such as zones/portals meant that the performance was pretty bad and lots of lag (thankfully portals/zones are fixed in 1.1 final). But as I wasn't ready to release at that point anyway I had time for level design and to make some gameplay changes until it was fixed in a later release, as eventually all bugs pointed out by the community are fixed by the community or GG (this is what makes it great here). I knew it was in good hands and as it was way beyond my scope and resources I decided to carry on as normal. The only other show stopper for me was when GG was no more and I had to think about the future of migrating yet again to another engine, spend lots of money on getting someone to fix the performance issues or face having to cut down the levels and artwork into small chunks, not ideal for a multi-player game having lots of server instances, but I am really glad things worked out for GG and that I did not decide to move engines.
Why did I choose Torque for my game?
Survival Strike is all about planetary survival, a multi-player online game, where networking is key. Without Torque 3D and AFX combined all of this would not have been possible. I've still yet to see a game engine surpass what Torques networking can do out of the box, this was one of the main reasons why I chose Torque over any other engine. So even though I've chosen to upgrade from various releases of Torque, I've always chosen Torque over any other engine. If you know that you are onto a good thing, why change?
Torque 3D
Since working with Torque 3D my level and artwork design has stepped up a few notches and I've had time to think about what tools I need to help me reach that (Make MMO button) with Torque, so I created the Game Ranking System, and then Game Membership & Management System to help me and others who use Torque to get there also. Looking back, I came from the game industry, and went full circle back to the game industry - so I never really left.. having the time to up my game has been a great opportunity after changing careers and I thank Torque, GG and the community for that learning curve, it's been a fun ride. I think that what was once good with GG, then turned bad, has now come back stronger and better than before. Torque is great! GG for the win. Looking forward to what's next.
10/09/2011 (7:39 am)
Back in the day when the Internet was not as big as it is now, maybe the odd university had it, and it certainly wasn't as bright and colourful as it is now, all ANSI. I ran a 12 line bulletin board on two 486 PCs, and 14.4k modems with multiplayer doom and quake. This soon died out once the internet took off, officially the death of BBs. After this I started working for an IT company, but still had my sight on developing a game, so I bought an early version of Torque, but did not really use it for a game until 1.5 was out the door several years later as I felt the engine needed to mature a bit more before I jumped in. I managed to secure some money by placing an advert on ebay, this funded my development for a year, but by then TGEA was out and it was very tempting to upgrade as the shaders and artwork quality was so much better, and as quick as I would have finished Survival Strike the quality of the game would just looked dated. I decided that I needed to work on this full time, so left my job after 10 years to jump into full time games development!TGE/A
Then, the initial character artwork needed to be upgraded as they just didn't look great in TGEA, so after several prototypes later I was happy with the outcome.
After migrating the artwork over to TGEA and getting all the code created to work again took some time. Money ran out, so I had to find work. This slowed down the development a bit, but I was still working on my game in the evenings and weekends and determined to get a good game out the door, sooner or later.
Some development time had past...
Then, BAM! It happend, one of those Eureka moments!! Torque 3D early adopter was laid out on a plate, it was another tough decision to make, do I migrate yet again! The quality/tools was just too tempting not to, but did I want to delay the release of the game yet again? I think I made the right choice initially, but at a cost of certain functionality not working as it should, such as zones/portals meant that the performance was pretty bad and lots of lag (thankfully portals/zones are fixed in 1.1 final). But as I wasn't ready to release at that point anyway I had time for level design and to make some gameplay changes until it was fixed in a later release, as eventually all bugs pointed out by the community are fixed by the community or GG (this is what makes it great here). I knew it was in good hands and as it was way beyond my scope and resources I decided to carry on as normal. The only other show stopper for me was when GG was no more and I had to think about the future of migrating yet again to another engine, spend lots of money on getting someone to fix the performance issues or face having to cut down the levels and artwork into small chunks, not ideal for a multi-player game having lots of server instances, but I am really glad things worked out for GG and that I did not decide to move engines.
Why did I choose Torque for my game?
Survival Strike is all about planetary survival, a multi-player online game, where networking is key. Without Torque 3D and AFX combined all of this would not have been possible. I've still yet to see a game engine surpass what Torques networking can do out of the box, this was one of the main reasons why I chose Torque over any other engine. So even though I've chosen to upgrade from various releases of Torque, I've always chosen Torque over any other engine. If you know that you are onto a good thing, why change?
