A lot has happened
by Matthew Langley · 02/06/2006 (3:15 pm) · 16 comments
Well its been quite a while since I've posted a plan and a lot of things have happened in the meantime.
As some of you know I graduated about 3 months ago and have since been interning up here at GarageGames. First of all if anyone is considering apply for an internship and debating whether or not it would be worth it, I highly recommend you do, if only for the added experience. In just a couple months you can learn a great deal as well as being up here with some awesome and incredible people (which I'm sure I don't have to tell you). Also GG lets interns work on some very cool projects as well as taking your input as serious as anyone elses. Pretty much what you'd expect from GG.
The best news I have is that I've been hired :) Its definately an honor to be working which the amazing talent and skill at GG, every day is a productive and fun day.
While being up here I have done some of the same that I did before coming up here, basically work on Torque 2D docs. Its an honor working on the T2D dev team and I enjoy working on T2D as well as documenting it so that worked for me. I've also gotten to work on some other great things. The one I'm most excited about is the T2D Checkers Demo and T2D Checkers Tutorial, I coded the game and typed the tutorial using the amazing art from Nauris Krauze and Craig Fortune.
The Checkers Demo is fully multiplayer utilizing commandToServer and commandToClient (which is fully functional in the latest versions of Torque 2D)... the tutorial goes over creating the basic framework of it... Now for the demo game I didn't want to just make a clone of the same checkers game, so I added a few little special effects in there to show off Torque 2D's particle system, camera system, and overall scripting system. For on the game is fully scripted, it took me roughly 2-3 days to script it and maybe a day or two more of polishing, thats probably even an overestimation of time since I worked on things within that time span as well.
Now I'm going to show off some of the aspects of it, its hard not to be excited about T2D.
Here is the checker board and starting pieces.
When you move the mouse the eye's of the checker pieces follow the mouse, if they look and see an enemy they change to a mad face, if they see a friend they change to a happy face, if they see nothing they change to a nuetral face, here are two pics of both the team's at mad faces, lol quite entertaining to watch actually.... maybe a bit freaky too.
If you jump a piece the camera zooms in to the jumped piece, it turns red, its eyes go crazy, steam comes out in two directions and it explodes... like this.
If you win a game you get a nice fireworks show... like this.
If you lose, you get notified that the winner is seeing a nice fireworks show :)
Well to see more you'll have to purchase T2D and check out the checkers demo include, all of the source scripts are included with T2D and I created a 44 page tutorial on setting up the checkers networking/game framework.
Well back to work on T2D docs and stuffs, hope you all enjoy the checkers demo and tutorial... The latest T2D release features an awesome Level Builder by Justin and Adam that just plain rocks.
As some of you know I graduated about 3 months ago and have since been interning up here at GarageGames. First of all if anyone is considering apply for an internship and debating whether or not it would be worth it, I highly recommend you do, if only for the added experience. In just a couple months you can learn a great deal as well as being up here with some awesome and incredible people (which I'm sure I don't have to tell you). Also GG lets interns work on some very cool projects as well as taking your input as serious as anyone elses. Pretty much what you'd expect from GG.
The best news I have is that I've been hired :) Its definately an honor to be working which the amazing talent and skill at GG, every day is a productive and fun day.
While being up here I have done some of the same that I did before coming up here, basically work on Torque 2D docs. Its an honor working on the T2D dev team and I enjoy working on T2D as well as documenting it so that worked for me. I've also gotten to work on some other great things. The one I'm most excited about is the T2D Checkers Demo and T2D Checkers Tutorial, I coded the game and typed the tutorial using the amazing art from Nauris Krauze and Craig Fortune.
The Checkers Demo is fully multiplayer utilizing commandToServer and commandToClient (which is fully functional in the latest versions of Torque 2D)... the tutorial goes over creating the basic framework of it... Now for the demo game I didn't want to just make a clone of the same checkers game, so I added a few little special effects in there to show off Torque 2D's particle system, camera system, and overall scripting system. For on the game is fully scripted, it took me roughly 2-3 days to script it and maybe a day or two more of polishing, thats probably even an overestimation of time since I worked on things within that time span as well.
Now I'm going to show off some of the aspects of it, its hard not to be excited about T2D.
Here is the checker board and starting pieces.
When you move the mouse the eye's of the checker pieces follow the mouse, if they look and see an enemy they change to a mad face, if they see a friend they change to a happy face, if they see nothing they change to a nuetral face, here are two pics of both the team's at mad faces, lol quite entertaining to watch actually.... maybe a bit freaky too.
