How create my own app ?

#21 .

#22 Yeah, I understand where your coming from Thc.

It's just a pity, because I feel that what you want to achieve (what you said above) is pretty easy to do by modifying the Demo, you just need a few hours to play around. In fact, I don't think you'd have to touch much in the way of script, mostly just using the editors.

For what you're talking about, I STRONGLY ADVISE you not to strip the demo app away, just use the editor to get rid of all the extra models (buildings, kork, path markers), find the code that loads the crossbow onto the player and remove it, change the shape model to a cube (just change the mesh name in the datablock). Also, use the gui editor to get rid of extra buttons. The only thing even a little tricky would be the camera stuff, and there is a resource in the GG archives, would do what you want.

The unfortunate reality is that making games does take some time. Sorry man. Theres no real way around that :-(

#23 .

#24 You could always learn like I did... Trace through the script and figure out what everything does... If you don't know what sometihng does then mess with it and try and see if you can change an effect, that usually tells you what is going on... Of course you need to know how to code a little bit... Everything starts from starter.fps/main.cs .... Trace through everything from there. I traced through the scripts from tutorial.base... They are simpler and you know what the result is supposed to be.

#25 .

#26 Thank you Ben for your reply to be comment. Most illuminating :-)

Don't get me wrong I think that torque is a great starting point for this knid of software. It's just an awfull shame that there doesn't actually seem to be any way for getting to that starting point itself.

You either have the demo app with, for example, an unwanted console that lists virually every single thing that the scripts tell torque to do. Or you have a virtually useless app with all the functionallity stripped out.

My point was that it is very frustrating for those of us who have bought a licence and the book and are programmers still to be left with poor documentation which is nigh on impossible to download to read offline or even (I know this may sound archiac) print off. As well as poorly documented code that has surplus features in the executable that could be removed safely if only the starting point wasn't obsured from us. To put it simply: TORQUE IS FANTASTIC, BUT WE OFTEN CANT SEE THE WOOD FOR THE TREES, and just becused something in complex it doesn't have to be made complicated.

If the only way to learn this app is to play around with every file inturn until your blind stumblings reveal the holy grail that is understanding then perhaps one of your mighty gurus might like to impart this wisdom upon us mere mortals so that we don't all have to keep re-inventing the same wheel.

Finally, it doesn't matter how it's dressed up a full screen logo on startup - otherwise known as a splash screen and a hyper-link in the about box. does unequivecally tie the indie user to the product stream in sych a way as all indie products look as though they are co-produced by garage games. They are not, what they are is driven by a gaming engine that is at least in part code derived from that supplied by garage games. No more, No less. Therefore I suggest that if anyone is using this codebase for anything other than a hobby that they sould save up and buy a commercial licence which allows you to drop all mention of these origins thereby increasing both your games acceptance with the general public and its commercial viability. If you want to make money with your game DON'T LOOK LIKE AN INDIE EVEN IF YOU ARE. you just end up looking cheap. I'm sorry to put like that nut it is just a fact of life.

#27 I don't really understand why having a TGE logo (NOT a GG logo - read the EULA) on your product is a bad thing. It's either a) meaningless to people (since TGE is only really meaningful to game developers), or b) good, as they'll probably have heard of our engine technology.

Is it cheap-looking to have an Unreal logo as part of your game's intro? What about displaying a RenderWare logo? Miles Sound System, Bink, or any of the other RAD Game Tools? What about having a notice that your game is distributed on XBox, PS2, and GameCube? That it contains technology licensed from Frauenhoffer? Or that it uses the Quake 3 or Doom 3 engine?

Hey, if it bugs you that much, go for it and get the commercial license... But if you dislike Torque so much you don't want to mention you used it, why are you building your project on it? 0.o

#28 Not to nitpick the logo thing, but RenderWare, Miles, Bink, etc don't require a *full screen* though? I've always seen them below the game logo as small icons.

#29

Quote:If you want to make money with your game DON'T LOOK LIKE AN INDIE EVEN IF YOU ARE. you just end up looking cheap

That quote reminds me of a guy I work with that blows serious money on designer clothes, and doesn't realize that he's a loser with the girls. Not calling you a loser, but the point is that if you think that you can cover up what you are, either in making a game or anything else, you're wrong.

If the game is good, it will rock. Look at Think Tanks, which is enjoying great success. Does it look cheap because of the startup logo? Does Lore? Come on. I fire up Battle for Middle Earth and have to hit Esc through 3 screens to get to the menu (and two of the screens won't let me). It doesn't look any cheaper that they have a Hyperthreading logo on it while I use AMD.