Torque 3D
Since working with Torque 3D my level and artwork design has stepped up a few notches and I've had time to think about what tools I need to help me reach that (Make MMO button) with Torque, so I created the Game Ranking System, and then Game Membership & Management System to help me and others who use Torque to get there also. Looking back, I came from the game industry, and went full circle back to the game industry - so I never really left.. having the time to up my game has been a great opportunity after changing careers and I thank Torque, GG and the community for that learning curve, it's been a fun ride. I think that what was once good with GG, then turned bad, has now come back stronger and better than before. Torque is great! GG for the win. Looking forward to what's next.
#11
10/09/2011 (9:14 am)
Great Blog ERIC!...so why am i here? My background is quite a bit differet than most i think. I started with computer graphics in highschool around 1996 working with this new cutting edge dos based software called 3d studio max. at the time i was completely blown away by what it could do but my goal was never to be a game developer/software developer. I always wanted to become a civil engineer and that is the path i stayed on. I went on to get a bachelors of science in civil engineering and a masters in structural engineering. I have built water plants, waste water plants, i have designed hospitals and designed structures to be blast hardned, and now more recently most of the country has heard about carmeggeddon and the demolition of mullholland bridge on I-405 which I had a planning/managerial role in. during the day i manage hundreds of people and millions of dollars through all of this and in college i maintained my love/hobby of 3d art and computer programming as a way of balancing. In 2000 I stumbled upon garagegames and V12. I downloaded the demo and worked with alot of my 3d art inside it and began teaching myself programming through torque script(which served me well when i had to take C++ and assembly in college, and trust me game development programming is magnitudes more complicated than what you need to program day to day as a structural engineer) , and when i graduated college in 2006/2007 as a graduation presnt i bought myself a license. Today i use my study of game development and continue to work on my artwork as a way of relieving my stress and maintaining balance in myself. Its nice to come home after a long day and switch over from the left side of my brain to the right side and just relax doing something that is not only fun and engaging but also productive and allows me to satisfy my constant need to learn new things. Unfortunately over the years i am still fairly novice in programming with C++ due to my inability to focus on one dicipline in development for more than a few weeks at a time. 
#12
And here I thought it was just me. My players always ask when I play, but the answer is I really don't. I love the art of building the game. Every addition of new technology is probably the same to a gamer as gaining a new level. On some of those tough technical challenges that are probably comparable to a boss run, I have even did an "I did it dance". It's not pretty, but the feelings of achievement is there.
Doing my own thing and trying to create the game just the way I want it, I can lose myself for 12+ hour days easily. Doing the same for another company probably wouldn't or a product that was more job related probably wouldn't have the same feeling to it.
It would be nice to finish the game someday(my wife would agree to this), but until then, it is just the creation process that holds me here.
10/09/2011 (10:59 am)
Quote:For some reason, Iâm more interested in the process of creating a game then I am at playing them.
And here I thought it was just me. My players always ask when I play, but the answer is I really don't. I love the art of building the game. Every addition of new technology is probably the same to a gamer as gaining a new level. On some of those tough technical challenges that are probably comparable to a boss run, I have even did an "I did it dance". It's not pretty, but the feelings of achievement is there.
Doing my own thing and trying to create the game just the way I want it, I can lose myself for 12+ hour days easily. Doing the same for another company probably wouldn't or a product that was more job related probably wouldn't have the same feeling to it.
It would be nice to finish the game someday(my wife would agree to this), but until then, it is just the creation process that holds me here.
#14
Well this blog is making me feel old! My first computer I ever really sat down to learn to program was a DEC PDP-11. I wanted to learn to program it because I repaired them. I'm not going to mention the older systems the military made me work on. My really first stab at video games came when I bought the brand new on the market Commodore VIC 20. While playing video games, I was always asking how they did that. So, this started my interest.
How I got here...
Then years later came a video game called Starsiege Tribes that allowed you to mod. This is where I really got interested in game development. T2 was released, then found out the company was shut down. Then the news of the creation of GarageGames. So $100 later for V12 engine, here I am.
I really enjoy messing around with the engines and see what I can do. I'm not an artist, not a programmer, I'm just a hobbyist (really just another name for "nerd"). I used and have several licenses to several other game engines. I still come back to TGE and T3D. I have learned so much from GarageGames and the community members here in the last 10 yrs. I guess this is what keeps me here.
10/09/2011 (4:26 pm)
Great blog! Well this blog is making me feel old! My first computer I ever really sat down to learn to program was a DEC PDP-11. I wanted to learn to program it because I repaired them. I'm not going to mention the older systems the military made me work on. My really first stab at video games came when I bought the brand new on the market Commodore VIC 20. While playing video games, I was always asking how they did that. So, this started my interest.
