Blog for Mark Frohnmayer at GarageGames.com

An inconvenient game?

Mark Frohnmayer — 2007-06-13T16:52:46+00:00

Looks like Microsoft teamed up with Games For Change to create a game design contest that steps beyond just good mechanics -- check it out. Brought to mind a conversation I had with Andy Schatz (of Pocketwatch fame) at GDC and the environmentally aware messages he's putting into his games.

How cool would it be to see a Torque X global warming game on XBLA? Hmm...

Sometimes you can't do everything.

Mark Frohnmayer — 2006-08-22T01:34:48+00:00

Each year GarageGames hosts IndieGamesCon - a unique event where indie developers can network, share and reflect on our creations and envision a new world of game development - where a start-up team can take a prototype game and then see it on a next generation console the next year. However this incredibly fun gathering of independent developers comes with a price for GarageGames. Each year it takes us offline for a big chunk of time, and even though it takes a big chunk of time, each year we do it again - to build contacts and secure business relationships - but above all to engage face-to-face with the community that's helped build us from four dreamers into a thriving company. But recently, as IGC has approached it has become painfully ever more clear that we can't both deliver a quality event that we want this October and fulfill on the products that we have promised for this year: Torque Game Builder, Torque X, Torque Shader Engine on the near horizon, Constructor at Beta #9, and even an update to the Torque Game Engine about to go out the door.

Reading up on the GG blogs and forum posts might give you an idea of just how hard it has been for us to even consider pausing IGC. In my last blog I talked about our plan for IGC that was aimed to both make a for a more interesting event, as well as decrease the amount of time necessary to put it on. Even still as we looked at the large to-do list for IGC we realized we simply have too much on our plate to properly deliver on expectations for the event. Given our schedule we've made the agonizing decision to put IndieGamesCon on hold for this year. For the few who have already purchased IGC tickets, we will of course refund them. We will be sending individual emails to each of you.

Now is a time of amazing opportunity for independent developers - from the opening of next gen consoles to the explosive growth of the casual games market. There has never been a more opportune time to be an independent developer and in my opinion never a more exciting time to be in the business of making games. In the balance we had to choose between putting on an event that we dearly love and delivering on the tools that will enable our community to make real the dream of a true independent games movement.

We understand that many of you will be disappointed with this decision. Believe me when I say that this disappointment is echoed by everyone here on the GarageGames team - noone loves IGC more than we do. But when we had to weigh this disappointment against the benefit that the whole GG community will see from the work we are doing, it was a decision we had to make.

- Mark

State of the Garage

Mark Frohnmayer — 2006-08-04T22:07:57+00:00

It seems that we are entering a pivotal stage here at GarageGames, with the departure of a key member of the team, the release of Torque Game Builder, the imminent release of a few other long-awaited products, and several exciting announcements on the near horizon. I figured this presented an ideal opportunity to post some thoughts on where we've been, where we are now, and where we're heading. That, and I had to post something before IGC to keep my "one blog post per year" streak going.

Jay Moore
What can I say about Professor Jay Moore that hasn't already been said? It should come as no surprise to anyone that has met Jay that his presence at the Garage will be sorely missed. Jay was our very first "employee," and provided a much needed face and energy to this thing that Jeff, Rick, Tim and I were trying to build. Over the years he has played an integral part in defining the heart and soul of GarageGames, and as he leaves he will take a little bit of that heart and soul with him. I have no doubt that Jay's next venture will be an exciting opportunity, and everyone at GarageGames wishes him nothing but the best.

What's New with Torque?
We released Torque Game Builder! Ok, I know I'm a bit behind the times, but what do you expect from a guy who only posts once per year? If you haven't tried it out, check out the free trial. I hope you all agree that TGB has been our most polished release product to date. It is this standard of quality that we are now pursuing across our whole product line.

Speaking of our whole product line, we have cool stuff happening in all areas of development. A point release update to TGB will be released very soon, version 1.5 of TGE will also be released very soon, the Torque Shader Engine is nearing final release, and Constructor is getting very close as well. In addition, we will be making some very cool announcements in the very near future. Keep your eyes on the news section of the site!

On the game side, we're putting the finishing touches on an update for Marble Blast Ultra, including bug fixes and new multiplayer maps, and we're about to go into beta testing on our first fully internally produced TGB game.

