Blog for Britton LaRoche at GarageGames.com

iPhone and the TGB

Britton LaRoche — 2008-08-08T16:25:58+00:00

I'm really curious to find out how close the TGB is to being ported to the iPhone.

Iphone SDK
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The iphone has its own sdk. Iphone Dev Center You need to sign up and register, once complete you can sell your game straight through the app store.

TGB
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It would be great to develop in the TGB and port the game to to the iPhone. Anyone know what the status of the TGB port to iphone is?

Torque iPhone
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I found this but Torque for the iPhone it has very little information. Is this a TGB add on? Can I develop in the TGB and then get the add on? Or do I need to purchase a "TGiPhoneBuilder" and use that interface?

Combat in the Age of Conan

Britton LaRoche — 2008-06-24T17:40:35+00:00

Age of Conan Blogs
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Exploring the Age of Conan
Combat in the Age of Conan

I'm continuing my blog on the Age of Conan "research" project. What makes this game better than World of Warcraft and City of Heroes (in my opinion) is not the cut sceens, the character graphics or the audio dialogs with the NPC. These things are a waste of time and slow me down. They are not fun. Try creating three different characters and running the same missions in Tortage and you will see what I mean. The cut sceens and NPC dialog get old ... fast.

What makes the game fun is simply two things:
1. The combat system
2. The PVP experience.

I think City of Heros would be a much better game than AOC, if NC Soft could learn these two easy lessons. Lets explore the first of the two pillars of Conan's strength. (I'll detail what makes the PVP system special in a future blog)

The Combat System : COMBOS
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Taking queues from games like Mortal Kombat and Dance Dance Revolution, Conan introduces a neat feature in their combat system: Combos.

Its not an exageration to think they borrowed the concept from Dance Dance Revolution. Lets take a look at the dance ability in AOC. Like all combos in AOC even the dance ability is controlled by the main bar.

Two Handed Main Bar

Press the dance ability and then one of the directional keys in the main bar (1-3) You will see the following appear in the center left of your screen.

Dance Combo

This image on your screen is telling you is what key to press next. You have about a second to press it. If you do it in the time allowed then the next key in the sequence gets hilighted. To make my barbarian start break dancing (litterally) I press the following key sequences as indicated in the picture above.

key 2
key 1

A new sequence will appear (by pressing another 1-3 key) shortly after I complete the first sequence. I press those keys properly and my barbarian is doing "the worm" head stands, flips and more.

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-- Combat
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Main Bar Butcher Combos
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The two handed combos given out as my Barbarian progressed are show in the main bar slots (4,5,6) seen below. I dragged and dropped these new combos into my main bar so they would be in this position. The combos add extra damage to all the two handed attacks and they have their sequences. The sequences do not change, so you can learn them easily with a little practice.

Two Handed Main Bar

I start with butcher III by pressing key 4. The image below appears center left on my screen telling me to press key 3 next

Butcher III Combo

I press key 3 then follow with butcher II by pressing key 5 after butcher III completes. The image below appears center left on my screen telling me to press key 3 next

Butcher II Combo

I press key 3 then follow with butcher IV by pressing key 6 after butcher II completes. The image below appears center left on my screen telling me to press key 1 next.

Butcher IV Combo

After I press key 1, key three is highlighted next.

So the whole Butcher III, Butcher II, Butcher IV sequence is this:

4,3 [Pause] 5,3 [Pause] 6,1,3

The damage dealt is fantastic and with feat training increasing the percentage the barbarian is wreaking havok on his foes. Below we see my barbarian Hadrain inflicting nearly 700 hp of damage with one of the 3 combos.

When you execute the combo correctly, the combo name is displayed in orange as is the damage it inflicted.

NOTE: The real magic of my barbarian is not in the main bar its in the feats I trained and placed in my alt bar. You can get the details on the true keys to PVP power here. Exploring the Age of Conan

Great Game Play = Simple Code Changes
------------------------------------------------------

I'm sure it was no great effort to code in the combo system. The great accomplishment was in all the artwork, the level design the music and things that an independent developer does not have access too. But thats not where the fun comes from. It comes from the simple combo code and the way the player interacts with it.

I'd bet you money that the same concept can easly be applied to the Torque Game Builder, and that a 2D RTS with the same concepts (that plays on the Iphone) would be just as fun.

Lets just say that NC Soft and Blizzard should learn a lesson from this. I know I did and I'm just an indie.