How I got here...
Then years later came a video game called Starsiege Tribes that allowed you to mod. This is where I really got interested in game development. T2 was released, then found out the company was shut down. Then the news of the creation of GarageGames. So $100 later for V12 engine, here I am.
I really enjoy messing around with the engines and see what I can do. I'm not an artist, not a programmer, I'm just a hobbyist (really just another name for "nerd"). I used and have several licenses to several other game engines. I still come back to TGE and T3D. I have learned so much from GarageGames and the community members here in the last 10 yrs. I guess this is what keeps me here.
#15
I think he's 200 years old ... oh no wait, that's the "zombie icon" he's been using ... ;)
All Hail The ZX Spectrum 48K!
10/09/2011 (4:30 pm)
@ NovackI think he's 200 years old ... oh no wait, that's the "zombie icon" he's been using ... ;)
All Hail The ZX Spectrum 48K!
#16
Later in life, for years I spent every free hour (and many not-so-free hours) playing the original Rainbow Six, Age of Empires, and Neverwinter Nights.
I was also always really into creating things. In the early years it was mostly mechanical/electrical things. I built little radios, devices for monitoring weather satellite data, go-carts, unicycles, pogo sticks, anything I could think of and could find materials for, I made.
Then I got a 300 baud modem and discovered BBSes. I played BBS games that were made with ASCII/ANSI art. I decided to start my own BBS. I got some BBS software that was written in BASIC. I quickly became frustrated with not being able to do things through the mostly worthless configuration interface. I asked another sysop how he did something, and he told me how to change some lines in the BASIC code to do it. So I did it. And that was my first programming experience.
3 months later, I had made my first game, an ANSI chess game that people could play against each other over a period of days or weeks. (At that time there were no multi-line BBSes, so only one person could be logged in to the site at a time.)
I became addicted. I spend most of the rest of my youth with a keyboard strapped to my fingers. I still played games, but I was spending more time creating games.
My programming interests branched out to other areas. I developed a graphical windowing system for the 8086. I developed a full blown Unix-like operating system for the Atari 1040 ST.
Then I got back into game development. I developed 3D games with software rasterizers, since there was no such thing as hardware acceleration in those days. Fixed-point math. Lots of look-up tables. Sweet.
College. Got my bachelors in Computer Science, and immediately upon graduation, I got a job with a major defense contractor. Now I had the ability to play with toys that I couldn't even afford to dream about before. I was able to apply a lot of my 3D programming knowledge to REAL 3D in the real world. It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of stress dealing with clueless government bureaucrats, and having to maintain a security clearance.
After several years of that, I got my dream job working for a major game development company. I quickly learned that my dream job wasn't so dreamy. I had no idea that moving from government work to game work would actually increase my stress level. FML. After about 18 months of pulling out my hair and completely destroying what social life I had, I got out of that and got a nice cushy job with a major retail software company. No more 800-hour work weeks. I could go out on the weekends and party again. I could take a 2-week vacation to Europe at any time of the year. Nice.
I was bored out of my mind. I was an automaton. A coder instead of a developer. No challenge whatsoever. I lost interest, started coming to work late, taking extended lunch breaks, sleeping at work. A real mess. Also the work was in Hollywood, FL, which was about a 35 minute drive from my house, except during the times that I had to go to work and come back, at which time it became a 90 minute drive. I had to get up at 6am to get there by 9. I hated mornings.
One day my friend talked me into going to this seminar about some work-at-home business. The business was ridiculous; one of those scams where you make money by getting other people to give you money to sign up for the same business. But the first thing the guy said changed my life. Simple really. He said:
When was the last time you slept until you were done sleeping?
Well... never.
It got my brain spinning, and 6 months later I incorporated my first business, building third-party tools for game development companies. I built anti-cheat systems for online games. I built level editors and asset management systems. I build sprite-sheet generators. Basically anything a game development company needed, I said I could do it. I often learned how to do it AFTER they signed the contract, but as I knew there was nothing I couldn't learn how to do quickly, it didn't bother me.
And I never got out of bed before 11 again, unless I had to catch an early flight, or board a cruise ship ;)
10/09/2011 (5:24 pm)
I was always really into gaming. In my youth I spent hours at the arcade. Then I got an Atari 2600, and spent hours on that in addition to the hours in the arcade. I got arcade games in my house. I also got an Atari 400 and then an Atari 800, and spent hours playing games on that. The ringy-dingy sounds of the cassette tape drive as I loaded up Pacific Coast Highway, was a near constant background noise in my house. I still hear it in my dreams sometimes.Later in life, for years I spent every free hour (and many not-so-free hours) playing the original Rainbow Six, Age of Empires, and Neverwinter Nights.