The issue you reveal with the above comment is that you want to be seen as a big-shot, and you believe that if you tell people you're using an indie license, they will think you're using hand-me-downs or something.

This might sound rough, but why don't everyone just worry about making their uber-l33t game before they worry about whether people will wonder why they didn't use the Unreal engine in making it. It sounds like people are worried about what their friends might say. This worrying over what image it conveys before you even have something done is just stupid. And what do you have to even base this on? I talk to gamers all the time and they only have the foggiest clue of technical issues. F*** 'em if they think an engine's cheap, they'll still shell out and play if it's good. Stop worrying about problems that don't exist. There's no Gucci Engine out there, and branding means absolute crap on our end of the business.

#30 I bought the gucci engine once. It stank. Too much fancy gold lining =p

Anyhow, random comment:

engine + 1 day + newbie = nothing pretty much.

There's been notes that garagegames is working on this hard, but either way, for now, just accept that it isn't something to be churning stuff out in right out of the box. Take some time to learn it. I told everyone on my small team to pad the expected time they were going to be taking by a factor of ten on any task. Usually, it's about right since they have to take extra time to learn stuff with it. But this is fine since the stuff that we're avoiding having to build because we have the engine handling it for us would take far longer than the entire intended project length. Win a little, lose a little, as long as the game gets made and comes off well, it's all good.

#31 Perhaps people feel that putting the logo in their product robs them of the prestige of having created everything themselves and therefore makes them look (at least in their minds) like amateurs.

If you consider all the man-hours that have been put into creating, testing and refining the torque engine, I find it a bit churlish to complain about having to show a logo for something of which 80% - 90% was created for you (at an extremely low price).

By all means buy the commercial license then, waste your profits on an ego trip ;p

Is GarageGames such a terrible partner to be seen with in public? I for one welcome the name recognition and will strive to build that brand along with my own in the true spirit of this community.

I suggest starting from the full version and working back, removing or replacing features that are not needed.
For most of what ive seen in the area of people wanting a clean starting point all you need to do is remove the terrain.
After that it is a straight 3D simulation engine.

#32 I am pleased to see such a healthy disscussion taking place here. After all at no time have I slated either the engine which is great or the dedication and hard work of those that have developed and contributed to it. In fact I appluade everyone who has taken an active part in the community as a whole, whether you be coder, member, staff or artist, I for one salute you. If it were not for the ability for people to talk these things out then there would be on comunity and possibly no product.

Ted: Get over it.. I was NOT saying that the game engine or any product developed on it was cheep. mearly that the GENERAL PUBLIC probably aren't as enlightened as you and I. These are the people that you need to get buying your product if you actually want to break even. I know this for a fact as I have been carrying out an spot of market research among my freinds, family and collegues. To some they never even noticed the splash screen and to those your point is moot. To others however, they actually look in the about screen as well as noticed the slapsh screen. these people followed the hyper-link to garage games and almost to a man miss interperated what an indie game was. thinking that it meant that nost of the work was done by school kids. this in turn had the effect on my test group of lowering the 'reasonable retail price' of the game to

#33 [quote]these people followed the hyper-link to garage games and almost to a man miss interperated what an indie game was. thinking that it meant that nost of the work was done by school kids. this in turn had the effect on my test group of lowering the 'reasonable retail price' of the game to

#34 I don't think of games in terms of indie or not indie. I've seen a whole lot of mainstream games that suck big time compared to some indie games. A game is in my view only indie in the sense that it does not have a big corporate publisher behind it that suffocates creativity in search of the almighty dollar. Independent means you get to do what you want to, albeit without the resources and security provided by an infusion of investor cash. And that to me is where it ends.

If your game is great quality it will shine on its own merits. I for one find it ludicrous to spurn the one publisher out there that will give you a good return on your investment by offering some of the highest royalties I've seen around. What is the alternative? Self-publish and miss out on the large market tapped by GG and its relationship with other similar distributors (shockwave, et al)? Pitch it to the bigger publishers for "mainstream" distribution and you're sure to get a lot less. Luckily the license allows doing all three, so why choose just one?

I am not specifically arguing a point here, I am simply asking some questions as to the extent of the perceived problem.

I think if people are judging my game by what's in an about box, instead of by what the game offers by itself then i've got bigger problems
than what technology i am using and whether i created it myself.

