Blog for Davey Jackson at GarageGames.com

Torque in Education Uber Resource Kit

Davey Jackson — 2008-07-02T22:41:46+00:00

Hi folks,

This post is focused on summer study materials for teachers. When I joined GarageGames in 2005, the resources for games instructors were scant. The IGDA Education SIG was loosely organized and tough to find, there were only a couple of books about game programming and development on the market. For GaraegeGames' Torque software, we only had one book on Torque which was published. Fast forward to 2008. We now have a fantastic IGDA Curriculum Knowledge Base*, dozens of books from AK Peters, Cengage and other publishers including SIX books specifically on Torque (plus several more in production!) In this post I want to highlight some particularly useful articles, books, and web videos to assist you with forming your fall courses. As always you should feel free to email me with any questions or follow up requests to the material presented here.

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*The IGDA Curriculum Knowledge Base

Probably one of the greatest successes of the re-invigorated IGDA Education SIG. The Curriculum Knowledge Base has sample sylabi, degree and course outlines complete with recommended course materials and author citations. This is a free resource and borrowing from the uploaded material is highly encouraged. The IGDA Education SIG is also a fantastic place to find other schools and instructors who are teaching gaming, simulation, and game art. A must read resource!

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Book Recommendations

General:

Paid to Play: An Insider's Guide to Video Game Careers. By Bryan Stratton, David Hodgson and Alice Rush. Published by Prima Games

This is my number one book recommendation. It is a short, entertaining read which covers almost every career in the games industry. It also addresses qualifications for those careers and interview with insiders. If your students want to know what it really takes to break into the games industry and what will be expected of them once they get there, Paid to Play is a must read.

Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. By Tracy Fullerton.

At the recent Game Education Summit in Dallas Texas, this was the number one recommended design book by attending teachers. Quoting from Ian Bogost's review: "Game design is something of a black art. The trick to doing it well is retaining the black magic but training oneself to control it. There are a lot of books on game design out there, but "Game Design Workshop" is among the very few that develops a wizard rather than a drone."

Torque Specific:

Torque for Teens. By Mike Duggan

Don't let the title fool you into thinking this book is unsuitable for college courses. Torque is a sophisticated game engine and Torque for Teens is hands down the best guide for new users. Longtime GarageGames community member Kevin McLaughlin says:

"Teens nothing. This is a good book for most folks using Torque. Just bought it, starting to read it over, and my initial take is that anyone except the most experienced users will be able to get something out of this book. This plus the Maurina book [Game Programmer's Guide to Torque by Ed Maurina] are the essential handbooks at this point."

Prof. Willis Denis adds:

"I am a professor that teaches Torque and I have just about every book including this one. It is great and even has an chapter on Constructor... It points out the most important things very clearly. This book is great...I hope you continue to write more because I learned a thing or too from it myself..."

Multiplayer Gaming and Engine Coding for the Torque Game Engine. By Ed Maurina.

A follow up title to The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque (GPGT), author Ed Maurina utilizes his expert knowledge of the engine to write the most technically in depth book on Torque to date. There are few people in the world who know Torque as well as Ed, and we feel very fortunate to have his knowledge documented here. A basic understanding of TGE prior to starting this book is assumed. Pat Wilson, Lead Console Programmer for Marble Bast Ultra, reviewed the book succinctly "This book Sooo needed to be written. WOW!"

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Developer Interview Video Series

This set of Google Videos were recorded in the summer of 2007 at a Torque Boot Camp training session. They are short interviews with our internal developers, producers, founders and artist as well as representatives from our partners at Pronto Games. Through these videos you will gain insight into the "indie" game market and the vision which drives our technology and company forward.