IndieGamesCon
We've come to a realization. We realized that IGC was not heading in the direction we wanted it to. We don't want IGC to be a mini-GDC. We want IGC to be of much more value to independent game developers. We want IGC to be a place where Indies to make valuable contacts, learn useful information, and have fun doing it. To that end, we are making some adjustments to IGC this year. Round-table group discussions will take the place of speaking sessions, and we will be putting up a wiki on the IGC site so that anyone can sign up for any discussions they find interesting, or can even start their own. We already have several parties interested in speaking, so several of these discussion groups are already planned. In addition, there will be the usual show-off center and Player's Choice awards, and plenty of time for networking with PC and console downloadable game publishers. We are cutting some of the extravagance as far as food and drink are concerned, and knocking $100 off the registration price to pass those savings on to you. Anyone who has already purchased a ticket will be refunded the difference in price. We realize that the registration cost is just a small fraction of the cost to travel to Eugene for IGC, but we want to provide savings to our community whenever possible. I hope to see many of you out here in October!

I think that's about long enough. In conclusion, I would just like to thank all of you for sharing this wild ride with us, and hang on, because there are some exciting twists and turns just around the corner!

Monday Oct 17 21:49

Mark Frohnmayer — 2005-10-17T21:49:18+00:00

IGC 2005 - A one week retrospective

To all who attended IGC 2005 I want to say thanks - I had a great time talking games, playing games, seeing games, and connecting with a bunch of you out there who are doing such cool things. I also want to thank all the people here at GG who put on out an awesome show, and to the Marble Blast Ultra team for getting a great build together on Thursday. IGC this year was very exciting - the Indie games movement we're all a part of appears to be gaining quite a bit of momentum, and the market is ripe with opportunities for indie developers.

A few personal highlights from the show:

Talking game design with Logan, Adrian, Justin and Brett
Talking game design with Joe and all the people who came to our session
Whoopin' up on the Marble Blast Ultra tourney winners (sorry guys!)
Witnessing Adam and Tim's brilliant strategy in Attika
Justin D's "I love you guys" moment at the mic
The wind-down night at Steelhead

In other news, if you haven't had a chance to read Jeff's blog, give it a read. Over the next year we're going to be taking a more active role in helping promising game developers get their games tightened down and finished, so any interested developers should feel free to ping Jeff to get involved. We have a lot of cool stuff on tap over the next year - from the launch of a console that supports indies to games, to some really exciting tech stuff, and much more. Stay tuned...

Friday Jul 29 20:08

Mark Frohnmayer — 2005-07-29T20:08:11+00:00

Just wanted to give a quick update now that I'm a little more settled into my new role as Cat Herder in Chief. Exciting things are happening! We're making great progress on the two games we're working on internally, TGE is rapidly approaching 1.4, TSE and T2D are getting close to being out of Early Adopter, Constructor's getting close to beta, TDN is moving forward, and we're brewing up some really cool stuff we're not ever ready to talk about yet.

Between now and IndieGamesCon 2005 so many projects we've been jamming on for a long time will come to fruition. If you haven't signed up for the conference yet and want to go, get your tickets soon! In addition to all the great sessions, cool people, beer and games, we'll be laying out our roadmap for the next year or so, and it's all gonna be good.

More updates soon, so stay tuned...

Wednesday May 25 0:10

Mark Frohnmayer — 2005-05-25T00:10:34+00:00

So the other day I walked into Jeff's office and he said, "Hey, how about you take the helm for a bit while I ride my motorcycle across the country?"

For some reason I'm still not quite clear on, I heard myself say, "Sure! Sounds like fun!" Of course when it became clear exactly what had been on Jeff's plate that is now on mine it was too late to claim temporary insanity and could we please just go back to the way things were before.

So here I am now in a somewhat different role in this whole project we've been working on for the last six years. Jeff's done an awesome job in herding this company forward to where we are now, and I'm definitely looking forward to helping take it to the next level. We have an awesomely talented crew, great core technology, some really exciting projects and an ever growing and vibrant community.

Sounds like fun to me :)

Sunday Oct 21 16:34

Mark Frohnmayer — 2001-10-21T16:34:43+00:00

Well, I'm back in Europe... but this time only for a week and a half. I'll be giving a talk at the University of Abertay Dundee in Scotland on Tuesday about network programming in the Torque Engine. Then it's on to London on Friday, and back to the US the Tuesday after. If any GG'ers in the Edinburgh or London areas want to get together for a beer while I'm over here, drop me a line :)

If anyone is interested in attending the talk, check out http://www.iccave.com/Services/Masterclasses/index.htm

Friday May 11 16:13

Mark Frohnmayer — 2001-05-11T16:13:26+00:00

Ah, my first GarageGames .plan update...

Ah, my first GarageGames .plan update...

I'm on vacation! After six years of working at Dynamix with some incredibly talented and cool people, I need a break - so I'm off to bum around Europe for the next three months or so. If you need to get in contact with me, I'll be checking my GG email periodically - markf@garagegames.com (at least I will when Rick sets up the mail forwarding - hint, hint...)

Upon my return I plan on doing some R&D with Tim and Rick on some next gen networking and game simulation engine technology, but until then I'm going to try to spend as little time in front of a computer as I
can :)