Making a game with Torque 2D

#1 If you are looking for a click'n'play type of program, T2D ain't it.
However, if you do get it, you will find that the beginner tutorial is great and easy to understand.
It will be even better once the new version comes out.

#2 If you are a good artist, you will have no problem finding a group of programmers to work with.

of course you loose a little "creative control" but it's a lot easier to get something going

#3 Programming experience or taking the time to learn the script programming used in the engine will seriously help. As of now I wouldn't really call T2D "user friendly" but they're working on more editors and documentation that should make life easier for us. If you really don't want to write code there is always "Game Maker" and other Click-n-make-games products, but they'll always be more limited.

#4 Thanks for your help guys. Here are a couple of screens of the game I'm working on:
Blood Swamps

Cave

With the engine we are using we have to specify cordinates, for different actions. like damage boxes, sprite speed, etc. I'm not looking for a just click'n'play engine. But I want something that's user friendly even when some code has to be added. As long as it is not a lot of coding involved.

#5 At the moment, T2D doesn't easily support the kind of bounding box manipulation you are likely to need for a beat 'em up game. That's not to say it can't be done, but you may need to do things such as mount invisible objects to your characters and then have the bounding box of the object come into contact with the enemy.

You may also need to do stuff with moving sprites through layers in order to simulate 'depth' and to determine if one character is on the same plane as another when calculating collisions.

#6 Your using the 'Beats of Rage' engine, correct? It's actually DESIGNED for 2d brawlers, so your workflow will probably be a bit easier with it than T2D, which is a more general-purpose 2d engine. Of course I've not used Beats of Rage, so maybe it's designed in such a way that it's a royal pain to use.

#7 LOL. gotta love a game where everybody are dressed in thongs and beat eachother senseless.

#8 Lol @ Jason's remark. I didn't even notice that. But the art is good. It has a Sega Genesis look to it. I'm pretty much in the same boat as Eduardo. That's why I'm hesitant to purchase T2D. I figure I'd just work on the art and animations for my game until T2D is almost 100% and has even better documentation and tools available.
-Ajari-

#9 @Ajari

Some advice i heard that i think makes sense (though i havent had the chance to appreciate it myself yet)

Do the artwork last. Otherwise, with project/architecture changes, you stand a large chance of most of your artwork being obsolete and have to be scrapped.

Also FYI, i have never done game programming before I bought T2D (2 months ago). I have spent about 50hrs a week since then learning the engine and writing tools to use it, and I can really appreciate the scope of the engine, and how comprehensive it is.

Every 2D idea that i have imagined thus-far I see as do-able with the T2D engine, it is that full featured and flexible.

it isnt 100% yet, but aside from a perf issue i'm seeing, I think the engine could be released NOW and people would think it's the greatest thing on the planet... except we know a lot more nifty features are comming in, so we all keep moaning and complaining, wondering when it will be "finished" because we want all that extra sexy functionality.

#10 Thanks for the advise guys.

lol, Jason, now that you put it this way, it is funny to see that everybody in my game are dressed in thongs.

Here is an example of a sprite I made.
With the BOR engine this animation is walking and the engine will "tell" the sprite to follow and attack. Are there these kind of ready made things in Torque? or would I have to come up with a code for my sprite to chase the main character? Or are there some kind of scripts library available?
Sorry if I'm asking too many questions. I just want to make sure I will be able to use the engine if I buy it.

Since you guys have been here longer. Do you think it would be possible for me to find a programmer/programmers in these forums interested in helping with this project if I buy the engine?

#11

Quote:Sorry if I'm asking too many questions.

A group that wants to sell its product learns to answer questions, no matter how many. Often those who ask the more question are often the most serious to develop and see something through to the end (in my experiences of course). I cant answer any of the questions for you since I dont have the engine yet in my hands, but I can assure you questions you have will be answered.

#12 There are quite a few scripts and tutorials posted in the private forums, and as resources. Ofcourse you won't be able to see those until you purchase the engine.

There isn't a built in 'follow player' function, you would need to write it.

If you were serious about developing a beat 'em up game, then your best bet might be to use the BoR engine to create a couple of levels, and then post a 'here's what I've done, are there any programmers who will help me port it to T2D' thread.

#13 Thanks guys.

#14 I agree with Philip! If you are writing a side-scroller beatem'up game, then you should probably stick with what you have now.

though, there is functionality in t2d to let your sprite follow the player (at least i think so!) it's called a "mount point". you can set a sprite to follow after a delay, or be ridged, or move around the mount point according to an algorithm, or a combination of those.

#15 Let there be no doubt - you could do a really kick ass fighter game in T2D.

But it might take a bit of programming muscle to go from the functionality in T2D (particle FX, powerful sprite primitives like mounting, physics, etc.) to a full on fighter engine, and then to build a game on top of that.

So if you don't have a lot of programming oomph, you might be better off with a more "out of box" fighter solution, just to make progress.

If you ever get really serious, get a programmer, etc. I think you'd definitely want to look at T2D again, though.

#16 Thanks Ben,
I guess I will have to stick to an "out of box" solution. I have no programiming skills and the learning curve will delay my project a lot.
Thanks for the info.

One more thing. Is it possible to make games for PSP with Torque 2D?

#17 If you have a publishing deal with Sony, talk to us.

#18 Hi There guys,

It's been a long time since the last time I posted in these forums. A member of this community contacted me about this post and I decided to give you an update on my project.

Here is an image of the "Athena's Nightmare" (Atlantis) Level:


Here is an image of the "Flesh Mill" Level:


As you can see, I have remapped Rael for a more commercial/professional look.

Ben,

To answer your question. I have had a few offers to publish Rael commercially; from a company that still publishes titles for Dreamcast, from the makers of the GP2X handheld console and other PC publishers. But I don't have a deal with Sony yet. They require a few commercially published titles to be able to grant a developer license. I hope soon we will be able to get the license from them. But for now my main priority is it's development for PC.

It would be great to publish Rael for PC using Torque. It's just too hard to find programmers willing work in this project.

Oh, and Thanks Mike for reminding me of this post.