Max Gaming Technologies LLC is working on a new action game for multiple platforms, including the Mac. Based on the Torque Game engine, Dark Horizons: Lore will be published by GarageGames. What’s more, the developer has announced that it’s accepting applications for an open beta.
Dark Horizons: Lore is set in the 22nd century, where nations combat each other using pilots who control “Mechanized Assault Vehicles,” or MAVs. MAVs — giant robots piloted by remote control, essentially — are armed to the teeth with plasma rifles, cannons and missiles. You can customize and pilot your own MAV or control up to six at a time. It’s the first time in several years that Mac gamers have had a brand new “mecha” game to play.
Max Gaming is opening a thousand seats to do an expanded beta test of the game, due for general release before the end of the year. The company is now taking applications on its Web site for interested gamers who want to participate.
The underlying core technology that powers Dark Horizons: Lore, the Torque Game Engine, is a multi-platform 3D gaming technology developed by programmers who originally worked at Sierra subsidiary Dynamix to develop the 3D action game Tribes 2. As GarageGames, they license the Torque Game Engine to independent developers — it’s already been used to create several new Mac games, including Marble Blast, Orbz and ThinkTanks, all of which are available for download and license from the GarageGames Web site.
“Lore will use a persistent character technology to track and meta map the development of the game space,” said the developers. “In addition to testing the backend technologies the player community will be invited in this early release to being collaborating with the game developers on possible sanctioned mods for the game.”
Dark Horizons: Lore is Max Gaming’s first entry into what the company hopes will be an entire franchise of games based in the same fictional universe, including a pen-and-paper role playing game that they hope to release sometime next year. Dark Horizons: Lore took second place in the multiplayer competition at the recent Independent Games Conference in Eugene, Ore. held earlier this month. It also tied for Best Art.
Preliminary system requirements, as offered on the Dark Horizons: Lore Web site, seem fairly modest — comparable to other recent Torque Game Engine-based titles.