Torque engines
Hello developers,
Today I want to talk about Torque engines, because I used them for a lot of our games. Torque engines are game engines made by GarageGames. There are 3 main types of the engines:
Torque Game Builder (TGB) – 2D engine for Windows/Mac
Torque Game Engine (TGE) – 3D engine for Windows/Mac
Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA) – 3D engine based on TGE, but with a support of new technologies like shaders, it is only for Windows
There are other versions of their engines too:
Torque X – something between TGB and TGE for XNA
Torque 360 – TGEA for XBox
Torque for Wii – version for Wii
iTGB and iTGE – versions for iPhone
I’m very often asked how good the engines are. Here is a small list of good and bad sides of the engines:
GOOD:
- if you know the bugs of these engines and how to avoid or fix them, the game developing is extremely fast
- low price (but only for basic versions)
- easy porting for Mac OS X (I usually created any port of our games in 1-4 hours)
- use of Torque script – so you don’t need to be good programmer to create simple game
- networking (but only in 3D engines)
- usable GUI system (but usually only for simple projects)
BAD:
- the engines are slow (20.000 triangles in TGE means 30fps on Nvidia 8800 cards, TGB is able to show 5 times less sprites with the same FPS than our RakeX engine used in Jets’n'Guns)
- a lot of bugs
- bad documentation
- no support (the main support channel is forum. It is good for basic questions. For example, I posted there about 50 questions on advanced/expert problems and I got reasonable answer for only 2-5 of them)
- the engine core is botched, it looks like they took the original TGE created a few years ago and then they turned it into all the other engines, but this is not the best way
So why do I use the engines? Games like Phantasia, Trickball or Archmage are simple, so the creation of the games was very fast and didn’t need complicated technology. On the other hand, we had a lot of problems with bigger games like Larva Mortus or KingMania (too low FPS was always one of them). I can recommend to use the engines for simple games or fast creation of prototypes. But in case you want to start with a really professional looking game, I recommend to use something different. Engine tailor-made for your project should be the best solution!
Tovy..
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Hey, very cool blog and a nice read here!
Though, the engines are a lot better lately.. i agree with a ot of what you say. TGB is super powerful for creating certain types of games, and the newer TGEA versions are a lot better internally
quote ; easy porting for Mac OS X
This can sometimes be the case, unless there were foolish/rushed changes to the core of the engine itself! these annnoying little changes can sometimes break a port for quite some time if you never used mac for development before ! So watch out when creating changes that you plan ahead for mac and other OS’s.
Keep it up
February 1st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Nice! i am starting at torque now, and your tips are very usefull!
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:04 am
1. I noticed that most of your TGB games are made with TGB1.1.3, so when you say TGB is slow, do you mean the 1.1.3 version or the latest verson?
2. The reason we choosing TGB as our engine is mostly because we like Larva Mortus, and Larva Mortus using TGB. If you’re not recommending TGB for bigger project, what engine will you use?
Thanks.
February 3rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Hi Joan,
The version 1.1.3 and the latest one are almost same, but they usually have a lot of new bugs is each version, so me (and I think a lot of experienced TGB programmers) use the vetrsion 1.1.3. Changes in new version are usually in TGB editors and I don’t use them.
TGB is good for prototypes of games or smaller games. But there are so many bugs, that it could be a problem to publish game under TGB without changes in engine. For example try ALT-ENTER in fullscreen under Vista and the game crashes. And it’s why some of distributors (like Oberon) reject the game.
Engine depends on the game. A lot of good developers leave Torque and try to use (I think) Unity 3D. We develop own engine for 2D/3D too. I think it will be very interesting, because we create it as game developers, not as programmers who don’t develop games. And we would like to publish it for public too.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:25 am
Tovy, thanks for your reply.
Not sure whether we should leave from TGB now, our game is a simple platformer and is still in prototype phase. As we’re still learning, we haven’t met notice bug in TGB. Switching from one engine to another is quite time consuming, but after reading your post, we’ll definitely give it a thought.
Talking about the game engine build by real game developers but not just engine programmers, yes, that’ll make huge difference. That’s why Unreal engine is so easy to pick up, and why TGE is so hard to use.
Not just because one cost $$$ and another one cost $.
I’m also curious about your in-house engine you’re talking about. When you say you like to publish it for public, do you mean you would like to sell it like TGB/Unity? Or you will go with PopCap Games Framework or Playground’s free way? Can’t wait to have a peek on your engine.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Torque engines are not so bad, I think they are one of the best you can get for the price. But the problems come when you want to create something different than their tutorials. So for example TGE is good for simple action or racing game, but we had tons of problem when we used it for KingMania. And there is no support. The community can answer you only a few basic questiong. But for example I posted more than 50 questions on the forum. I got maybe 5 useful answers. If you have a lot of time, it’s ok, you can check the engine source and find solutions by yourself. But we develop games in very short terms and playing a few days with one bug is really bad.
Our engine will not be so advance as Torque. Each type of game needs an engine suits to the game. So our idea is to create a system with the most of basic features, but people should be able to modify it as they want. More as framework. The engine should support both 2D and 3D. We have started with 2D features first. The engine should be for Win/Mac/iPhone (and theoretically ready for consoles porting) and I hope we will publish the first version in a few weeks. I’m not sure about the price policy of the engine now, but we will probably sell it as Torque, but the basic version will be free.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
I completely agree with this article.
So if there will be an engine made by YOU I will be first who will buy it!!! I was looking on your old blog which looks “death” and then discovered this one which was nice present to me and now I read that you are making an engine. I feel now like 5 years old boy day before christmas
. I´m looking forward for any screens info or whatever you publish.
Keep working guys!!!
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:24 am
Tovy — I’m a fellow TGB developer who, like you, have also been frustrated with the bugs I’ve had to work around, and the general slowness of the engine compared to custom engines. But at the same time, like you say, some things are very fast to create with TGB.
I’m VERY interested in your custom engine. I have some future games I would like to make that would be simply too slow if done in TorqueScript. I hope you will persevere and release an engine — even if an early version!