Noticed today that it's coming out of beta on June 7th. Thought y'all might like to know.

The only question for me now is if I should buy it now (when I may not need it) or wait 'till later and the price is higher but I may want to use it for a project.

Cheers!

--clint

Why is it going to be priced the same as their 3D tools?

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"The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike." -- C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963), "The Poison of Subjectivism" (from Christian Reflections; p. 108)

It could be useful for demoing different ideas and concepts for games rapidly. It's not like a 2D limited version of regular Torque. It was designed expressly for 2D games and has many features along those lines that are not available in Torque. According to one of the guys from Garage Games, certain features, like the gui particle system editor, are so useful that they will eventually be added to the regular Torque engine. Lots of people have the regular Torque engine, but how many people actually make full games with it? It takes a decently sized team to make a fun 3D game--even with Torque. I'm quite convinced that one or two people (you still need an artist) could make a fun game with Torque 2D.

It's a slick tool, really, and well worth the price, from what I've seen.

Hopefully that explains why its priced similarly to Garage Games' 3D products.

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|steveth45|
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[This message has been edited by steveth45 (edited June 03, 2006).]

Edit: How would you compare TGB to game maker? I know game makes does not have networking and GUI but it's also quite good rapid development.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

[This message has been edited by jari (edited June 03, 2006).]

quote:

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Originally posted by ssquared:
What exactly is the source version? Does this just let you change the underlying engine and script code? Or does it let you integrate your own C++ code through an API set? In other words, are you still stuck with the scripting language when it comes to implementing the game or can you use some of your own C++ code for dialogs and other code?

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You get the engine's source code so you can do anything with c++, there are no limitations.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

$100 for the non-source TGB seems like a good price.

I had a blast looking through the Game Maker pages, playing some examples, and looking at sprites, terrains, etc.

[This message has been edited by ssquared (edited June 03, 2006).]

I was able to complete a game with it in just a few months. Started with a prototype around the end of November, experimented with different ideas through December/January, and then getting down to work and got it finished, tested and shipping in the first part of May. The development team was just me and an artist that started work in Feburary. (adding: and a Mac guy to compile for the Mac and a musician to create three songs themed to the game)

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Kevin Ryan - Top Meadow- Minigolf Mania - Marble Blast

[This message has been edited by kevryan (edited June 06, 2006).]

It's a tool that I've had some familiarity with, and while I don't have any specific project that I want to use it with at the moment, it's something that I would like to have around in my arsenal.

From what I've seen and heard, it sounds like GG is trying to get TGB to compete with Macromedia Flash for fast cross-platform game development. I've done some game development in Flash, and it's not very easy. Macromedia Studio was almost $1000 when we bought it a couple of years ago, and in light of that, $80 for Torque Game Builder is a pretty good price (it's $100 if you don't already own TGE at the moment).

So yeah, bought it two days before the price jump -- I'll have to take money out of my "tools" budget (I was planning on buying some new cordless drill batteries), but ah well. Opportunity knocks!

--clint

So it is nice for me to be able to follow my normal development process on Windows not really thinking about the Mac build and know that I can hand off the final source and have a Mac build fairly quickly.

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Kevin Ryan - Top Meadow- Minigolf Mania - Marble Blast - Puzzle Poker

[This message has been edited by kevryan (edited June 06, 2006).]

I did a collision test using about 50 art assets that filled my entire screen and it didn't slow down a bit. It was like a "horde test." The particle effects handle literally hundreds of particles at a time, with no slowing down at all. It's impressive.

What's it good for? RPG's, RTS, tile games (there's supposedly a 3rd party iso-tile patch coming out in a few months), scrollers, top-down games, etc.

It does 3-d shapes, too. This would be perfect for an RTS, or any other "orthogonal view" game. But it would also be great for a demo for a cell phone game like bowling, or a game you want to create quickly just to get name recognition for your company.

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WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
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#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

--clint

is there a TGB demo? cuz i'd like to think about trying it out...
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WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
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#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

[This message has been edited by buddboy (edited June 12, 2006).]

Cheers!

--clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited June 12, 2006).]

@Clint: You said that GarageGames is going to try to compete with flash for cross platform game development. I'd be interested in finding out if they have any plans for developing a browser plugin and an exporter for creating web based games like the ones created in flash and Javascript that are all over the web nowadays. we'll definately have to throw that in as a suggestion if not .

[This message has been edited by Ashton_JX (edited June 21, 2006).]

Ashton_JX: I don't know if they're planning on officially making it a browser plugin. It certainly seems like it should be doable, after all, people have compiled the Torque Game Engine as a 3d browser plugin:
TDN: How to make Torque a plugin.

It would seem to me that games written in the Torque Game Builder scripting language should be able to run with stock pre-compiled versions of TGB, so I don't see any reason why a stock version of TGB compiled as a browser plugin couldn't load any number of different TGB games. Interesting... I think I may search and discuss this on the forums over there.

Cheers!

--clint

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1 Corinthians 15:58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. (NLT)

Tired of loosing your work for all eternity? Jesus Saves! You should too :P (liek every 1 1/2 seconds) This is a message from teh save the data foundation, and from (CTRL + S): Because da data is y00r future. Maybe.

Well I posted this idea over at GarageGames, and have already gotten some good responses. igLoader is what a lot of people are recommending to use for these games, and perhaps that would work well, I dunno'. I'm interested in finding out more though.

Cheers!

--clint

------------------
WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
--------------------
#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

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1 Corinthians 15:58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. (NLT)

Tired of loosing your work for all eternity? Jesus Saves! You should too :P (liek every 1 1/2 seconds) This is a message from teh save the data foundation, and from (CTRL + S): Because da data is y00r future. Maybe.