Randy Dersham
Executive Producer
Google Video

Joe Maruschak
Head of GarageGames Studios, Game Artist
Google Video

Matt Fairfax
Lead Tool Designer, Torque Constructor
Google Video

Chris Calef
GarageGames R&D
Google Video

Ben Garney
Torque Technologies Director
Google Video

Mark Frohnmayer
Founder GarageGames
Google Video

Adam Larson
Lead Designer, Torque X
Google Video

Ryan Loewen
Programmer Pronto Games, Torque Wii
Google Video

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Plastic Games' Gem-A-Day

Plastic Games is an independent game development company that thrives from contract game development primarily focused on Torque. They have been building games with Torque for several years now and have a policy of giving back to the community of Torque developers. They contribute "gems" of code or art, often along with some useful conventions, that solve particular problems in a way that makes their solutions highly reusable. The name "gems" comes from the famous Graphics Gems and Game Programming Gems series of books.

Over the years, Plastic Games have made quite a few useful gems for Torque. It saves many developers in the community time and effort. This month, Plastic Games have outdone themselves and presented "Gem A Day!" to continue for 30 days. These are free resources and solutions compiled by one of GarageGames longest standing partner studios.

Enjoy!

Where's Davey?

Davey Jackson — 2008-05-07T07:38:45+00:00

Where's Davey?

Hello again. It's been a great couple of months here at the Tech'N Tools group (TNT). We've seen the release of two great TGB and TGEA updates as well as the launch of the new 3d Torque X 2.0. Spirits are high here at the Garage and with our associates and remote developers abroad as well. 2008 is getting off to a uber start and we have plenty more lined up with Torque X Builder 3d, and TGB 1.7.3 releases just around the corner.

With a great session of updates and development completed, it's time for me to hit the road again. Here are a few upcoming events I'll be presenting at where I would love to meet you:

North West Youth Career Festival

May 8th at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland OR.
www.nwyouthcareersexpo.org/index.htm

IEEE Technology Summit

May 13th in Las Vegas NV
www2.computer.org/portal/web/techsummit2008/egandid

Game Education Summit
June 10-11 at SMU in Dallas TX
www.gameeducationsummit.com/index.php

I would like to put in particularly strong encouragement for teachers to attend the Game Education Summit. This is a first year conference aimed specifically at teachers interested in starting or improving Game Art, Game Design and/or Game Programming courses. In just a few short months the organizers have pulled together some of the most active contributors to game development education. The speakers are a healthy mix of experienced game instructors, and respected industry leaders including Warren Spector, Dr. Peter Raad and Don Marinelli. You are unlikely to find another group of presenters who are as dedicated to the advancement of game education as this group away from GDC (and at GDC there is too much going on for presenters and attendees to retain a whole lot). Additionally, the Game Education Summit is almost a THIRD of the price of the lowest session ticket prices at GDC. I'll be there, Mike Blenden will be there, Stephen Jacobs, Peter Brinson, Tom Carbone and several other GarageGames comunity members and educators will all be there as well. It's gonna to be awesome! Early registration closes on May 15th, so visit www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=155562 and register fast!

2007 review, Boot Camps at The Guildhall at SMU, GDCSE

Davey Jackson — 2008-03-12T06:47:26+00:00

Hi Everyone:

It's been a little while since I checked in, and since I've just completed a bunch of long format projects, I wanted to take some time to let you know what I've been up to.

As many of you know I spend a great deal of time working with schools interested in using Torque to teach game programming, game art and game design. Traveling to meet educators face to face at conferences, and making campus visits form a big part of my networking efforts. So I end up spending a lot of time on the road. In 2007 alone I attended GDCSE, GDC, TechEd, GDX, Sandbox, SIGGRAPH, GameFest, IGC, Austin GDC, FuturePlay and MIGS, which kept me regularly on the road about once every 5 weeks. Each conference provided an opportunity to talk with teachers, meet students, see really cool projects and spread the vision of indie games and collaborative development. I also got to visit a number of schools in 2007 including the University of Central Florida, Savanna College of Art and Design, Full Sail, Oregon State University, and locally the University of Oregon. It's been a big time investment, however, the results have been favorable. By the end of 2007 over 200 Universities had adopted Torque for classroom instructional use!

With so many new schools adopting Torque, we've had a big interest in more books and Boot Camp trainings. In addition to helping promote "Torque for Teens" and "Creating Game Art for 3D Engine" I've also been working with Ed Maurina III and John Kanalakis on two new titles, which will come out later this year. Ed's book will delve even further in to our core TGE engine and discuss source code programming and networked multiplayer programming with Torque. John's book is focused being an end-to-end guide of our newest game engine, Torque X.