The Current (level 42) Main Bar and Combo
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I took snapshots for blog consistency of Hadrian in his 30's. Now he is level 42, and his main bar is more complex. Below we have the mainbar with Butcher I - Butcher V. The combos work well, but again they a second rate compared to the feat trained powers on the alt bar. See Exploring the Age of Conan for the feat trained explanation. The main bar can be interrupted by enemy attack. The alt bar is pure one sided attacks where my foe can do nothing but take the abuse.

The idea here (in the main bar) is that you can enhance your combos with feat powers and string them together for a series of combos that take down foes much quicker than the standard strikes. It would be nice to have a dynamic combo system where one combo leads to a choice between moves that fit nicely together (and thus can lead to a unique strings of combinations). AoC does not have this feature. But it does have this:

Two Handed Main (Butcher I-V) Bar: Level 42

4,3 [Pause] 5,3 [Pause] 6,3 [Pause] 7,1,3 [Pause] 8,2,3

Nothing lives long enough for me to complete the entire sequence, but thats what it would be. Sometimes the full sequence is used against more than one foe. The last foe usually gets the 7 and 8 combos (the butcher IV and V have the most damage) Perhaps making those first would be an improvement.

Note: I tried changing the order last night with Butcher V and Butcher IV in slots 4 and 5, and I was murdered. I use keys 4 and 5 all the time. There was just enough server lag to slow me down, and cause the butcher V and IV combos to fail occasionally. I had no idea how much I need the combos, until I lost them.

Why are they so important? It has to do with level advancement, the spell casters at 42+ are killing me. I used to clobber them with my eyes closed. Now, the spell casters heal so fast that I need the damage bonus to bring them down. Using the Butcher IV and V first for every attack slowed me down enough that with the the occasional server lag I died 9 out of 10 battles.

I switched key 4 to Butcher III, and key 5 to butcher II which have a single key combo, and I was back in business. I still use butcher IV and V they are just not my main attack.

Luctus [Avg Damage 80 pts]

The combos more than tripple my damage. As you see in the combat pic above, butcher II gives me 320+ damage on a similar weapon.

Aside from combos, I just got this 96% stamina tap to take care of the enemy attack abilities. I will try this next. Looking for a Mana tap.

Fatiguing Iron Great Sword [96% stamina tap]

Got it!

Draining Iron Great Sword [96% Mana tap]

Exploring Age Of Conan

Britton LaRoche — 2008-06-18T16:07:23+00:00

Age of Conan Blogs
-------------------------------------------
Exploring the Age of Conan
Combat in the Age of Conan

I've been playing Age of Conan for "research" purposes. Its a great idea to play games to get an idea of what is going on in the game industry, and its a lot of fun.

Maps
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Here is a great leveling flow chart of all the AOC maps
Old Tarantia
Resource Maps

Characters
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I've played the POM, HOX, Assassin, Ranger, DT, and Barbarian. So far my favorite is the barbarian, followed closely by the assassin. For me, nothing beats the adrenaline rush and human drama of Player Versus Player.

The ranger is a great people hunter class, it has medium damage and armor so the PVP battle is long and drawn out. The assassin is quick, the poisons do their work nicely and death soon follows. I've "tied" a number of battles, the assassin has no armor so he goes down quick... after I drop I often see my foe drop next to me from the continued affect of the poisons. But, my favorite is the Barbarian. The Barbarian has light armor and really awesome damage potential.

I like the two handed sword combos and I'm detailing a massive attack by the barbarian that can take down a player 10 to 15 levels higher. My character Hadrian is a level 33 Barbarian and I hunt level 39+ players, that like to gank lowbies.

I've used the feat tree to get me the "earth shatter," "stun," and "follow up" feats to provide an endless barrage of one sided attacks that leave my opponent stunned and beaten. His health is taken from 100% to about 20% after my opening attack.

Alt Bar
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Here is my Alt Attack with the magic. I start with Earth Shatter followed by, Stunning punch 2, Clobber 2, Follow up, and then No Escape. No escape can only be used once every 5 minutes, but thats about right for pvp encounter and battles. I have these on my alt bar (press alt key to use) because they all have long periods of time before they can be used again.

Alt + 1 Earth Shatter stuns all foes in the vicinity.
Alt + 2 Stunning punch II stuns the target for several seconds,
Alt + 3 clobber II knocks him back
Alt + 4 Follow up deals massive damage while he is down
Alt + 5 I plant my two handed sword in his chest with "no escape" where he is impaled helplessly as he takes massive damage for several seconds.

