Quick Question

#1 If you're looking ot do a Galaga type game, look into TGB instead of TGE, it will save you lots of headaches.

#2 We'd like to use 3D assets, and have the option for 3D gameplay in later attempts - I have a few years of professional programming experience, the rest of the group has anywhere from a few months to a year experience in other useful areas, so we'd like to plunge ahead with a 3D toolset.

I just want to make sure that Torque is right for us.

#3 TGE would be just fine for it. IMO making it 3D would be cooler, you could have special effects where the enemies swooped down onto the playing field, etc.

#4 Well, parallel to this thread, another exists. what do you know...

http://garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=76525

But if your heart is already set on TGE instead of TGB (in which you can use 3d assets) and you have the programming chops, then TGE will be a workable solution for you. As for how it compares to other 3d engines to be used to create a 2d game, I don't know.

Can you elaborate on what criteria you're looking for to determine if TGE is right for you?

Best bet... try the demo.

'Patrick

#5 It is really easy to make a top-down arcade type game in TGE/A, and it takes very little code modification to get it going.

#6 That's nearly exactly what we're looking for - are there any resources/tutorials available for recreating that? We're still waiting on a teammate to get back in the country before making our final decision on engines, but I'd love to start reading about this.

#7 You might find some resources/tutorials for this kind of stuff if you look around, but personally I just started messing with the code, more specifically gui modifications for mouse aiming, camera position/angle, and movement vector. I'd say you can get a top down arcade shooter going in about 50 lines or less of code. not bad. I've been thinking about making a resource for people so that they can see how easy it really is to implement different types of control/gameplay that are not geared towards FPSs. Not sure if I can get around to it tho or if enough people would be interested in this or find it useful.

As for RTS type game play, I recommend you grab a license to the RTS starter kit along with TGE/A and either use the kit, or rip out what you need and apply it to your own project.

#8 Might I also add that one of the top reasons to use Torque over another engine is if you are planning any kind of multiplayer. Torque has THE BEST network code in existence, period. No engine, regardless of the price tag, can compare to Torque's network code. Torque is geared and built around network functionality and handles it very well. For an example, and this is from personal experience, in tribes2 I could play on a server with 32 people on a 28.8k dialup connection with no lag what so ever, and this includes vehicles. Lets see Halo or Unreal do that. I haven't yet.