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Plan for Ray Depew

by Ray Depew · 08/13/2004 (2:00 pm) · 6 comments

The previous .plan said: "I'm part of a small group in Fort Collins, Colorado. We're starting up a company to do three things."

(The three things were:
1. TGE training and certification
2. Custom programming for clients
3. Non-game applications for TGE)

Horsetooth Technologies, Inc., is closer to officially existing. About the only things left to do are to sign and mail the articles of incorporation, shake hands and go out to dinner to celebrate. Rog(er) Parmenter and I will be representing the company at IGC.

Oh, and we're still training ourselves. Boy, do we have a lot to learn!

Outside of Horsetooth Tech, I'm working with some other GG members on a skiing game. Horsetooth Tech will be borrowing a prototype of the game from us to show off at IGC. I don't expect it to do much besides let you ski a few beginner runs, but it will show off our modeling capability. You should be able to recognize some of the American Flyer runs from Copper Mountain resort.

Copper is a great resort to model, because the ski slope will take up one entire side of the box. Facing downhill, you will see the back side of Breckenridge on your right, I-70 and the northern Continental Divide in front of you, and Vail Pass on your left. It's a pretty resort.

#1
08/13/2004 (2:28 pm)
how very exciting for you. id love it if you kept us (or as least me) updated in how this venture goes.

also, im really happy to see c&c made your list. :)
#2
08/13/2004 (8:14 pm)
good luck with it
#3
08/13/2004 (9:26 pm)
What experience does your group have with TGE?
#4
08/14/2004 (7:50 am)
Sounds great.
#5
08/23/2004 (12:36 pm)
Experience with TGE? Not a lot yet. We just organized in June, and we've been learning and training each other on TGE ever since. (Can't very well pass ourselves off as experts if we don't know what we're talking about.) We're the reason Ken Finney could take his family out for steak dinner in July, since we all bought The Book at the same time. Several (if not all) of us have bought the TDE dev license, the TSE early bird pack and the Lighting pack.

We're going through the formalities of becoming a legal entity right now. Two of us (Rog Parmenter and I) will be attending IGC'04, and we hope to have some kind of show-and-tell put together by then.

We've been in the SW industry long enough to know that we can't become experts on TGE in four months (especially when compared to some of you), but we gotta start somewhere. We're doing our "Hello world" apps right now: simple, non-marketable FPS games written just to learn the product and sharpen our skills.

Several in the group are Linux heads, and so we're trying to duplicate what's available for the WinXP platform in Linux. No Mac heads yet. Give us time.

As for gaming experience, I used to play Pong, Asteroids and Space Invaders at the pizza parlors in college and have been addicted to the things ever since. I inflicted Doom and Doom2 on my oldest son. He learned the basics of computer programming by designing Doom WADs (yes, it's true), went on to get a BS in Computer Engineering and then laid it aside to go fly fast jets for the Air Force instead -- smart man. I got my daughters hooked on Myst, and then played all the C&C games with my youngest son. This Chrismas season, when all the kids come home, we're going to have 2 towers and 6 laptops in the house, playing Capture until my longsuffering wife finally chases us to bed.

Thanks to all for your encouragement. Looking forward to seeing you at IGC'04.
#6
08/23/2004 (12:42 pm)
Ray,

Good to hear back from you =) Sounds like you are on the right track. Going to IGC is probably the smartest move you've made yet. You won't find a higher concentration of TGE experts anywhere and being able to communicate with them face-to-face is invaluable (if they are sober enough =P). The sessions are also packed full of great info! I look forward to seeing you at IGC!