I was also always really into creating things. In the early years it was mostly mechanical/electrical things. I built little radios, devices for monitoring weather satellite data, go-carts, unicycles, pogo sticks, anything I could think of and could find materials for, I made.
Then I got a 300 baud modem and discovered BBSes. I played BBS games that were made with ASCII/ANSI art. I decided to start my own BBS. I got some BBS software that was written in BASIC. I quickly became frustrated with not being able to do things through the mostly worthless configuration interface. I asked another sysop how he did something, and he told me how to change some lines in the BASIC code to do it. So I did it. And that was my first programming experience.
3 months later, I had made my first game, an ANSI chess game that people could play against each other over a period of days or weeks. (At that time there were no multi-line BBSes, so only one person could be logged in to the site at a time.)
I became addicted. I spend most of the rest of my youth with a keyboard strapped to my fingers. I still played games, but I was spending more time creating games.
My programming interests branched out to other areas. I developed a graphical windowing system for the 8086. I developed a full blown Unix-like operating system for the Atari 1040 ST.
Then I got back into game development. I developed 3D games with software rasterizers, since there was no such thing as hardware acceleration in those days. Fixed-point math. Lots of look-up tables. Sweet.
College. Got my bachelors in Computer Science, and immediately upon graduation, I got a job with a major defense contractor. Now I had the ability to play with toys that I couldn't even afford to dream about before. I was able to apply a lot of my 3D programming knowledge to REAL 3D in the real world. It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of stress dealing with clueless government bureaucrats, and having to maintain a security clearance.
After several years of that, I got my dream job working for a major game development company. I quickly learned that my dream job wasn't so dreamy. I had no idea that moving from government work to game work would actually increase my stress level. FML. After about 18 months of pulling out my hair and completely destroying what social life I had, I got out of that and got a nice cushy job with a major retail software company. No more 800-hour work weeks. I could go out on the weekends and party again. I could take a 2-week vacation to Europe at any time of the year. Nice.
I was bored out of my mind. I was an automaton. A coder instead of a developer. No challenge whatsoever. I lost interest, started coming to work late, taking extended lunch breaks, sleeping at work. A real mess. Also the work was in Hollywood, FL, which was about a 35 minute drive from my house, except during the times that I had to go to work and come back, at which time it became a 90 minute drive. I had to get up at 6am to get there by 9. I hated mornings.
One day my friend talked me into going to this seminar about some work-at-home business. The business was ridiculous; one of those scams where you make money by getting other people to give you money to sign up for the same business. But the first thing the guy said changed my life. Simple really. He said:
When was the last time you slept until you were done sleeping?
Well... never.
It got my brain spinning, and 6 months later I incorporated my first business, building third-party tools for game development companies. I built anti-cheat systems for online games. I built level editors and asset management systems. I build sprite-sheet generators. Basically anything a game development company needed, I said I could do it. I often learned how to do it AFTER they signed the contract, but as I knew there was nothing I couldn't learn how to do quickly, it didn't bother me.
And I never got out of bed before 11 again, unless I had to catch an early flight, or board a cruise ship ;)
#17
I never lost the passion for making actual games, though. I've got a collection of about 60 games that I've created over the years, either by myself or with acquaintances. From that first ANSI chess game, to some 2D shooters, an RTS and a handful of FPS games. I have not sold any of them, I just made them for fun, even though I could probably sell many of them.
Recently I decided to start making games for release. This year I have 2 iPhone games pending approval for the App Store, and am going through final QA on my first completed Torque3D game, to be available soon. I've got a nice little team of artists and one other programmer, and have a handful of other games on the drawing board. The future looks bright.
The only game (that I didn't make) that I play any more for recreational purposes is Fruit Ninja on the iPhone. A nice mindless game to kill time when I'm waiting for my girlfriend to get ready to go out, or when I'm sitting in a doctor's office lobby. Other than that, it's not even close; I'd much rather spend my time making games than playing them.
10/09/2011 (5:26 pm)
(continued... small post limit and one-post-per-minute is annoying... just sayin')I never lost the passion for making actual games, though. I've got a collection of about 60 games that I've created over the years, either by myself or with acquaintances. From that first ANSI chess game, to some 2D shooters, an RTS and a handful of FPS games. I have not sold any of them, I just made them for fun, even though I could probably sell many of them.
