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Torque 3D To Be Released On Github Under the MIT License

Posted by timothy on from the tux-racer-reboot-please dept.

New submitter iamnothing writes "Eric Preisz, CEO of GarageGames, announces, 'Eleven years ago, The GarageGames founders did an incredibly innovative thing when they sold a full source game engine for $100. We are excited to continue in their footsteps by announcing that we will be releasing Torque 3D as the best open source game technology in the world. Once again, GarageGames will be changing game development.'"

6 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. That would change gaming... by eagee · · Score: 3, Informative

    If Torque wasn't kind of a crappy game engine... I mean, I've worked in Torque, and it was pretty rinky dink by comparable standards.

  2. Eh? by ledow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Several notable commercial titles developed using the Torque engine include Blockland, Marble Blast Gold, Minions of Mirth, TubeTwist, Ultimate Duck Hunting, Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa, ThinkTanks, The Destiny of Zorro, Penny Arcade Adventures and most recently, indie video games S.P.A.Z. and Frozen Synapse."

    Sorry, but apart from the last two (who don't exactly excel in their fields, though FS is a good enough turn-based shooter to be fun in multiplayer), that's not a good advertisement.

    And a game engine is a game engine. It just takes work away from programmers who already know how to write one, if they could be bothered, so they can focus on the game itself rather than trivialities (and lots of indie studios make their own engines because it's just that much easier if you keep it all in-house and know what every line does). It's a time-saving device, not a miracle of engineering.

    To say the article summary has some hyperbole is to understate it dramatically.

    1. Re:Eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The engine also powered Tribes and Tribes 2 but in earlier stages (technically the engine that was used for Tribes 1 was called Darkstar I think...but from what I understand that basically evolved into the v12 engine which powered Tribes2...which was then renamed Torque when it was released for $100. I think at the time GarageGames actually wanted to open source it, but due to some issues with Sierra/VUG, they had to charge $100 for it)

    2. Re:Eh? by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, but apart from the last two (who don't exactly excel in their fields, though FS is a good enough turn-based shooter to be fun in multiplayer), that's not a good advertisement.

      If you can make a complete game in it, it's a good game engine. If the game sucks, that's the designers fault, not the engine's.

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  3. Content creation pipeline? by Seriman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No matter how a person might feel about the games using the engine or the engine itself, this is a good thing. If it does something wonderful for open source gaming, however, it will be through a more competent content creation pipeline. There are loads of excellent open source engines out there but getting your content into them can be a serious challenge. If it isn't released with solid import options and content creation tools it will just be another engine choice in a growing pool of already competent engines. Again, that's not a bad thing at all, it just isn't anything new.

  4. A better open source engine by Da_Slayer · · Score: 3, Informative

    I would just like to point out the OGRE - Open Source 3D Graphics Engine which is MIT licensed and has been around since 2001. OGRE is a better built system and the games in the gallery show this off.

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