I've also been working on coordinating Boot Camps for Torque X. Our first one was at The Guildhall at SMU in January. The camp was well attended, attracting teachers from all over North America including Missouri, New York and Canada. We choose to present on Torque X, because it is both our newest engine and has recently undergone significant updates. For the Boot Camp at SMU we flew in community super star John Kanalakis and GarageGames' master trainer Stephen Zepp for 3-days of hands on training with the Torque X 3D Beta. Stephen lead the class through a high level overview of the Torque X engine as well as practical hands-on training with Torque X 2D. John K took the lead on day 2 picking up where Stephen left off and explaining how component based game design works for 3D games. Day 3 was mostly a hands on session with previews of the full Torque X 2.0 engine. We received great feedback from the teachers who attended the session:

"I truly enjoyed both John and Steve's presentations and work. A very good balance with theory and design followed up by some very well done programming follow-along examples. I actually got excited when I saw how the entire architecture was laid out with Torque X as I knew exactly how I could leverage a tremendous amount of my students previous learning in architecture and design, providing that much needed reinforcement."-Fred Paine, Morrisville State College

"What I learned will make a tremendous difference in our development of game design courses."-Richard Marcoux, Morrisville State College

"Outstanding value! Thanks for adding the student option also. It meant a lot to [my students] to be able attend."-Jeff Huff, Missouri State University

Torque X 2.0 is just days away from launch and will feature full 3D support and integration with XNA 2.0.

This winter I was invited to speak at several Texas colleges and universities including Texas A& M, Rice University, University of Houston and Houston Community College, thanks to the coordination efforts of Bradley Jensen of Microsoft's Academic Developer Evangelist group. Bradley was a fantastic host, and even though he was fighting an ear infection, provided me with transportation to speaking events and information on successfully navigating from school to school. Bradley was also influential in helping us secure an invitation to this year's Game Development in Computer Science Education (GDCSE) conference. (https://www.msadgd08.net/Main.aspx) from which I just returned. (See pictures on Jean-Luc David's flickr stream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jldavid/sets/72157604040774210/)

GDCSE is a fantastic event drawing together some of the world's top computer science, robotics and game educators. This was my second year attending (Review my blog from last year where I took way more pictures: http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/54612/12456) and this year's conference brought more content and a broader range of educators together to talk about the future of computer science. For this year's conference not only was I invited to speak, but we also were able to offer a 2-day mini-boot camp on the cruise. GG brought John Kanalakis and Josef Rogovsky along to handle the technical presentation while I took on discussing indie games and the future of digital distribution. Each of our session was well attended (even though John's session on Torque X 2.0 3D was scheduled from 10pm-12am on the last day) and our presenters did a fantastic job. (John, Josef you're awesome!)

Wow! That's a Monster .plan post and I didn't even get to talk about GDC! I think I'm gonna call it quits there. But stay tuned for another huge year from Torque in Education!

--davey

December Education Updates

Davey Jackson — 2007-12-05T21:16:36+00:00

Hi Everyone!

This post is primarily for teachers, but please feel free to comment.

As part of our continued commitment to provide the best computer games educational resources, GarageGames is please to announce the launch of two new books, the Torque X 3D Beta and open enrollment for our next Torque Boot Camp.

Books

"Torque for Teens" by Mike Duggan
(http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1549)

Torque for Teens' is aimed at young developers interested in 3D game development. From the Publisher's description: " Written in simple language, each chapter begins with a basic overview of the topic being covered, followed by step-by-step instructions to help you conquer each new skill presented, and ending with a summary to reinforce what you've learned. Throughout the course of the book you will put your new skills into action with a hands-on project that ends with the creation of a first-person shooter game. Before you begin creating the game, you'll get a quick technical introduction to the Torque Game Engine, followed by a lesson on how to create a basic game outline."