#35

Quote:mearly that the GENERAL PUBLIC probably aren't as enlightened as you and I. These are the people that you need to get buying your product if you actually want to break even. I know this for a fact as I have been carrying out an spot of market research among my freinds, family and collegues. To some they never even noticed the splash screen and to those your point is moot. To others however, they actually look in the about screen as well as noticed the slapsh screen. these people followed the hyper-link to garage games and almost to a man miss interperated what an indie game was. thinking that it meant that nost of the work was done by school kids. this in turn had the effect on my test group of lowering the 'reasonable retail price' of the game to £9.99

But what you missed in your market research is that the vast majority of people playing your game and noticing that splash screen will have already shelled out money for it, so how can they possibly think that the splash screen makes it worth less when they won't even see it until after purchasing it, unless you're putting it on the box? The ones seeing your splash screen without having already paid the price of the game are the ones you probably want to call the FBI on. And if people will go and play your game and find it fun, yet click on a link to GG and change their mind on what it's about, then you don't need those customers, plain and simple. There's something to be said for telling some people to look elsewhere for their merchandise, and most of the better merchants on this planet have learned the value in that. The ones that don't just jump through their own ass doing focus groups and spend huge amounts of money on support because they can't figure out why people are unsatisfied, or trying to satisfy the unsatifiable.

The general public will never fuly understand Garage Games or indie games in general or specific, because they don't even understand game development. I work in an office of a dozen LAN administrators and tech support people, and they have no idea of what goes into making a game, and these are the technically savvy folks. They think this is easy, which is why we have all these 16-year olds on the site trying to make "the b3st gam3 3v3r!!!111!".

I'll quote Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black when he says "The person is smart, but people are stupid". That's why marketing is all screwed up. All that is based on what people say, not the person. But why do people buy? Because they have to buy something, and they usually filter out all the marketing BS anyway. And that's what all the hub-bub about logos and splash screens are, BS. Or do you think people walk around saying "Yeah, EA's hot! They challenge everything" ;)

Tell me to get over it all you want, it won't change any of those facts. If you have such an issue with it, buy the commercial license, or take it up with GG in private. People whine about this like it's something GG threw at them after the purchase, which in fact it was the customers responsibility to know beforehand. So, in fact, you get over it. I'm just sick of hearing people bitch about this like they don't have a choice.

#36 Ted, my friend:
Let me take issue with your comments for a moment. I am bitching about NOTHING, merely expressing an opinion, as I am sure that you as a colonial (American), with your constitutionally protected right to do so will defend.
Your quote from Tommy Lee Jones just echos what I have said, the people are stupid when it comes to fashion and all things retail. If that weren't true we would all be using Linux, Volvos and wearing clothes from K'Mart. People believe marketing bullshit whether it is true or not is not what is in question. Solely peoples, that is, THE peoples general perception- it is this and this alone which often dictates whether a product of any kind is successful not how wonderful something is but how valuable it is perceived to be. Finally, your eloquence, though lacking in subtlety is profound, but sir the point you seem to have missed altogether is that I have only stated that perhaps people (in this case the developer using the torque game engine), would be better of in terms of financial performance if they were to exercise there choice and upgrade to a commercial licence should they develop a game which they believe would sell better to a semi-literate (in pc terms) consumer public.
Perhaps you don't want people to exercise choice at all,.... But me thinks thet Marxism is dead (thank god).

Fin.

#37 Just aiming to call it as I see it, not be subtle...

But the response still didn't address my point, which was that a splash screen cannot hurt your sales if it is seen only after the sale has ocurred. This isn't about choice, because the only time I ever hear players complaining about splash screens, it's about the ones you can't bypass by hitting ESC (which is one of my pet peeves too). So this whole thing with a splash screen is a non-issue, unless you think your informal market-research is better than the market research these larger companies have thrown at it (and not that I think that that's impossible). If this was indeed an issue, they would have ditched splash screens a long time ago because of a variety of impressions people get.

And don't worry about the bitching remark, I wasn't talking only about you...

#38 Ted:
Your comments are duly noted, and with respect I feel that we will have to agree to differ.

It has made a refreshing change to encounter someone on a forum who is not only willing, but able to argue their point of view, in a dispassionate and eloquent way. (Just think, this thread hasn't needed to be moderated once because of bad language or something similar)

I think that this conversation has been an excellent example of what a GOOD user community should be like. You don't have to agree all the time, and it's the debate that really highlights people's abilities and conviction.

Whatever we have said here someone is bound to disagree with either or both of us on one or other point. However they will, if this thread ever gets read that is, at least think for themselves and make up there own minds on the subject.

See you around the forums, my friend.

Fin