If you’re looking for a way to create your own high quality 3D action games on a Mac, GarageGames.com has some very good news. The company has announced the release of the Torque Game Engine (TGE) for the Macintosh. It’s a modified version of the technology that powers Sierra’s action game for Windows, Tribes 2.
TGE supports multiplatform standards like TCP/IP for networking, OpenGL for 3D graphics and OpenAL for sound. The technology incorporates a scripting engine, GUI engine, mission editor, 3D engine, mesh engine, particle effects engine, terrain engine, interior/building engine and much more.
David Chait has been hard at work on bringing TGE to the Macintosh for months, and his efforts culminated in the release of TGE for the Mac. Chait is best know to Mac users as the co-founder of Reality Bytes, the Cambridge, Ma.-based computer game developer behind Dark Vengeance, published by MacSoft.
“I’d like to thank everyone involved with helping pull it together,” said Chait in a recent .plan file update. “Just like the Windows code, it will continue to evolve, but it was pretty cool playing Crime Force with a Mac and a PC.”
Crime Force is a TGE-developed game from Doyoon Kim. This screenshot shows the game running on Mac OS X, thanks to the efforts of Chait and others who worked on the Mac implementation of the Torque Game Engine.
Typically one of the biggest up front costs for AAA computer game titles is the development or licensing of the underpinning 3D engine technology. Such efforts can cost hundreds of thousands, or in the case of original engine development, millions of dollars worth of research and development.
One of the most interesting aspects to GarageGames.com’s business is that it sells developers the TGE itself for a scant $100, and splits revenue on the finished product down the line. This, the founders hope, will stimulate more game development from smaller studios and individuals who couldn’t get a break in the business before now.
To use TGE to develop games on your Mac, you’ll need a G3/400MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB HD, Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X, and a Radeon or GeForce2 MX-based video card (or better) with 32MB RAM (Radeon 8500 or GeForce3 with 64MB highly recommended).
You’ll also need the latest DrawSprocket and InputSprocket libraries for Mac OS 9, latest drivers for your video card, TCP/IP properly configured, and OpenAL Runtime or SDK.