"Creating Game Art for 3D Engines" by Brad Strong
(http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Game-Art-Engines-Development/dp/1584505486/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196759843&sr=8-1)

"Creating Game Art for 3D Engines" is long awaited book on navigating the Torque Art Pipeline. From the Publisher's description: "Creating Game Art for 3D Engines is the ideal guide for the serious student or aspiring animator who wants to learn how to create and successfully export game art, from simple shapes to full-blown characters. Using Autodesk 3ds Max to generate models and animations, and Torque as the 3D game engine, the book provides step-by-step instructions on how to model, unwrap, texture, rig, export, and script all of the essential art assets required for a game. Unlike other books that cover only art creation, Creating Game Art for 3D Engines teaches you how to create art specifically with the game engine in mind. All of the principles and techniques are universal and can be applied to any 3D software or game engine."

Torque X 3D Beta

After 18 months of hard work, GarageGames is pleased to announce the open Beta of Torque X 3D. Read the full announcement here: (http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=69728)

Or download the Beta directly: ( http://www.garagegames.com/products/124/)

Torque X for Teachers Boot Camp at The Guildhall at SMU
Jan. 17th -19th

Just in time for the winter term, GarageGames will be holding our first Boot Camp of 2008 on location in Plano TX at The Guildhall at SMU. This boot camp session is specially designed for teacher interested in using Microsoft XNA and Torque X in the classroom. GarageGames' Executive Trainer, Stephen Zepp will co-facilitate this session with Envy Games' John Kanalakis. John is the author of the upcoming book "The Complete Guild to Torque X." Early release bound galleys of "The Complete Guide to Torque X" will be on hand and available for pre-order to conference attendees. Student pricing is available for students attending with a teacher.

More info on this boot camp can be found here: (http://www.garagegames.com/products/training/)

For more information on The Guildhall at SMU visit: (http://guildhall.smu.edu/)

Happy Holidays : )

--davey

GDC Buddy Pics

Davey Jackson — 2007-03-13T20:21:03+00:00

Hi Everyone-

Back from GDC and boy are we P-U-M-P-E-D UP! Lots and lots of excitement and exciting stuff. First off Great Games Experiment is taking off. People were swarming us to tell us how cool the site is and how developers are loving it.

Next, on Monday, about 4 in the morning, Microsoft released an announcement that Torque X and TGBX would be bundled with all XNA Creators Club Memberships. This is obviously HUGE for GG as it means that Torque will be automatically introduced to the newest game development community, XNA.

We also had a big boost of interest from the announcement that Hot Head Games will be using Torque for the upcoming Penny Arcade Game.

In the GG Booth we were showing: Torque Game Builder with pre-scripted object behaviors assigned via GUI in the TGB Editors, Torque X with TGBX and Tom B's killer Platformer Starter Kit, TGEA integrated with SpeedTreeRT and a very pretty demo of Buccaneer.

While at GDC I had the chance to meet with some of our newest academic partners including DeVry University, The Guildhall at SMU and Rochester Institute of Technollogy.

I had fantastic meetings with new GG business partners Pronto Games and Fuel Industries, and also got to hang out with Torque Community *Superstars* Tom Spilman, Andy Schatzand John Kabus. Andy did a fantastic job as the host of the 2007 IGF awards, even when he was completely upstaged by a marriage proposal in an acceptance speech. (Not to Andy).

Anyways I'll keep this .plan short and let you enjoy the pictures below of GDC sessions, friends and "Networking."

GG Booth Babes
TGB Break Out Challenge
Josh Williams vs. Flash, Java, Shockwave, Playground.
Me and Tetris creator Alexi Pajitnov
Tom B, Me and Dr. Wiley~W00T!
Minna Mingling with Tom Andy and John.
Tom's After Hours Lounge
Dot. Prof. Lin Hua of Tsinghua University in Beijing
Who WAS that bald guy?!
GGers Gone Wild!

Back in Port Trip Report

Davey Jackson — 2007-03-02T22:31:02+00:00

Hi Everyone-

First off GreatGamesExperiment.com launched today and is now open to public viewing. If you haven't signed up yet stop reading this post and go make an account. GGE is the biggest project we've launched since starting the company.