Recently I decided to start making games for release. This year I have 2 iPhone games pending approval for the App Store, and am going through final QA on my first completed Torque3D game, to be available soon. I've got a nice little team of artists and one other programmer, and have a handful of other games on the drawing board. The future looks bright.
The only game (that I didn't make) that I play any more for recreational purposes is Fruit Ninja on the iPhone. A nice mindless game to kill time when I'm waiting for my girlfriend to get ready to go out, or when I'm sitting in a doctor's office lobby. Other than that, it's not even close; I'd much rather spend my time making games than playing them.
#18
Exactly 2 years ago I applied for a position at the Department of Education of the University of Illinois of Urbana-Champaign, where I live. The program dealt with doing computer games for elementary school children in Champaign County, namely to improve mathematical skills. The technology used was Torque 2D for the Mac.
I had absolutely no experience with Torque script as a programming language and the computer gaming world. The first weeks were very frustrating because most of the time all I got from my programs was a black screen with no clue why. Then I found this site and posted some questions. Surprisingly, someone always gave a prompt answer.
I found tools such as Torsion, that made programming and debugging much easier.
About 6 months ago, I had the idea of doing a game of my own for the iPhone. I also don't play computer games at all, but doing computer games is really fun for me. So, that's basically why I am here, because it's fun to develop games.
It was only about a month ago that I purchased my first iPhone (must say it is an amazing piece of hardware and software). My first game was released about a week ago, and I hope people will enjoy playing it as much as I have doing it.
Word Build in iTunes
10/09/2011 (8:14 pm)
Why I am here?Exactly 2 years ago I applied for a position at the Department of Education of the University of Illinois of Urbana-Champaign, where I live. The program dealt with doing computer games for elementary school children in Champaign County, namely to improve mathematical skills. The technology used was Torque 2D for the Mac.
I had absolutely no experience with Torque script as a programming language and the computer gaming world. The first weeks were very frustrating because most of the time all I got from my programs was a black screen with no clue why. Then I found this site and posted some questions. Surprisingly, someone always gave a prompt answer.
I found tools such as Torsion, that made programming and debugging much easier.
About 6 months ago, I had the idea of doing a game of my own for the iPhone. I also don't play computer games at all, but doing computer games is really fun for me. So, that's basically why I am here, because it's fun to develop games.
It was only about a month ago that I purchased my first iPhone (must say it is an amazing piece of hardware and software). My first game was released about a week ago, and I hope people will enjoy playing it as much as I have doing it.
Word Build in iTunes
#19
I never set out to be this way. I was a backup drummer in a band,strange position really, first time i ever heard of it. But i loved it. But when the band broke up i was left lingering in limbo. So that is when i ended up looking into my future and what was available. then i saw a course at my local college and that was it, programming. Specifically, game programing. But to cover my bases just to be safe i took a few other programming courses as well, such as database programming, and windows application development, and web development.
so that is where i am with games, and why i am here. I love it, could not imaging doing anything else.
10/09/2011 (8:43 pm)
why am I here? simple answer really, i love games and everything about them. I want to understand how games are made. Which is an ever changing scene. I play games, but like you Eric, spend more time making them or making them better than actually playing them. But that is where my enjoyment with games is.I never set out to be this way. I was a backup drummer in a band,strange position really, first time i ever heard of it. But i loved it. But when the band broke up i was left lingering in limbo. So that is when i ended up looking into my future and what was available. then i saw a course at my local college and that was it, programming. Specifically, game programing. But to cover my bases just to be safe i took a few other programming courses as well, such as database programming, and windows application development, and web development.
so that is where i am with games, and why i am here. I love it, could not imaging doing anything else.
#20
10/09/2011 (9:15 pm)
@Novack -I was thirty when I started with GarageGames three years ago. I think I'm forty now ;) 
Associate Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
Creative writing was one of my favorite classes in school. I also really enjoyed art. I took way more drafting classes than is probably healthy. I convinced my high school to add three programming classes to the curriculum back in '84-'86. I also convinced them to let me take that credit in lieu of foreign language. To me, creating a computer game is rolling up all of my favorite things from school and life and using them to entertain people. Remembering the coolest moments in the games that I've played inspires me to try to pass those kinds of experiences on to the next generation of gamers.
GarageGames gives me the opportunity to do all of these things. They also give me the chance to pass the means to provide awesome gaming moments on to other developers with great ideas and the gumption to see them come alive.