GarageGames has announced the release of Torque Game Builder 1.1.1, a new version of their 2D game creation software for multiple platforms including Mac OS X. A free update for registered users, Torque Game Builder licensing starts at $100 — a 30-day free trial version is available for download.
Using Torque Game builder you can create your own 2D game, making use of sprites, scrolling backgrounds, 3D objects, network, physics and collision detection. The software features its own Game Builder Toolset and script engine, that enables you to manage things like user interface, effects, tiles, level creation and packaging.
GarageGames claims the Torque Game Builder scripting environment will be familiar to users who have worked in Flash, Visual Basic and other scripting languages. What’s more, you can code your software to run on Mac OS X, Windows or Xbox 360 environments (using a separate license). And if you run into limitations that need more resources, you can bring your game into other GarageGames coding environments like the Torque Game Engine.
New to the 1.1.1 release is tile layer editing in the Level Builder, which lets you drag and drop tile layers on a scene and edit them as well. Editor add-on support has been expanded, so you can drop in new functionality to the Level Builder and tools set.
Also, Layer Y-sorting is now supported for isometric games — this lets you do games where player characters need to be rendered in front of or behind an object. And the user interface and workflow for Torque Game Builder has also been tweaked to make it a bit more friendly. More changes have been made also — a complete list of changes has been posted online.
System requirements call for a G4, 512MB RAM, Mac OS X v10.3 and Nvidia or ATI-accelerated 3D graphics. You’ll also need a compiler to implement modified source code. GarageGames recommend’s Apple’s Xcode.