Ok, now that you've got a GGE account keep reading:

So, I'm back from a very successful conference at Microsoft's Academic days. See my last .plan. As requested I've put lots of pictures from the cruise in this post.

We spent the first night at Disney World (My first time), where I had a chance to meet Microsoft's Academic Evangelist team. It was a great introduction, Philip DesAutles, the MS Evangelist team leader, approached me to 'Thank me for the round of drinks.' I hadn't bought a round of drinks, but it was a great introduction to the MS guys who do what I do for GG. They were really excited about Torque X and TBGX and I promised them a great talk and demo at my presentation. After networking with the MS guys, my lady and I headed to Downtown Disney for some walking and gawking. I've got a great picture on my phone of me under 12' Lego T-Rex.

The first full day of the conference open very well for GG, as Chris Satchell, GM of MS Game Developer group, included several references and slides of GG and TGBX in his opening presentation. I was also pleased at the number of educators who were already using Torque in the classroom who attended the conference. After listening to some fantastic presentations on XNA and Second Life, I headed out for a quick trip down a water slide before being herded onto a bus.

The cruise ship was huge, 2500 passengers, 900 staff, 5 restaurants, 6 bars, 3 pools, 2 hot tubs, a basketball court, and field hockey court, 2 nightclubs and 2 theaters. Disney has this evil little trick where you put your credit card on file at the beginning of the cruise, and then they force you to make all onboard purchases with your room key, so you have little idea what you're really spending on drinks, photos and gifts. The food was extraordinary, and I was able to see why people usually gain 10lbs on cruises, especially with the all you can eat desert bar. It was a Disney Cruise, so the ship was filled with families and kids, but the ship was partitioned well to keep the adult only areas private.

After two outstanding meals the conference started up again aboard the ship. I went to a presentation by Colleen McCreary, head of EA's Global relations. The talk was mostly an overview and recruitment pitch for EA, talking about desired skills for new hires. In addition to C/C++, Vector Math, and operating system experience, I was surprised to see 'Experience with Torque or Renderware' on Colleen slides as well. This was amazing, it was only day one, and already two major players in games, Microsoft and EA, had plugged GG and or Torque to the 150 teachers in attendance! I was stoked.

Day 2 we arrived the Nassau the capital of the Bahamas. After a terrific breakfast I caught presentations on Direct X 10, and another XNA talk by MS. Dave Mitchell, MS Director of the Game Developer Group, did and over view of XNA, and academic resources for teachers interested in teaching games. He also gave a shout out for Torque X and plugged my presentation scheduled for that evening, noting that 'Torque X adds Drag and Drop game building to XNA.' During the QA I had a chance to introduce myself, talk about our educator evaluation program, and promo my evening session 'Where I'll be showing a video of game built in 2 minutes using TGBX.' (Slight exaggeration, as there is no win condition, or enemies in the demo, but hey). After the morning sessions and some lunch my sweetie and I headed to the beach to catch some rays in Nassau.

Friday night, Pirate Night.
Half the ship was wearing headbands and armed with rubber daggers. I found a great pair of Mouse ears with and earring and an eye patch. Eugene is home of "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" so I was well armed with 'Yarrs' 'Ahoys' and 'Booty' references.

I was really nervous going into my presentation. I first heard about this conference 2 years ago, and knew it was precisely where GG needed to be: in front of the 150 leading CS instructors teaching with games in the world. When I got the invitation in late December I scrambled to get someone with more tech knowledge to go with me. I had this deep seeded fear that in the middle of my presentation some Computer Science Phd, would stand up and say "You don't have any idea what your talking about do you?' The plan was to bring Josh Williams as my human tech shield in case I got into any trouble describing why "Deserilized XML in Torque X" was cool. Unfortunately, 11th hour GDC prep kept Josh from being able to make the conference. I was on my own. Knowing I was weak on the tech portion of my talk, I structured my presentation to start strong and end strong. Having watched last year's conference I knew that most industry presenters were good and talking about how CS was applied at their company, and pitching jobs, but there were few companies, besides MS, who were actually building strong bridges between industry and academia (Second Life being a notable exception). With this in mind I formed my presentation around three themes: The case for Games in CS education, Overview of Torque X Tech, and GG's educational resources. For two weeks before the trip I interviewed, Mark F, John Q, and Adam L to buff up on my tech talk. Alex S also made a super sweet 2-minute-game build demo video in TGBX, which I used as my centerpiece. The TX docs also served as a great resource for engine overview info. Indeed during the tech section of my presentation I was reading the overview verbatim.