The other player can do absolutely nothing during this barrage because of all the stun effects.

Alt bar (for two handed sword) here

Using the alt power bar

You can press the alt key with your thumb (to bring up the alt power bar) and then click the attack options in the bar with the mouse. I don't recommend using the mouse, as the tool tips often pop up and get in the way. I've dragged the attack power out of the slot bar before during combat and dropped it by mistake... oops. Not a good thing to do in battle.

The best thing to do is use the keys with your left hand as shown above (My opening move Alt +1 is shown). Place your left thumb on the alt key and use your fingers to press the numbered keys. Each of these power / stun attacks takes a second to execute, so you can press each key with a bit of leisure.

After using this combo I go back to my main attacks. I have to box with my empty hands for awhile because "no escape" has planted my two handed sword in his chest (it takes about 15 seconds to get it back). The effect is a one sided can of "whoop ass" that Popeye himself would be proud of. At level 32 I nearly took down a level 52 bully with this massive combo.

Main Bar
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Now we go to the main bar of the two handed combos.... The power attacks are in the alt bar, the speed is in the Main bar.

These are my main combos and they replenish quick. When I get my two handed sword back I finish them off with butcher 1-3, Slam and Sweep combos.

Main bar (for two handed sword) here

Using the main power bar

They default key board layout is nice and very comfortable. The swift magic in your main bar is enhanced by how you hold your left hand on the key board. With a bit of practice you can litterally run circles around your opponent.

The "c" key is the trick. Place your left thumb on the "c" key and press it down. This makes you character straif right. You can direct the right straif with your mouse. Move the mouse so that you cirle left. Practice with a non player enemy, it works well on them too. Most players stand stationary and fight eachother toe to toe. By holding down the c key with your thumb your player is in constant motion and hard to target. But there is more, using your left fingers you can press the attack number keys at the same time and attack while you are in motion.

Once you are behind a human player he cannot target you, and you are free to beat him with out mercy, or fear of retribution. The amount of time it takes for him to rotate and target you is all you need to get in a couple of extra hits. Then straif again. Optionally you can hold the c key down continuosly and use the standard 1, 2 and 3 key attacks. While in straif mode some of your combos wont work, but the effect is well worth it. I learned it by having it use on me when I first started playing, I was amazed that a lower level opponent took me down with this strategy, and I began reading the key bindings under the options menu.

The straif attack with the c key is a great technique to use with the "spawn ganker." The spawn gankers are people like to attack you right after you respawn at a resurection point when your health and stamina are low. You need stamina for your power combos. Usually your only option is the standard 1,2 and 3 basic attacks. My opinion is the "spawn ganker" is not a very good player or he wouldn't need the easy kills. Running in circles around him really confuses this type of player. I've taken down higher level players who had full health, when I had next to no health with this technique. The other option is to press "h" and hide in stealth mode, so you can sneak away to heal.

Feats (the keys to true power)
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As you complete missions and rise in level you gain "feat points." You can assign these points to new powers in your "feat tree." The feat tree menu is brought up by clicking the feats tab in the menu in the center top of your hud.

Here is my feat tree. (No Escape is awesome) The focus is on shock and stun as you can see below
Sunning Punch and No escape on my alt are feats I trained. Once you train a feat it will show up in your combos tab or in your abilities tab (if it requires action to activate). You then drag and drop the feat into your main or alt bar.

I found that you cant really switch between two handed mode and dual blade single handed mode effectively. So I chose two handed mode for all my feat training, and it has worked out nicely.

Fishing for the Bully
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I've finished playing the Stygia Khemi's Khopshef province. No more quests there for me. But while I was there I found its a great place to hang out and find tons of PVP bully players. Just stand in front of a mission NPC and they will sneak up behind you. Most people are engaged in a conversation with the NPC and they can not fight.

I stand infornt of the NPC with my finger on ALT +1 ready to start my barrage attack. I dont interact with the NPC. I just wait (like live bait at level 33) for that level 42 player to attack.... (A bully never picks on someone his own size or level, he might lose)

Picking a Fight
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I consider higher level players fair game. Not everyone is a bully. I feel akward attacking a nice player for no reason. So I find excuses to start a fight. I run up behind another player while he or she is heading to a quest. Or I stand infront of them while they are talking to a NPC. Most of the time they feel a bit threatend by my presence and might atttack me. If they dont attack me I invite them to a group.

