GarageGames on Wednesday announced the release of two new tools to make it easier for people with an idea to create their own games: Torque Game Builder and Torque Game Builder Pro. Both are available for Mac OS X and Windows, with prices starting at $100.
Torque Game Builder features tools for making animated sprites, flexible tiles, a special effects system, collision detection, physics and hardware-accelerated 2D rendering. Editors help you manage interface creation, effects, tiles, level building and packaging.
The software is primarily designed for 2D game creation, though GarageGames notes that you can create “pseudo-3D games” akin to Civilization using the software as well.
“Much the same way that anyone can pick up an instrument and learn to play music, we want them to be able to pick up one of our engines and learn to make games,” said GarageGames President Mark Frohnmayer in a statement. “Torque Game Builder goes a long way towards making that a reality.”
GarageGames sells the software to independent developers and hobbyists for $100; that price doesn’t require developers to pay any royalities. The Pro version costs indie developers $250 and includes C++ and TorqueScript source code. Versions for commercial developers are available for $495 and $1,250 respectively. A 30-day trial version is available.
System requirements call for a G4 or better, 512MB RAM, Mac OS X v10.3 and Nvidia or ATI 3D graphics.