The presentation went great! I had a lot of friends already in the audience, and the demo's and academic resources I showed brought a lot of "Wows." After the presentation, I was completely mobbed by teachers and industry reps wanting to exchange cards and get more info. In addition to the 150 teachers that were on the cruise MS, is making a DVD of the presentations that will be distributed to schools around the world, increasing the reach of GG's academic message.

After getting the hard stuff out of the way I was ready to enjoy the Bahamas. We spent the next day dock at Disney's privately owned "Castaway Cay" island for snorkeling, bike rides, Bar-B-Que and of course sun. I spent the rest of the trip relaxed while "Networking" over margaritas. It was great.

Back in Orlando I spent an extra day to meet with students at University of Central Florida's FIEA lab, Full Sail and the Orlando TIG group see pictures here. Eric Preisz showed me his lovely house, treated me to his Fajitia skliz and even hooked me up with a 4 am ride the airport. Props! Overall it was a very successful trip, and I've barely had time to 'recover' before heading to GDC this week.

NOTE to educators: If you're going to GDC, I'll be at booth 920 in the West Hall. Please send me an e-so we can set up a meeting.

Thank you once again to my kick ass team at GG who made sure I was well armed for the presentation; John Nordlinger and Kent Foster at MS Research for the invitation; John Jamison and Farhad Jahvid for moral support and of course Marta Cuboni for, everything : ).

All Aboard! GG's Mr. Ed Goes out to Sea

Davey Jackson — 2007-02-21T09:44:27+00:00

Hi Folks later tonight (4 hours actually) I'll be flying out to Orlando for the first leg of Microsoft's "Academic Days" cruise. (https://www.msadgd07.net/main.aspx) Friday night after spending a day in Nassau, I'll be presenting on using gaming to teach computer science, Torque X, and GarageGames Educational resources.

After two days in the Bahamas, I'll be returning to Orlando for presentations at :

Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy
University of Central Florida
1 pm

Then it is off to Full Sail for a 5pm presentation

Followed by a meeting with the Orlando TIG for an informal (Beer) Q&A session

All of the session are open to students and Torque Developer's in the Orlando area are welcome to join the TIG session as well.

I get three days of down time before heading off to the Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco. If you are going to be at GDC and would like to meet with me, please send me an e-mail so we can set up a time.

If you haven't had a chance yet, please take a moment to read Michael Blenden's blog (http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/78963/12373) on our new "Curriculum Resources" Page (http://www.garagegames.com/solutions/education/curriculum/)

Special Thanks this entry to Reni Abraham and Jennie Choo for giving me great feedback on my presentation. And big props to Mike B., Alex S, Joe M. and John Q., for helping me with all my last minute prep.

New Education Landing Page

Davey Jackson — 2007-01-11T00:33:30+00:00

I wanted to spread the word about our new Uber Cool Educational Landing Page www.garagegames.com/solutions/education/
The education landing page has been completely re-worked from last year to included a student games showcase (currently showing TGB games from USC), educator profile, links to our education forums, books listing and an list of schools teaching Torque internationally (Did you know we have a school in Turkey teaching Torque?). Additionally, we are currently building out a curriculum archive so teachers can learn and share lesson plans and modules.
If your school is not listed, or you would like to post a link to our site on your program's web page please contact Michaelb@Garagegames.com.

Special thanks to Michael Blenden for doing the page design/layout, Nate Feyma for the art, and Eric Fritz for the polish and bling.

Also, teachers please take a moment to check out the Great Games Experiment. GGE is a superior resource for your students to get user feed back a reviews on their projects. If you need additional beta invites please contact me directly.

