Checkers via Torque - 3d (not 2d)

I came up with the idea to program checkers in Torque as a decent learning project. Currently I'm reading the book "The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque" and I'm using the Torque 1.5 INDIE licence. At this point in time, I plan on reading through the book and messing around with Torque before I even start creating Checkers, because right now, I'm not really sure where to start.

I decided to post this idea here first for feedback, suggestions, and answers to questions that I'll have along the way.

What I'm thinking so far...
The board - 32 red and 32 black boxes positioned on some flat terrain. There might be a way to make the actual terrain act as the board, but I think if I ever need to get at a board position, the 64 boxes idea will make it easier on me.

The peices - fat cylinders red/black with no animations. Could be whatever, but to make "King"s look right, I'm going with normal checkers peices. :) Later on I might use people, especially if I upgrade to Chess. :)

The view - I'm thinking the standard floating camera that lets you fly around and view the world that way.

Multiplayer - Right now, hot-seat and just alternate between what peices you're allowed to move.

Big questions for later...
Any tutorials or similar projects that I could look at? Let me know. :)

Valid moves?

Once you're "Kinged" the "King" moves differently.

Select a peice or pick up a peice to move it?


I'm thinking TorqueScript will be used in conjunction with the board to figure out the game logic, but I have no idea how to let a player select a peice to move.

Like I said, I'm super-new to Torque so this might become painfully obvious in a few chapters, but I thought I'd post the idea here.

Thanks,
- Eck