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Topic: Torque Game Builder Pro - vs.- GameMaker7 (Read 13097 times)
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Matt Langley
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"many hobbyist photographers will spend a good $300-1000 on a good camera and $649 on Photoshop, while others will use Gimp and a $100 camera." So this implies GM7 is not as good quality as TGB. I'll need to DL the trial, which I'll do this week sometime. And thanx for your replies.
Not necessarily implying that GM7 is not as good quality as TGB... for one, you included a version number for GM but not for TGB, so it wouldn't be a good detailed comparison. Plus quality would definitely not be what I would use as a comparison value. Also, a $100 camera may be the same quality as the $800 dollar one, in fact it may (and probably will) be easier to use, have friendlier settings, etc... I merely compared the price ranges, not the quality in my analogy.
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« Last Edit: December 06, 2007, 04:56:02 am by Matt Langley »
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Matt Langley
Lead Tool Development Engineer
GarageGames
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RTyp06
*Smell* controller
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Meep has a good point. If I can buy twelve copies of GM7 Pro for one Torque GBP, I'm gonna be expecting some impressive features if I had bought the later. Somthing akin to comparing Windows Paint to Corell Draw perhaps.
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Matt Langley
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And you do seem to be here to defend Game Builder Pro.
True, though I personally like to think of it more as offering another perspective  In the context of defending it gives me the feeling I'm trying to invalidate the opinions or arguments of others when in truth I'm simply trying to give an additional perspective with the potential of defending if I find something that I believe is completely false. In the end view points of engines and tools can be (and typically are) very subjective, so I'm not so proud as to think that just because someone doesn't like our tool or an aspect of it that it must be because they are wrong.
So, since you asked for questions, and you did say "They both have their strengths and weaknesses and I'll be the first to admit those of TGB.", my question (on behalf of the potential customers here) would be "What are the strengths and weaknesses of TGB?".
Note that every flaw you point out will increase your credibility when you talk about the good parts.
A very valid request, though note that what you are asking for is an honest analysis of TGB, not a comparisson of TGB to GM... comparing two products can be fairly difficult with aspects that have weighted values relative to the onlooker, so doing an analysis of TGB is something I am much more comfortable doing. I am comfortable comparing aspects of engines and tools, but in the end the person is often more of a deciding factor of what they produce rather than the tool.
TGB
Strengths:
- A moderate amount of accessible documentation
- An efficient tool that can be easy to learn
- A powerful and engine, based on C++, and a tool that doesn't limit your capabilities, with efficiency tools such as a built in profiler.
- Option for source code, this includes source code of the editors. This is actually a fairly significant thing that can be easily overlooked. If you can't get access to the source code you have the potential to run into unsolvable issues... while having the source code allows any issue to be solvable. Also lack of source code makes one question the quality of the code and the efficiency of it.
- Based on the Torque core that has been used for various games, from small to large, here is a sampling of games released with the different Torque engines.
- The Torque core originated with a commercial game, then turned into an Indie sellable engine and has been worked on over the past 7-8 years... in some very real ways this lends a great deal of stability to the engine
- A helpful community
- A very capable 2D engine that has a very robust particle system
- Uses the same scripting language as our other engines, which makes it a lot easier to move from TGB to our 3D engines. Our 3D engines have the capability of being ported to a version running on the Xbox 360 and the Wii, it's nice to have proven options
- "behaviors", basically a scripting module, not all that different from the concept of components
- When you buy TGB you get access to TXB, an editor that works with our TorqeX XNA engine. A nice option for the fans of XNA.
- We have always had a huge Indie oriented reputation and goal, this shows in most aspects of the company, we try to be as active as we can on our forums. I personally scan the TGB forums and try to answer as many questions as possible, though we also have great community members that do this as well...
- A manual networking system that allows especially for turn-based games
Weaknesses:
- Our latest release of TGB, 1.5 and 1.5.1 have some semi-large issues with the engine and documentation that normally wouldn't make it out into release, we are working on our next release to remedy these issues.
- Physics... our physics system is ok for basic physics, though has issues with complex rigid body physics, especially involving stacking
- Just as being based on the Torque core with a long history of work and stable games of commercial quality, some aspects of the engine inherit antiquated systems, specifically our sound system. It works, but is a no frills system.
- We have a fairly solid base of documentation, though we could definitely use more... this is always true no matter how much documentation you have, though I would definitely say we could use a good deal more to reach a point t hat I would be very pleased with
- Our wiki, TDN (Torque Developer Network) is a good source of outdated material, unfortunately as I just said it is outdated, so it holds some gems for certain implementations of TGB, though is of limited usefulness
- Lack of asset management in the tool, this can cause issues when you load a large amount of resources in the editor causing it to load with a delay (and eat up memory). If you have the source code to the editor you can add in whatever you want, though that's definitely far from ideal.
- The editor isn't as friendly as it could be about sanity checking, such as naming objects the same thing, etc
- Packaging options are fairly basic, would be nice to have an option that automatically zipped it up or put it into an installer
- Image efficiency can be an issue based on what type of game you are making (a lot of images with very different transparent areas), a lot of this can be tweaked later by modifying the source art, though options in the engine would be nice...
- The GUI editor is fairly antiquated and is fairly limited (very static). For dynamic GUIs you end up creating them in the tool for level building, though there are some things that don't have the same options as the GUI system, such as a diverse amount of text and scroll controls.
There's a rough rundown. I tried to avoid feature listing and lacking and focus on more real development strengths and weaknesses. I can obviously get more detailed in certain areas if anyone has intrigue in anything specific. I also tried to roughly weigh the strengths and weaknesses equally... there are a lot of ways I could've done this.