Marble Blast Ultra: the addiction

Davey Jackson — 2006-09-12T08:47:22+00:00

The crux of this .plan is to give a shout out to all the high skill MBU players I've been kicking it with on XBLA. Overall the quality of top tier players is raising significantly, and I really digg it.

I have a confession to make a about Marble Blast... I don't play single player. I don't. Racing against the clock just isn't my game. It's the same reason my Grand Turismo skilz dropped off after I left my set of gamer roomates: I thrive on P v P. Sure getting the achievements, going up the leader boards and finding the easter eggs is kewl; but hitting a super speed+mega-marble combo on Horizon for the 5 pointer is what I'm about!

I love the game. And I love that it makes me laugh all the time.

I just got out of a high competition room with some of the best players I've met. Not only do they have rock solid games and high passion, they're also cool to chat with and don't talk constant S*!t And I really appreciate that... especially because I'm a S*!t Talker. Sure, Tim Aste might have the corner on being the uber-griefer, and Brian Ramage has the team frag medal of honor, but my verbal abuse skilz are on right up there with with Ben Garney's. (Though I will say that a dis from Ben hurts just a little bit more because Ben is not someone who you would usually expect to have any kind of "Game" --in the street sense--). Ahh yes good times in the Blast Club. So word up to all my homies I've been roll'n with in the 10pm-1am slot.

Some notes on MBU multi-player strategy:

Gem to Power Up Ratio

I think Pat Wislon was the first person who got me thinking of "Gem to Power Up Ratio" (I'll abbreviate this GtPUR). The GtPUR is the measure of how many gems a power up is worth. On each level of MBU, their is a different GtPUR rating for each power up on the level. I don't want to make this too complicated ,so, I'll give a couple of examples and let you fill in the rest. Here are some examples of the best and worst power ups on thier respective levels and thier GtPUR rating:
King of the Marble: Super Speed GtPUR = 2 and Gyro Chopeter = -3
Zenith: Gyro Chopter GtPUR = 3 and Super Speed = 1
Skate Battle Royale: Super Jump GtPUR= 2 and Mega Marble= -1

In some ways the GtPUR measures how many gems you should expect, on average, when you use the power up. It can also be used to figure out how many points you'd give up on in order to get a particular power up. The latter point here is particularly important because you have to know when to cut your losses and set yourself up for the next spawn.

Defensive, Offensive, Control and Counter Blasting

In single player Marble Blast Ultra you learn all about how to use your blast to improve your time and save yourself from falling off the edge. Because of this you have natural training in using blast to control YOUR Marble, (Control Blasting). However, in multplayer you have to learn when to use blast to push OTHER people's Marbles out of the way (Offensive Blasting.) Additionally, you need to learn when to protect gems your about to collect (Defensive Blasting) and how to offset someone else's Offensive Blast with a counter blast (Counter Blasting).

It's All About the Route

Fundamentally, Multi-player MBU is about getting the most gems in a single pass. Racing across the level to collect 1 gem isn't going to cut it. You need to constantly create and memorize routes that will let you get 3, 5, 7 or more points in one pass. My personal best is an 11 point shot on Horizon (though this shot could be stretched to 14 with the rebound and a super jump grap : ))

Use your respawn for position

There is no penalty for falling off the edge in Multi-player, so use your respawn for position and control. Many new users don't realize they can push the "A" button to respawn faster. Also, BIG HINT, your respawn point will be based on the last thing you hit before you went out of bounds. This is really useful on levels with big cross-court shots like Gems in the Road or Sprawl. Also, letting yourself fall off on Zenith to regain control on he respawn is usually a LOT easier than fighting the ice.

For the pro's I usually roll with none of the above is Big news, or super enlightening. However, I did want to mention these strategy points to highlight some elements I really appreciate in Top Tier MBU players.

So, it's been a pleasure roll'n with ya, and I look forward to seeing you in an MBU game on XboX Live!

