Back from IGC! It was a wild time.. Finally got to meet Clark, Joe, Matt, John, and Mark -- the guys I've been working with for the past nine months. We've been working on dRacer via the Internet for that time, which just goes to show you that a successful project can be pulled off that way!

IGC was a blast! I got to meet a ton of people that I chat with online all the time. It was a pleasure to meet all of them, and finally chat it up with those who share the same dream I do. dRacer won first place, as best single player game, and took second overall. John Quigley ported dRacer to the Macintosh so we could do a full on show-off at the Saturday night lan-party. John just blows me away that he pulled that off in just over two hours!

Good things are happening to dRacer. We're pushing forward with it -- I'm working hard on the editor and cleaning up track rendering code. Soon, full fledged development will begin to get dRacer to market.. Here's to a great success!

Gettin' ready for IGC! Racer has evolved a lot since the last time I did an update. We have a nearly complete racing model, and the track editor has changed quite a bit. The Independent Gamers Conference is October 8th, 9th, and 10th in Eugene, Oregon. It's presented by GarageGames and should be a ton of fun. I hope to see a bunch of you people there!

It's been a long while since I did an update, so I thought it was about time. I've been very busy with the new game, creating content, developing, and doing general games stuff. I'm working with BraveTree Productions, LLC. in Eugene, Oregon on a racing game. The idea came about when I developed a technology to simplify the creation of a racing surface. From that, many hours have been devoted to create a very customizable race track component. Clark Fagot, lead developer at BraveTree, has worked extremely hard on creating a driving model that works awesome. Joe Maruschak is the artist and ideas guy... It amazes me how many good ideas Joe has. He really knows what makes things good or bad, and what should be included or tossed out.

We're now into our fourth month of development and the framework is almost complete. Soon we'll be able to start on the game in earnest. I'm working on the track editor, which will be released with the game. It's a fully 3D world editor with tools specifically designed to simplify track creation. It's amazing to me how much it has changed from its initial revision. It's getting to the point where we can whip out a track in a couple of minutes and then race it. Soon we'll be adding the ability to place signs, buildings, trees, and other scenery. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming announcements! Also, check out the screenshots page for some piccys of the game in progress. I swear I'll try to keep up on this page!!

It has begun...

Not able to say what has begun, but just know that it has begun. Development, that is, of a super secret project. It'll be super secret for a while, at least until we're ready to drop it on the public. I'm totally geeked about it, as are a couple of other guys. We've got a real chance here to do the right thing, and I totally intend to do just that!

In case you didn't see it up at the GarageGames website, I've released my stencil shadowing resource for the TGE. It had some initial problems going out the door, but I'm starting to see some people actually using it, and that makes me happy. I spent a lot of time on that code. I know I didn't get it completed like I had originally planned, but it gives someone about 90% of what they need to complete the task. I hope to see some people using this in production games soon -- that would be a rush.

I've found something new to occupy my time! Yep, it's amazing how one can be sitting around, lay down some code, and find something that's just so... so... Well, amazing.

"What could be so amazing?" You ask. Well, I've always been interested in racing games. Loved 'em since I got my first computer back in 1979. I've played so many of them, I've lost track. Hell, even before my first computer I was playing Fire Engine back at the old Pretzel Bell. Anyways, not to get lost in nostalgia, I decided to implement a race track that emulated the one in Wipeout. I imagined that it couldn't be too hard to lay it out. It just seemed like a surface of triangles, much like a triangle strip.

Two hundred lines of code and a week later, I have a reasonable approximation of that racing surface. The best part about it is, it's a drop-in for the Torque Game Engine -- and it's got me really excited! It's also caught the eyes of some other people... So, I've started working with them to lay plans for a racing game. I think we're all pretty geeked about it. There'll be more news in a few weeks.

By the way, did you see this?