The last couple months have been pretty active with some relocation changes.  We’re in the process of moving and also doing both ends of the real estate transactions (buying one, selling one).  So that has been occupying a lot of brain cycles.

All the menial tasks involved with getting one house ready to sell and moving into another one have been a welcome distraction, though.  I was starting to feel pretty tapped out creatively, but I think all the physical labor and other things have been slowly refilling the brain.

So to get a distraction from the moving stuff (oh, the irony) I’ve been putting in some time learning Torque Game Builder (TGB).  I’m always on the lookout for good prototyping and/or release-quality dev tools, and I’ve been meaning to look at Torque more in-depth for quite some time, given the large suite of products that are in the line.

Checking out Torque is a decidely two-step process. Step one is deciphering *just what exactly all the Garage Games product offerings are*. This seriously took me longer than it should:

• Torque Game Engine
• Torque Game Builder
• Torque Engine Advanced
• Torque X Engine
• Torque Wii
• Torque 360
• Torque iPhone

Some of those are pretty self-explanatory, but it’s the top four that can be a bit confusing until you do a lot of site surfing.

Some months ago I downloaded Torque X as part of the Xbox360 Creators Club stuff, but this time I focused on Torque Game Builder, which is the 2D game engine (formerly known as Torque2D).

On a hobbyist/indie level I’m primarily interested in 2D games with a classic feel (but state of the art design and scope), so that’s why Torque Game Builder (TGB) fits the bill.

In a week and a half’s worth of futzing around with TGB, I’m left with a few distinct impressions:

1. It is indeed very robust and has a lot of functionality.
2. It is nowhere nearly as user friendly as say, GameMaker.  If you don’t have actual programming experience or don’t want to learn programming, then stay away from Torque like the plague.  In my case I am trying to expand my programming skills so it isn’t a dealbreaker. But if you are just wanting to prototype games, then GameMaker, RPG Maker, etc. are way better options for you. (As an aside, I can’t say enough good things about GameMaker…such a cool program.)
3. As promised by Garage Games, there is indeed a wealth of Torque reference material on their site (reference, tutorials, forums, etc.).  UNFORTUNATELY, this is somewhat like having a thick textbook ripped apart and the pages scattered all over your house–you know the info is there, but finding it is not always easy.  Sometimes locating the tidbit you need involves searching the offline documentation, online documentation, forums, AND TDN (Torque Developer Network) Wiki.  And I’m often still left without an answer.  Like, say, how can I access the constant PI!!!!  This is exacerbated by parts of the documentation directing you to the old Torque2D documentation, which is *mostly* correct but not totally correct, as indicated by the disclaimers therein.

It may sound like I’m down on TGB, but that’s not entirely true.  I am enjoying the robustness and overall capabilities of the engine.  For example, the integrated physics was perfect for the game I’m prototyping, and the time saved in coding collision algorithms and complex bounce reponses is already worth the investment.  Also, the particle FX engine is pretty cool.

Right now I’m just wishing the documentation was a bit more collected and the search capabilities on the site were a bit more straightforward.  Maybe I’ll post some prototype works-in-progress here as I move forward.

Now back to Torque-ing my brain.