If you jump a piece the camera zooms in to the jumped piece, it turns red, its eyes go crazy, steam comes out in two directions and it explodes... like this.
If you win a game you get a nice fireworks show... like this.
If you lose, you get notified that the winner is seeing a nice fireworks show :)
Well to see more you'll have to purchase T2D and check out the checkers demo include, all of the source scripts are included with T2D and I created a 44 page tutorial on setting up the checkers networking/game framework.
Well back to work on T2D docs and stuffs, hope you all enjoy the checkers demo and tutorial... The latest T2D release features an awesome Level Builder by Justin and Adam that just plain rocks.
About the author
Was a GG Associate and then joined GG in 2005. Lead tool dev for T2D and T3D. In 2011 joined mobile company ngmoco/DeNA and spent about 4 years working game and server tech. 2014 joined startup Merigo Games developing server technology.
#2
I played through the checkers demo the other day, loved the moving eyes touch. Although I never noticed the faces changing, guess I need to pay more attention. So, who's going to merge T2D with TGE, add in a few tables objects to the fps.demo and bring up checkers for the first two orks to reach the tables :)
Keep up banging out these tutorials, it won't be long before people have too many tutorials to read :)
02/06/2006 (3:51 pm)
Congratulations on your new Job.I played through the checkers demo the other day, loved the moving eyes touch. Although I never noticed the faces changing, guess I need to pay more attention. So, who's going to merge T2D with TGE, add in a few tables objects to the fps.demo and bring up checkers for the first two orks to reach the tables :)
Keep up banging out these tutorials, it won't be long before people have too many tutorials to read :)
#3
awesome work..it's little touches like that which give a game its soul.
Congrats!
02/06/2006 (5:17 pm)
angry checker pieces? When you say you were interning at GG, didn't you mean 'interned'....hehehehawesome work..it's little touches like that which give a game its soul.
Congrats!
#4
02/06/2006 (5:26 pm)
Looking great Matt, and congradulations on getting hired! Definetly a great bunch to be working with, and you've definetly proven your skills. Keep up the good work, hunny ;)
#5
02/06/2006 (7:04 pm)
Grats on your job. Looking forward to seeing more cool things now. Thanks for your hard work.
#6
02/06/2006 (8:00 pm)
Just a note, Justin Kovac was an intern up at GarageGames and I am in no way affiliated with him in any sort of relationship lol... hes hillarious though.
#7
02/06/2006 (9:25 pm)
Congrats Matt!
#8
02/07/2006 (1:05 am)
Wooooo, congratulations!
#9
02/07/2006 (3:20 am)
Nice!
#11
-Ajari-
02/07/2006 (8:30 am)
I was over my mom's house last night while I was scanning this .plan. She was talking to me about something when the noticed the pic of your checkerboard. She stoped mid sentence to express how beautiful she thought the board was. lol She asked how much it was and I told her it wasn't real. My mom is the kind of woman who isn't easily impressed by many things. Anyway, just thought I'd share that little story. I also think that it looks very nice. Keep up the great work.-Ajari-
#12
02/07/2006 (1:15 pm)
Heh, I had even forgotten how Checkers art assets looked :)
#13
02/09/2006 (5:23 am)
Is there any way to follow the latest T2D documentation updates? The TDN Wiki seems very inaccurate (eg. all of it is related to Alpha1 - Alpha4), and since Matt is working on new documentation I'd like to know when it's available......
#14
02/16/2006 (7:37 pm)
Congrats Matt!
#15
02/22/2006 (3:26 pm)
Congrats dude, it is really cool to see that you made it finally, I know this has been what you have wanted for a long time!!
#16
Edit: And then, a couple days later, I downloaded a new version, which has the checkers tutorial in it. Really nice tutorial! Thank you for the effort. I'm still going through it now.
05/31/2006 (10:02 pm)
Hello, I just purchased the T2D, after using the commercial TGE at work for a year or so. I downloaded Beta4_TorqueGameBuilder_1_1.zip, but I didn't see the checkers demo in it, or in the older version that is still available for download. Has it been pulled out of the package?Edit: And then, a couple days later, I downloaded a new version, which has the checkers tutorial in it. Really nice tutorial! Thank you for the effort. I'm still going through it now.
Torque 3D Owner Jacopo De Luca
Default Studio Name
You really deserved it. Your contribution to this amazing community is great.
BTW, I just wanted to send a big "Thank You" to all the good folks at GG.
You made me love the art of programming again. :-)
Bye,
Jacopo