Curriculum Archive, XNA in Education, White Papers Needed

Davey Jackson — 2006-08-25T23:11:22+00:00

As I get ready to head out on my annual trek to the Burning Man Festival (www.burningman.com) , I wanted to take some time to fill you in on some the exciting developments on the educational side of GarageGames. Over the course of the last year over 70 new schools have added Torque to their programs. These schools come from a full spectrum of game and computer science related backgrounds: High Schools, Community Colleges, Technical Colleges, Art and Design Schools, Game Schools, 4-year, 6-year and Post Graduate work. Also in the past year we have released 2 great books: "The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque" by Ed Maurina, and "Advanced 3d Game Programming All In One" by Ken Finney. I do, however, need some help from our educators in compiling a central curriculum archive. If you are teacher using Torque, please e-mail me a copy of your course outline, syllabus, curriculum and/ or any course materials you use during your class. If you could also tell me about other courses you would like to teach with Torque, and list other books or resources you have found helpful for teaching with. My goal is to make these available in single place, either on our site, or on TDN, that all Torque educators can access.

Other Exciting Stuff: XNA, Microsoft Cruise and SuperQuest.

As you may have read online GarageGames recently announced a partnership with Microsoft to bring Torque to MS's new managed code framework, XNA. Here is what I know about Microsoft's plans for XNA, and how your school can get involved:

On August 30, "XNA Game Studio Express" will be available for free in beta form to anyone interested in developing on XNA. Schools interested in teaching game development on XNA will then be able to start working with XNA Game Studio Express on the PC. Later this year Microsoft will launch it's "Creator's Club," at which point anyone subscribed to the club (independents, schools, students etc.) will be able to test and play their XNA games on the Xbox 360. GarageGames will launch Torque X concurrently with the Creator's Club.

The schools that were listed for teaching game development on XNA at Gamefest are (+/-1) :

USC
University of Western Ontario
Digi Pen
University of Waterloo
University of Hull
SMU Guildhall
Georgia Tech
University of North Texas
University of Karlsburg
Rochester institute of Technology
New Hampshire Technical Institute

Note: I know there 11 schools listed here. This list is a compilation of what the Microsoft Director of XNA told me, what I was able to copy off the keynote screen, and what individual instructors told me.

To my knowledge these schools will have the same XNA access as that available to your school and the general public, starting August 30.

I am not currently aware of any curriculum resources for XNA. However, Microsoft has traditionally made documentation and academic resources a priority for its technologies. GarageGames is looking for volunteers to help us develop course materials and curriculum for our C++ and managed code engines. If you are interested in getting involved in our educational initiatives, or adopting Torque at your school please contact me directly.

In February Microsoft will be hosting its second annual 'Academic Days on Game Development' conference aboard one of Disney's cruise ships. Last year was the first year for this conference which featured a quality list of industry representatives and game educators including: Cory Ondrejika from Second Life; Jon Schwartz from Kids Programming Language; Dave Luehmann from MS Game Studio; Mike Zyda from USC's GamePipe Lab; Ian Parberry from UNT; and R. Michael Young from North Carolina State University. ( A DVD of the presentations along with a copy MS's "Gaming Resource Kit" can be obtained though Microsoft Research or your MSDN rep.) This year Microsoft wants to increase the participation by academics and is currently seeking white paper submissions from educators using Torque. If you have a paper, or an idea for a paper, and would like to go on a cruise, please send me a write-up and I will submit it on your behalf.

Finally, I had the please pleasure of recently attending the Software Association of Oregon's (www.sao.org/About_SAO/) SuperQuest Teacher Training Institute (www.sao.org/sao_foundation/superquest.php). This event featured high energy k-12 computer science educators from across the state of Oregon. This year's focus was on using gaming to enhance computer science instruction. In addition to instruction on game design software it was also the first chance for Oregon teachers to play with the new LEGO NTX robotics kit ( a much welcomed upgrade from the legendary RXC robotics program) I had great time presenting on "Indie" games and Torque. Plus, I got 40+ teachers to Rock Out on Guitar Hero!

I welcome forum discussion and e-mails on any of the items listed here. Please keep in mind I will be out of the office from Monday the 28th until Tuesday the 5th. However, I will get back in touch with you particularly if it regarding curriculum or white paper submission.