A Cruel fate for a Blitzer

Forgive me, I just want a place to vent.

So I've joined this group of programmers and artists. We're all 4th year students except for the "leader" who started
this whole thing. He was a programming student who now teaches at the College across the river from my Uni. Good guy.

But he's insisting on using Torque. And he's already spent many hundreds of dollars on the engine + "lighting pack"
(wtf?) + content packs, etc.

Him and his buddy both have their programming degrees. They've told me they know how to do things in OpenGL. And they've got
four of us "New media" guys to model whatever they need. Yet they insist on using this automatic cookie-cutter game-maker.

Besides the huge lack of potential for originality with this package, the other main gripe so far has been its stability.


The Torque demo games are very picky about which machines they run on! They don't even start up on half the machines
at the school. Some machines will run them, but they still crash intermittently. At today's meeting, while we were
working out our pipeline for importing models, it crashed 4 times. 4! All within 3 hours! And we don't have any complicated
scripts written yet. (For the record, I've NEVER seen a Blitz game refuse to run on any machine I've tried. The only time I've
seen my games crash is when I divide by zero, etc.)

So my question is: What's the appeal of Torque? (Besides the obvious drag-n-drop game making)

I've already demonstrated Blitz's superior stability and control to the other team members and they see it. But we
don't want to have to split. Especially since we have a good group set up here.

Oi vey! Why me?

Same as DBP - better marketing and hype.

Torque's a good tool but so is Blitz. Torque is definitely not a good tool for drag and drop game making. I don't know where you got that idea. You'll need more experienced team members if you're going to use Torque as it's the harder tool to get a real grasp on. The benefits of it are that you get the C++ core, it does come with a full suit of editors for GUI, particles, and levels, it's been ported to Xbox 360 among other high profile platforms (and any script code or game side C++ changes will slide in), and yes the guys behind it are a bit more business savy ... though I don't really think Bill Gates claiming that his son's favorite game Marble Blast Ultra on Xbox 360 is some false hype. In my opinion that's a real result of what you can do with Torque. The guys at Garage Games will support you if you've got a good game and you use their platform so that's actually a real benefit ... not just hype.

If you have a talented team theres no reason Torque cant make a good game.

i hate torque! but it shouldnt crash, my team tried for 2 years to get something good out of torque we finally gave up when our lead programmer was killed in a hit and run. we had very little trouble with crashing though, so i think there maybe something wrong with your build.

It's true that BRL didn't do much marketing.

They'll be disappointed if that's what they're expecting. While it does have a cookie-cutter aspect to it, in terms of similarities between games, it's far from automatic. In fact, you spend an awful lot of time trying to stop it doing things you don't want it to do and even more trying to get it to do things it wasn't originally designed to do. I found it to be one of those engines you're constantly fighting instead of one you just work with.

I have found it a bit crashy though, I must admit, even if others don't appear to have done. I found both the original and TSE demos crashed on two different machines. I'm guessing they're very picky about driver versions. But I haven't found a tool that doesn't have issues in this regard. I mean BlitzMax seems to have issues with Win98. I think it's just a case of finding one that has issues in areas you're not too worried about. ( EG: hardcore shooter, you won't worry about OpenGL drivers so much. High-end game, you won't worry about Win98 or pre-shader card support so much. )

Ah, right. There's Torque, and then there's the "Torque Game Builder", which is what we're using.

I cannot comment on the (probably better) Torque engine. But the Game Builder can jump off a CPU tower for all I care.

TGB did has a killer GUI and some nice addons
Currently digging on HGE and liking it(open source for free).

Oh, didn't realize you meant TGB. I haven't tried that at all, although I would be tempted if I was writing any more 2d games. When I was making a 2d game, I really liked HGE and compatibility was good, so I decided to go with that instead.

You'll never create anything you like whilst you feel so negatively about the Torque engine. It is a beast but the word it when you get passed the first set of hurdles and get comfy with it, well word is its worth struggling with. The problem is unless you have someone who is pretty competent and knows what they are doing with it, it will take a long time.

I have to say we've looked into it and tried to break into using it but we came back to B3d. We are happy here for now, and are currently looking continually at Virtools, Leadwerks' Engine and BMax (fingers crossed).

If you want to be more involved with the process instead of just the art, then I suggest you tell the lead programmer, you want in and you want him to teach you and now.

IPete2.

I don't see why this would be. Any game can be created with any engine. The amount of work involved is all that varies.

Torque Game Builder is a great tool. I don't see what you're complaining about. As I said, Blitz is also great but hell for 2D I wouldn't touch anything but TGB. If it's crashing then I think you're doing something wrong. As I said above you get the editors, you get the C++, and you get Garage Games support onto the consoles if you make something good. On top of that the scripting language in TGB is very near what Blitz3D is, minus some of the nice low level stuff that Blitz yields access to ... but that's what the C++ code is for.

LMAO.

I know, I know. Yeah, I'm whining a bit, but my unhappiness is not totally unfounded.

The included game demos crash. On multiple machine setups.



Admittedly, I haven't dug very deep into the scripting, but I'm currently looking at options like :
"FPS Starter kit" and "Racing Starter Kit". It makes me cringe. I know you can do more than
this, but these two options are what I'm presented with when I install the package. I apparently
have to dig to get more freedom.


I just want you guys to realise that I don't really hate torque that much, though. I'm mostly
reacting to the shock of seeing these two experienced programmers choose a game-making
package over a proper language. That's just me, I guess.

Two experienced programmers would obviously choose Torque due to the fact that it's a full engine with C++ source included. It's not what you're making it out to be at all. It's a more advanced tool in the hands of experienced programmers.

Ah hah! But you see, they aren't touching any c++.

Well that is a bit of a tussel then. Obviously, the biggest advantage (other than the influence Garage Games has) is having complete access to the tool. Still, TGB is no slouch. As I said I wouldn't use anything else for 2D. I toyed with BMax for a while but TGB makes the process so much more manageable it's not funny. What sort of limitations are you experiencing?

It's mainly the instability that is causing grief for us. We are also having strange, illogical importing issues, but
I know things like that smooth out over time.

If the package allows as much freedom as you guys insist, then I suppose that's not much of an issue, then, either.

To be perfectly frank, I'm really just upset that we're not using Blitz (Yeah yeah, I'm a fanboy). I mean, I've looked.
I actually paid a google researcher 50 bucks to help me find the best language or engine setup for me to create
games as a hobby. He did his research, came up with a whole list of setups, but recommended I specifically try one of
the Blitz packages. I had been shopping around for a very long time before that and I knew of DB, Allegro, VB, Torque
and whatnot. I had even tried most of them. But once I compiled a little test program in blitz I knew this was the
one. The fun I've had programming since then has confirmed it.

I just wish everyone in the world used blitz. Everyone would be happy and issues like this could be avoided.

Hehe, well I can't say I don't feel the same about Blitz in many instances. It is a beautifuly elegant tool. However, there's good in all of them.