21-6 Works 24/7 to Create Great Games

written by Brad Cook

Justin Mette, founder of 21-6 Productions, Inc., has been in software development for nearly two decades. He cut his teeth creating text games on the TRS-80 and later remade Pac-Man and Berzerk on the Commodore 64; like many of his colleagues, he's been playing games since the early days of the Atari 2600.

So it wasn't a difficult decision when the company he was working for in 2000 gave him the chance to take a voluntary severance package and turn his game development hobby into a full-time gig. His brother Ryan soon joined him, along with four other team members, their total number suggesting the fledgling company's name: "Six guys at the start of the 21st century," explains Mette.

The other four eventually moved on to other things, but the brothers Mette kept 21-6 Productions going with a new crew. As they set out to build their own 3D game engine, however, Mette recalls that the team began "feeling the horrendous pressure of the monumental task."

A 'Mind Blowing' Revelation

Then the 21-6 team learned about GarageGames and Torque at the 2001 Game Developers Conference. As Mette remembers it: "Finding out that GarageGames was going to give Torque away for $100 was absolutely mind-blowing."

He continues: "Needless to say, we jumped on board and were some of the first developers to buy the engine when it came out later that year. We have been using Torque Game Builder, Torque Shader Engine, and Torque Game Engine exclusively since then for all of our projects, including contract work."

In addition to Cyclone, Orbz, and TubeTwist, 21-6 used Torque to create a simulation that would detect whether volcanic dykes could penetrate an underground nuclear waste storage facility. While Mette can't say too much about the job-his team was contracted by the U.S government-he explains that the client provided the logic for generating the data used by Torque to visually represent it for analysis.

21-6 also built a demo game for Global Haptics, which , in turn, used it to show off its new input device, known as the Orb. Mette and his team hooked the Orb's custom API into Torque and developed a sample game that involves guiding a flying saucer through an obstacle course.

Great Tools at Great Prices

"The Torque product family has competitive features that compare with all the other major engines on the market, which are much higher priced," Mette explains. "It excels in the areas of networking and multiplayer, multi-platform support, the art pipeline, and the 50,000-member-plus supporting community."

While the 21-6 team used Torque Game Engine for most of its PC games, they're now moving over to Torque Shader Engine for new titles. "We've started delving into the challenges of creating high-definition art and supporting next-generation console opportunities like the Xbox 360 Live Arcade platform," Mette says.

New games currently in the pipeline include TubeTwist: Quantum Flux Edition and Shot Bots. With the popularity of many of its games, especially Orbz, firmly established, 21-6 Productions looks to a future where Mette says "the Torque family of products will continue to become more widely adopted in the mainstream industry."

He adds: "Colleges are now teaching game development courses with Torque. There will be even more educational opportunities building up around Torque as well. At the same time, we'll see some great advancements in the technology-for example, better physics and AI systems, not to mention further support for additional consoles and other gaming platforms."

Mette concludes: "All this leads to better tools for game developers at an affordable price. If that doesn't spark innovation in games, I don't know what will."