/invite (player name)
90% of the time they decline. I don't really want them to join, I'm just picking a fight. If they are standing still I use an emote to let them know I'm a little crazy and not happy. Its a great prelude to the physical barrage of attacks that follow.

/emote burning
The character moves about like a crazy man on fire and there is a loud audible scream that startles the unsuspecting player. Right after the emote I attack them. If I kill them I say "Thats for not joining my group" or "I don't handle rejection well."

/emote blowkiss
Is a nice farewell, to insure they will be back for more PVP action. The aim is to insure that they are really upset and angry. That makes it so much more fun when you beat them a second time. My goal is to have the other player drop everything and think of nothing more than getting revenge.

If they do join I'm ready for my next quest.

TGEA New Tutorials!

Britton LaRoche — 2008-05-28T16:12:18+00:00

I've started all over. I'm stopping all work on the TGE (1.5) and jumping feet first into the TGEA (1.7)

I'm blogging the development effort as a tutorial. Others have joined in too! Check out the new TGEA tutorials!

tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TorqueShaderEngine
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGEA/CreatingYourFirstFPS

Game development is all about the tutorial

Britton LaRoche — 2008-05-22T14:42:08+00:00

As far as game development is concerned, I'm starting over. I developed a very good FPS beta in 2003, and then learned you can't pitch games anymore and went back to work. Jeff Tunnel and Jay More said in order to be successful, you have to start small and do it your self. They were right.

5 years later I'm staring again, slowly with a very small scope. A lot has changed in 5 years with the TGEA / TSE. It is very different than the TGE 1.3 base I was working with. As I learn what tools are available and how things work, I'm keeping a living diary in the form of a tutorial on the TDN.

The idea is I'll flesh things out for TSE 1.7 and hopefully the tutorial will be updated by the community as the Torque Shader Engine evolves overtime.

Here is the link (not much at the moment)
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGEA/CreatingYourFirstFPS

I firmly believe that anyone can learn anything. A tutorial for the TSE that starts with the most basics of basics will help get the ball rolling.

Why the good guys always win

Britton LaRoche — 2008-05-10T20:58:21+00:00

Some one once said "the way of love and truth will always win." ((Gandhi) And I'd like to take a moment to reflect on this solid fact. I've been around in the business world and started my own company. I've been a consultant for 12 years now in the software industry. I'd like to share Britton's laws for ethical business practice and doing well in business.

I'd like to shed some light in this blog on the whole good vs evil thing and the way it plays out in the real world of business. I could go on for ever as to why its the right thing to do to be ethical and good in business, but I'm not going to tackle this from a moral point of view. I'm going to tackle it from a purely scientific point of view.

People who are doing really bad things are usually only focused on the money. I'd like to propose a simple truth about making money in the real business world. It follows the same laws that everything in the universe follow. Lets start with the first few laws of thermodynamics.

Thermodynamics
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1. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. The amount of energy lost in a steady state process cannot be greater than the amount of energy gained. The sum of net heat supplied to the system and the net work done by the system is equal to zero.

2. The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium. Left alone most systems go from an ordered state to a state of chaos.

3. As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum. When all the heat in a system is gone nothing changes.

---
Lets translate these laws to the business world. Translate heat into time and energy invested and the "work" of a system as the results, the output or "money" if you will.
---

Business
------------------------------
1. The sum of net heat supplied to the system and the net work done by the system is equal to zero. What you get out of your efforts is what you put into it. If you do not add value to your consumers you will not make money.

2. Left alone with no effort or input (no work on your part) your business will go from order to chaos. If your business gets bigger and you don't properly manage it, you will get some unwanted "fat" overhead. People on your team may fail to pull their weight, but wont fail to cash their paycheck. If you stop putting energy into your business system, it will begin to fall apart.

3. When no heat or energy is put in long enough the business will make absolute zero dollars.

Evil = Entropy / Chaos, Short Term Gain with out adding value.

I've seen lots of people in business to some really terrible things trying to cash out and make a quick buck.
I've seen companies cut costs and layoff people in times of record profit hoping to sell out to another larger company. This strategy always fails. Recently I see this strategy everywhere.

