I'm really leaning toward purchasing the Torque Engine license from GarageGames... I was curious about other users' experiances with it. It looks solid, and sounds solid, and everything I have read thusfar has been for it, but I am still cautious about purchasing it, despite the low cost. The main reason is publishing restrictions, but the Torque Engine license seems very cool about that. I know it would save me a great deal of time, but what are your thoughts on it? -Greven

--> Business of Game Development?

Eh? Business? Just asking for opinions on the software, not certain how that would apply to the Business forum, since it is for my own personal use.

-Greven

You're looking to license it. That would be a business deal. Anyway, just because I suggest that it would be more appropriate in BoGD, doesn't mean that the mods will actually move it. I could be wrong (it's happened before).

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Original post by coldacid --> Business of Game Development?

No, --> Alternative Game Libraries (which I still maintain should be called 'third party game technology').

Ah, I stand corrected. Thank you my good sir!

Personally, I've never used Torque, however, here's the review of the review from Gamedeveloper magazine September 2004, 8 ~ 9

Pros:
1) Responsive on the community forum and deal with support directly.
2) Battle Tested, fully cross platform, AAA game engine with all the bells and whistles
3. Full C++ source code to the engine

CONS
1. Lack of an easy starting point
2. Documentation somewhat limited
3. Size and scope of the engine can be overwhelming.


Here's some extra niggles I groked from the article.
1. Documentation is excellent but unorganized.(which is 1 & 2 from CONS)
2. While a rewrite is underway, there is some legacy FPS assumptions in the code. Expecially in the Camera class & player input.
3. Little AI code, but a 3rd party AI package is in development
4. Physics are baisc, with basic collisions, gravity and friction. Vehicles are well developed.

Overall:
If you can live without the mothering the other middleware providers offer, TGE really does measure up in almost every area.

I have purchased the Torque Game Engine (as opposed to the Torque Shader Engine) and I find it very much geared towards FPS and to do any other game type its takes quite a bit of work. However I recommend you download the demo, (you probably already have) load up one of the games (fps or racer) and hit f10 or f11 which will allow you to try out the Screen and World modification systems. Pretty impressive stuff, plus you can build you own resources(models, scripts, etc) and plug them straight into the demo games (or your own new game). Pretty much the only thing yo don't get with the demo is the source code and all the documentation.

Its rather large however and I don't have the experience to start modifying it and adding features that I need just yet, but for $100 you really can't go wrong.

I bought my Torque indie license just yesterday. It was incredibly easy to set up, and that's under mingw32/msys in my case. If you do what I did, you'll buy the engine and buy Ken Finney's "Game Programming All In One" book to go with it. There's your starting point. ;)

And of course, GG has so much more to offer in the form of content packs, community help, etc.. I mean, it's $100 for all that? Go for it!

Neil Kirkin: I could be wrong, but TSE is just an extension to TGE. You buy one and then the other. [smile] And what game doesn't require a lot of work? :P

Benjamin Heath: Yeah I'm not quite sure how they fit together at this stage, I would have thought that the codebases would be exaclty the same except for the Graphics Rendering component. I was under the impression that when the TSE gets released you wouldn't need to buy TGE. Can anyone confirm this?

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And what game doesn't require a lot of work? :P

It's all relative, building a FPS with TGE is fairly easy compared to making an RTS for example. However the Starter Kits that are being produced look very promising.

I really do think systems like TGE/TSE are the way of the future for games. Why reinvent the wheel everytime you need to go somewhere?