What brought you to GarageGames?

#1 I was looking for an excellent cross-platform engine with an active community.

They haven't been able to get rid of me since.

#2 The total lack of female presence... it's like a big sweaty locker room here!!! Bliss!!!!

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games

#3 Was looking for a game engine that was fitting my needs, and heard that the makers of Tribes went to create this community. I loved Tribes, so I checked it out.. and here I am.

#4 I really have no idea. Apparently I created my account back in 2000. (And looking at my profile link I was the 48:th person to register =).
Why I came back now is easier to answer though, working on generic, publisher commissioned, first person shooters gets rather boring if you do it long enough....

#5 ...

#6 I was on a search to find a way into game development. I was a radio broadcaster turned digital imager who wanted a technical carreer in the movie industry and was going to school for it when I discovered programming and got hooked. After a few years of graphics and web and then windows application programming I was introduced to level building for Unreal Tournament by my brother Andre'. I wound out being more into building levels for Rune and Deus Ex. I didn't know my way around the internet at the time and was struggling to understand 3d so when looking for tutorials or articles on level building I mostly found info on how to program 3d with Open GL. Then my wife bought me this Game Developer Starter Kit 4.0 from the game store in the mall for my birthday. DirectX 7 and the Genisis engine if I remember right. Anyway... I think the book had a reference to GarageGames and that's how I found this community. I bought the engine after playing with the demo. I was stunned by the massive outdoor worlds. I was really into making medieval levels in Rune(I did a pretty cool Mines of Moria with the old dynamic lightmaps... it's was cool) and when I ran around the hills with that orc I was just lost in awe of how for once I felt like I was almost there is a fantasy world on my computer. It was cool. Then I did the Make Something Unreal Contest and was making a Robin Hood game. After almost finishing the game I realised that I didn't want to just give the game away and that it was possibly worth doing right and then the first shots of the TSE came out and I decided to make it with TSE. That marked my real discovery of the community as I began to read the forums and plans and attempt to make contact with people in the community. Still working on that... it's still pretty anonymous being in this community... but it's cool when you put up a plan and actually get someone's opinion good or bad or ugly. Anyway... that's what keeps me apart of the community even though I long since realised that the Robin Hood game was too expensive to make as an indie game. Anyway.

#7 My company uses Torque for development.

Quote:The total lack of female presence... it's like a big sweaty locker room here!!! Bliss!!!!

Just until my wife gets involved. She plans to help with UV wrapping, texturing, and voice acting in our company.
Dont worry though she is a tomboy and "gamer girl" ... proficient at Age of Empires, Unreal Tournament 2004, Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst, the Sims, Final Fantasy of all variety, and is becoming a fairly good DM for Dungeons and Dragons (pen and paper version).

#8 An artist since 3, I've been interested in making games since I started playing on my mom's old pong system! I grew up on Pac-Man and Mario and became an avid reader of anything games related. I bought an issue of EGM one day because of a featured article about getting into the games industry and in a small, out of the way section I found both GG and Darkbasic. Knowing my knowledge of development (and my history with generic Basic), I went for DB first. It was ok. I played with it for a bit, had some fun in the forums, then one day entered a contest one of the posters had started, based on generating a code as small as possible to give the outcome of as many combinations of change for a dollar, and aced it in 10 minutes as a newb.

I felt I needed something more advanced after that and came here to GG. Now, I feel I'm right where I belong! ;)

- Ronixus

#9 While developing my own realtime terrain engine I was looking for some ideas in a professional engine.
Since torque was the only affordable engine with terrain support I have choosen it.

Quickly I realized, that TGE has much more to offer than terrain rendering ;)

#10 After re-inventing the wheel about 4 times and it taking forever, I decided it was time to get serious. I have also been a lurker on the dexterity and indiegamer forums for years, and saw several people suggest Torque as a great solution for cross-platform development. I came over and looked around for a while.
The biggest drivers of my purchase were the community, the price, and the technology. The developers actually read the forums and answer questions and other members are helpful and share their knowledge rather than hording it. You just can't beat the price for the amount of tech you get. It's got the core engine, audio, input, graphics, networking, ... It's cross platform and can do nearly anything you want, and if not, you get the source and can change it as much as you want. I can develop on MS Windows like I always have, and I get the added bonus of Mac and Linux deployment for the mere cost of getting someone to compile it on them for me.

#11 I was introduced to Torque at Uni, from a lecturer with a fascination for sheep. :)
A cross platform AAA engine for 55 quid. Thankyou GG

#12 Stargate:SG1 - The indie game that MGM shut down.

#13 Recently decided that I am bored spitless writing business apps...so I decided to cut back to 3 days a week doing that and learn how to be a game developer, which was a childhood dream.

I started studying opengl and built a very simple game engine. Was looking for ideas when I ran across torque in a google search. The price was right, plenty of source code to look at (too much, really), and the community seemed to be helpful.

Still not sure this is the way I'm going to go, but I know I'll get at least 100 bucks worth of knowledge out if it if nothing else.

#14 I was actually looking for a 2D engine about a year and a half ago. Was using SDL at the time and had programmed a simple pac man game but I wanted an engine instead. So I started searching on various forums. Checked out Irrlicht and a few others but they weren't complete. Wasn't reading good things about Torque either on various forums due to it's lack of documentation and that kept me a way for a few days.

When I did visit GarageGames though everything clicked. The price, the features, GG coming from Dynamix, Tribes (even though I never played it), the resources/community, all that got me excited. When I downloaded the demo, my next move was to pull my credit card. Best move I've ever made.

Nick

#15

Quote:
I was introduced to Torque at Uni, from a lecturer with a fascination for sheep. :)

lol that reminds me of Phil Carlisle.

#16 I visited the site by chance surfing the Internet.
I saw that there is a great forum here and a lot of users who can be my friends and possible partners in future. Actually it is more rest for me being here than any of professional interest. Probably I should be mroe serious talking to men ))

#17 LOL what are the odds! It's gotta be him!

#18 A friend told me about Torque as he knew I was interested in producing games (and tools) for Linux and was battling to find a decent engine for my projects.

#19 I wanted to break into the industry (but at my age, I suppose I just wanted to make something) and I was playing Tribes and all other kinds of games. Then I started searching for the engines used. I went to id Software, already had A5, so I then jumped to Torque.

#20 The dream of Indie.

I had been thinking about changing careers from 3D and 2D graphics for virutual reality and sci. viz to game development. After searching my soul I realized that this meant not
that I wanted to make games for someone *else*....I wanted to make the game *I* wanted to make.

Garage Games held out the promise of that dream. I am still on that path.