Multi-platform game--start with iT2D or TGB?

#1 There is no right foot.
it will require porting into both ways.

but its likely easier to start on ipad and then move over cause the ipad is a more restricted platform than desktop RAM, CPU and GPU wise. That way you can add stuff instead of investing a lot of time cutting / optimizing stuff.

and the porting will be more than packaging options, both have features not available to the other side (msourcerect and a few other things are iT2D only, while stuff like 3D shape other things are TGB only)

Its for that reason important that you check what your game really needs, if it can be done on the iDevice side (feature and performance wise) etc (the majority of TGB games wouldn't run on the idevices aside of the iphone 4 due to RAM overloading for example, some otherws will fail due to heavy usage of tilemaps and blending which especially on the ipad is a critical thing)

#2 Thanks for the quick reply! :-)

I think the game works well on the iDevice side. It's kind of like a board game or a miniatures game, turn-based and tile-based. It's light on animations, audio, etc. and doesn't need 3D shapes. The "meat" of the game is in the rules governing moves, results of dice rolls, and some text story-telling.

Based on that, it sounds like starting with iT2D is the way to go. I think the level-based datablocks would actually help even on the PC and Mac, right?

#3 Laralyn,

I am in a similar boat to you. I've purchased both TGB and iTGB and eventually I intend to port my games to both platforms.

In the beginning I purchased TGB first as a trial, as they have a demo version of that and it is less expensive than iTGB. So I actually started my game using TGB first, and then when I decided that I was happy with the tools I decided to purchase iTGB and then port my game over to that. With hindsight, I think that was a mistake. It is not an easy task porting from TGB to iTGB. There are a lot of differences, and I found it extremely frustrating.

If I was to start over, I would start with iTGB first, and then port it to TGB. The desktop is a lot easier to work with because of the extra performance and resources compared to the iPhone and iPad, so I agree with Marc in the sense that it's a lot easier if you start on the iPhone. It's lot easier to add new stuff once you have the game ported over to TGB. It's not so easy starting off with a game that requires more resources, and then trying to trim it down and optimise it for the smaller device.

#4 I think that is one of the issues with iTGB, the TGB. They are really different beasts and getting more different every release. I do not doubt that the next iteration of TGB will be way different than either one of them is now. I think iTGB is more like T3D, it supports torquescript, however it's better if you do not use it.

#5 Henry, I'm not much of a C++ coder, although I'm comfortable with Torquescript. Is it possible for a low-overhead (i.e. no real time movements or calculations) app to work well on the iPad using just Torquescript?

#6 Ohh yea I would say so. I have made stuff that had no C++ and ran on my sons 3G phone just fine. I did have problems with the older ipods so I imagine that it would have had problems with the pre 3G phones as well. However I would tend to just say hell with the older phones and pods.

There are a few C++ behaviors already created. Look a the Behavior Shooter, they have the name Adv in them. However they were written for TGB and some use particle effects as opposed to animations. I have been able to convert them and will be posting them to a resource.

#7 There will be no next iteration of TGB anymore
TGB 1.7.5 is its final version (originally it was 1.7.4 but it GG / IA decided to get a combined staff - community bug fix release out for non-Pro users sake I guess)

The next will be Torque 2D 2011 (which then at some point might find its way to the idevices as iTorque 2D 2011 or 2012 depending on when it happens for the desktop)


As for running fine: It depends on the amount of maths you have if you get away with scripts.
But things like scene object pooling to reduce the amount of create & destroy of objects and alike is definitely possible in script and code :)

On the 3GS but especially ipad its even more possible cause the ipad has a 66% faster cpu than the 3GS and a over 250% faster cpu than the 3G and other first and second gen idevices :)

#8 I've hit a roadblock that's making iT2D challenging for me in terms of developing there first: the project paths. I don't see a way to store iT2D in one location and project files in another location... but I use Dropbox to work seamlessly between three environments (Mac, Mac laptop and PC).

It looks like the only way to do this is to install on all three systems and point at the Dropbox folder for the installs? That's really awkward though because it means I have to store ALL of the engine, sourcecode, and projects in my Dropbox just to be able to share the project itself.

Are there any work-arounds that make this a little easier to work with?

Thanks!

#9 Just use SVN or another versioning the versions your project + source folder :)

with dropbox you are bound to folders and won't get around this ... also the other stuff in the it2d folder is easy because at the end of the day the by far largest folder will be the build folder from xcode :)