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Matt Langley
Lead Tool Development Engineer
GarageGames
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Matt Langley
Zebranky food
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Posts: 7
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Meep has a good point. If I can buy twelve copies of GM7 Pro for one Torque GBP, I'm gonna be expecting some impressive features if I had bought the later. Somthing akin to comparing Windows Paint to Corell Draw perhaps.
To a point I understand and agree, though remember value is sometimes linear, sometimes it isn't... Often there are thresholds in prices, sometimes to go a step further with specific features you have to jump price more than a linear jump. Also your analogy isn't quite what I would use since paint is free, you could say Gimp to Corell Draw and run into issues since GIMP has a lot of features for free and Corell Draw probably will be far from a linear value comparison. Paint Shp Pro is $90 while Photoshop is $649, psp pro actually has a lot of the features of photoshop but with a huge cost difference, yet many people pay the difference.
You can do this with game engines too... for example Unreal goes for around $200,000 - $1,000,000... with Unreal 3 possibly extending above the million marker. You can compare that engine to our Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA) at about $295 and you won't get a linear value proposition... all features and aspects are not equal and are of a subjective value to different people.
That said, keep in mind GM7 Pro doesn not come with source code... TGB Pro does... in fact the only difference between TGB and TGB Pro is the source code, so a better comparison is GM7 to TGB... $20 compared to $100, since the pro title means something different.... So a 1 to 5 ration not 1 to 12... TGB Pro comes with source code at $295 and no version of GM does that.
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Matt Langley
Lead Tool Development Engineer
GarageGames
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xenoclone
*Many bubbles*
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I actually got TGB because at $100 it was a good deal compared to "Learn How to Program Games"-type books, which usually run $60. In fact, those books tend to disappoint, hence why I was browsing the web ~1.5 years ago for a 2D engine-- and found T2D/TGB.
But for $250, you're now looking at 1-2 books, Corel paint shop, low-end 3D software, etc, all together for the same price. So if I were looking today, I don't know if the value proposition for TGB at that price would make me buy.
The reality, of course, things are different. Now that I'm familiar with Torque, I'm all the more likely to continue down that line of products. I've been able to get two games past the 90% complete point using TGB and don't want to squander the experience by changing engines again. That doesn't mean I don't think GG is acting a little strange --the Instant Action contest is odd to me. Couldn't we pitch games already? What's the point of the contest other than to say landing a contract is rare?-- but the experience outweighs my confusion!
Matt: how did you stumble upon this forum? Googling GameMaker/TGB? Following progress on Xeno Verus? Just a fan of StarCon? 
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RTyp06
*Smell* controller
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Meep has a good point. If I can buy twelve copies of GM7 Pro for one Torque GBP, I'm gonna be expecting some impressive features if I had bought the later. Somthing akin to comparing Windows Paint to Corell Draw perhaps.
To a point I understand and agree, though remember value is sometimes linear, sometimes it isn't... Often there are thresholds in prices, sometimes to go a step further with specific features you have to jump price more than a linear jump. Also your analogy isn't quite what I would use since paint is free, you could say Gimp to Corell Draw and run into issues since GIMP has a lot of features for free and Corell Draw probably will be far from a linear value comparison. Paint Shp Pro is $90 while Photoshop is $649, psp pro actually has a lot of the features of photoshop but with a huge cost difference, yet many people pay the difference.
Very true, "value" is subjective and means different things to different people. My comparison between Draw and Corel was to illustrate differences in features. I think it's safe to say that there lies a noticeable difference between the two programs, </capt._obvious>.
You can do this with game engines too... for example Unreal goes for around $200,000 - $1,000,000... with Unreal 3 possibly extending above the million marker. You can compare that engine to our Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA) at about $295 and you won't get a linear value proposition... all features and aspects are not equal and are of a subjective value to different people.
unreal engine is aimed at professional game studios, a very small niche market. It seems odd to compare GM7 and TGB to unreal engine.
That said, keep in mind GM7 Pro doesn not come with source code... TGB Pro does... in fact the only difference between TGB and TGB Pro is the source code, so a better comparison is GM7 to TGB... $20 compared to $100, since the pro title means something different.... So a 1 to 5 ration not 1 to 12... TGB Pro comes with source code at $295 and no version of GM does that.
True. I have DL'd the demo TGB. I have ran it once and went straight to the help. I like that it links to a webpage because you know the information is up to the minute accurate. Just hope you never go down. In GM7 the help is offline, but it's a complete robust manual. It covers everything. I learn more GM scripting from using GM's help/manual than any other source.
First impressions, very nice apperance. Very professional. But I don't have a clue how to use it, yet. I have this weekend to try it out more.
Also, those game links you posted. Very nice. I need to backtrack a bit on what I wrote earlier. It's rare to see a GM game coming out like those. But the gm games you find and play are all free and usually written by a single person, not a dev. team.
http://www.yoyogames.com/browse?sort=staff
Take your pick. you can definately see the ametur in these games, but at least they're free.
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JonoPorter
Enlightened
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Don't mess with the US.
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You mention physics as a weakness. I have been working on a 2d physics engine for a while and it can do some very complex scenarios its called Physics2D.Net. Take a look at an demo video. Its licensed as MIT so you can use it in your product. It’s written in C# so it may not be too useful to you. The solver is based on an old version of Box2D which is written in C++.
My engine does have a few weaknesses:
Lack of Swept collision detection.
Lack of object freezing.
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sourab
Zebranky food
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about TGB
« Reply #26 on: December 25, 2007, 08:27:11 am » |
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hey guys i was wondering this thing, do TGB gave functions to draw primitive drawings like circle , triangle,polygon etc....i checked the reference but didn't find any. 
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