One of my clients ran a report from SAP and found they were losing 4 million a month in there business. They decided to save money by cutting costs and got rid of a bunch of employees. Employees = work. Reduce the heat in a system and what happens in the laws of thermodynamics? Well you are putting less heat in so less work gets done. I told them that this was a very bad idea with the above logic.

Guess what. They went with the SAP report. My client saved 8 million in two months, but they failed to meet the software deliverables. The penalties for not meeting the deliverables on time in the contracts with their customers was 50 million dollars. Net loss = 42 million.

Did they learn the lesson? Not from a moral point of view, but they did hire a lawyer to review all the contracts before they cut anymore employees.

Lets put this to the test. I can tell you that Garage Games is filled with good guys that add value. I can also tell you that they will win. Its the simple laws of good business in my opinion. If you add value, your work has value and its worth something. Over time people will discover this and pay money for the value put into the product. I see lots of value in garage games. Good business, hard work, ethics and morals equates to making money.

Catching up

Britton LaRoche — 2008-03-11T19:50:38+00:00

Wow, a lot has happened since I last checked. I'm looking into the instant action information.

Josh Williams Blog Post is the best place to read and absorb the ideas and history about the merger.

I have to admit I'm still a bit fearful. No one can top the Garage Games philosophy. I'd hate to think GG sold out too soon. I'm still looking into the details to make up my mind one way or another.

MSVC 2005 is Free!

Britton LaRoche — 2007-10-05T03:22:28+00:00

Compiling the TGE on windows is now free and easy! No more worries about setting up the build environment!

I plan on submitting a tutorial on building the TGE... but I can't commit to that at the moment. In the mean time I have provided the information on how to get your own free version of the MSVC 2005 compiler!

The download information is here: msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/aa975050.aspx
1. Download the C++ 2005 express edition
2. Download the SP1 Express service pack ( Download Visual C++ 2005 Express SP1 )

A good run down on the license and history is here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio_Express
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_C%2B%2B_Express

I'm all but dead, and I'm ready for round two.

Britton LaRoche — 2007-04-09T04:09:16+00:00

I'm not dead. Death is too easy. I've been going through a rough time the past 4 years. I'm looking back on the vast wasteland of destruction of my life. Its a mess. I've let people down. My server was hacked. I've lost data I can never find. I've lost money. I barely kept my company afloat. I haven't slept well in 4 years. I have more grey hair than I ever had. My teeth are bad, I have a gap that keeps growing. Right now that gap puts David Letterman and Arnold Swarzenagger to shame. I'm fat, I weigh the most I ever weighed in my life. I've aged 20 years in the past two years.

But thats nothing. I've lost the two people in my life that always believed in me, and told me to go after my dreams, my Grandmother and my Dad passed away in 2005. I've been kicked to the curb, in every way imaginable. My family, my finances and my dreams all in shambles. I've strained like a mad man just to hold everything together, put food on the table and keep the mortage payments going on my house. Luckily, I do have some technical skills that are in demand, otherwise I'd have been homeless for the past four years too.

But, ya know what? Its not over. Looking back I would not change a thing. Going for your dreams (other than the kids) is the only thing that makes life worth while.

Things may be turning for me, my youngest kid who is 20 months old is getting over a scary siezure disorder. We dialed 911 so many times that all the paramedics in Plano knew my son by name. Apparently he is outgrowing the siezures. I'm not much of a religous man, but the past year I've prayed more than I have in my entire life. The fact that my son is a live and well, means that if anything else goes well its simply icing on the cake. I'm not worried about the money the bills or anything like that any more. Financial problems are nothing compared to the scary ride I went through in 2006.

I look at my two Son's and I get all the strength I need, the stronger the two of them get the more determined I become to make it all work. My kids are all I need. Bringing back Amped Labs and Game Beavers is just a dream, its a nice to have in comparison to the health of my kids.

Now that my younger kid is healthy again. Knock on wood! I'm getting more time to spend on the video game dreams. I'm getting ready for round two. All I can say is life is not worth living with out my kids. With my kids, nothing can stop me now.

Look out.... good things are on the way once again. This time, I'm taking Jay Moore and Jeff Tunnell's advice. Think small, build slowly. Its the only way to go.

Thursday Jan 27 7:09

Britton LaRoche — 2005-01-27T07:09:10+00:00

Put some beaver in your game!

Well we have been around for awhile and guess what. Due to a lack of resources we have dropped the ball and gotten in the way of game dev because we could not manage the assets or membership correctly. We are too slow and to constrained by a lack of time.We are working o