Torque 2D v1.7.6 Released!

It's been quite a while since I've written a blog, and I couldn't be happier that my return to our blog space is to announce the release of Torque 2D 1.7.6. This release addresses several bugs and also adds OSX Lion support. You can download it now from your account!

Devotion to Quality

This release has been a long time coming. Last year saw GarageGames' pursuit of publishing high quality products enhanced with the addition of a QA team lead by yours truly. Torque 2D had the honor of being the first product to benefit from this addition, but at the same time it carried the burden of a promised ship date that couldn't slip. