InstantAction Blog

May MYOG Blog: Making Games for the iPhone

For this month's Make-Your-Own-Game blog, I thought I'd take a break from PC development to give you insight on what it's like to create iPhone games. I recently got in touch with Paul Poster at Pick Up and Play. They broke new ground by creating the first multiplayer FPS for the iPhone, and I know that's a genre you guys enjoy. iFPS Online serves 2 to 10 players running over Wi-Fi and 3G on iPhones and iPod Touches.

iFPS Online, made with iTorque from GarageGames on Vimeo.

Read on for Paul's responses to my interview questions!

Why make an FPS for the iPhone?

The iPhone is a 3D capable device and the Torque engine already had many of the FPS capabilities built in. An FPS allows higher performance on the client because there are very few 3D items being rendered up close, in full level of detail. Also, the iPhone is very much a social-media device, and a multiplayer game seems like a perfect match.

What was your development process like?

We had up to nine people working on the game at any one time, although usually it consisted of a team of three/four programmers and two artists. Our staff all works together in our Laguna Hills offices. We've developed many games together and are used to intense, short schedule projects. After we submitted a technology demo of the iTorque engine to iTunes, we spent less than four weeks creating a beta build of iFPS Online and another three to four weeks for the release candidate.

For QA, we relied on our QA department (1 guy) to keep our bug database well stocked while we did a lot more informal play testing, looking for UI issues and online difficulties. We use Mantis on our server to track bugs and, even though we are in adjacent rooms, we use IM to provide short message questions and alerts and simple file transfers between team members. For online testing, we set up off-site servers to provide hosts for the game so that we could test network and router issues.

And of course we played a lot of multiplayer games ourselves...

"The iPhone is very much a social-media device, and a multiplayer game seems like a perfect match." - Paul Foster of Pick Up and Play

What development hurdles did you run into?

The single biggest hurdle was performance. While the game still doesn't run at 60 fps, it does run well enough to allow for an enjoyable experience. Optimizing for speed involved removing features that would be mostly invisible on a small iPhone screen, reducing game complexity, and designing gameplay to avoid CPU intensive activities.

April MYOG Blog: The Game Developers Conference

Although it's been a week since the end of the Game Developer's Conference, many of us here at GarageGames and InstantAction are still reeling from its after effects.  For those of you who don't know, GDC is "THE conference."  It's the place where deals are made, tech is shown off, and faces from all corners of the game industry - from consoles to casual - gather to talk about what's happening in video games.

In this month's Make-Your-Own-Game blog, I'd like to recap our GDC experience so you too can see what it was like straight from the show floor.

First, obligatory screenshots:

The awesome 35-pound Torque logo towers over the booth, making it distinct even from a distance in the expo hall.



We had some fantastic demos in our booth, including Eyal Erez of Sudden Games showing off Sushi to Go on the iPhone.



The booth crowd is just rocking! Everything you see on the red carpet is ours.

Second, some videos of what we demoed in the booth:

GDC 2009 PlayLegions.com Demo



GDC 2009 - Torque 3D "South Pacific" Part I (other parts available on the GarageGames vimeo channel)



GDC 2009 Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy Presentation



GDC 2009 - Torque 3D Web Demo

For more videos, check out our GarageGames Vimeo account.

Happy game development!

Make Your Own Games Premiere Blog!

Hello InstantAction Gamers!

Welcome to the first "Make Your Own Games" premiere blog (or MYOG for those of you who only speak in abbreviated jibberish).  My name is Deborah Marshall, of limited cardboard fortress fame.  I work for GarageGames, InstantAction's significant other.  Whereas InstantAction gives you games to play, GarageGames sells technology to help people make their own games.  

Because I've heard that some of you are aspiring game developers, I thought I'd start a blog over here to let you know what's going on in the world of Torque, GarageGames's line of AAA game engine tech (which recently won the coveted Front Line Game Engine of the Year award).  In this premiere blog, I'll give you a general overview of our latest game engine in the works, Torque 3D, but my hope is that you'll provide questions/suggestions on what you'd like to see in this blog about game development in general, and I'll post subsequent blogs that meet your needs.

So what is Torque 3D?  It's a game engine used to make stunning 3D games and is currently in development at GarageGames.  Torque 3D's predecessor has been used to make many of the games you love on InstantAction - Fallen Empire: Legions, Rokkitball, Marble Blast Online, ThinkTanks, Cyclomite, and ZAP!.  It's also currently being used to make the next round of games in beta, including Ace of Aces, Lore: Aftermath, and Luma's Arcade Racer.  And that's just the stuff on InstantAction!  For a full list of games made, check this page out.

Video game technology is a bit like an arm's race: all game engine companies keep their eye on the next biggest and shiniest features to put into the engine.  We've already got a pretty good start with our current 3D engine, which boasts the industry's best networking capabilities, the ability to publish to multiple platforms like the Xbox 360 and Wii, and cutting-edge graphics capabilities.  On top of that, we've announced the following new features for Torque 3D:

A little sneak peak at one type of world you can create with Torque 3D

• Easy Web Publishing - With Torque 3D, InstantAction's ability to publish games in a web browser is available to everyone.
• Wetness and Precipitation - New shader technology allows us to create more realistic looking wetness and precipitation for dank and foreboding environments. 
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion -  With built-in editors for on the fly modifications, you can toggle various screen space shaders on and off and with SSAO. (See video below for what I mean.)
• An updated FPS Kit - Since Torque is popular among people who want to make FPS games, we're updating our FPS kit with two new environments, a new character, and various new weapons.
• A Brand New Racing Kit - Not a big fan of FPS games? No problem! We're expanding our selection of genre kits with Torque 3D. Luma Arcade, the guys who are bringing you the InstantAction racer, are taking their art assets and code and wrapping it up nicely so you can make your own racing games. 

What is Screen Space Ambient Occlusion? A video is worth a thousand pictures!

We're really looking forward to the release of this engine and will be announcing more in the coming months.  Feel free to follow our development blogs here.

So that's all I got for this first post.  However, please let me know what kind of topics you want me to cover for future "Make Your Own Games" blogs.  I'll be happy to answer any and all questions you have.

Cheers and Happy Game Development from GarageGames!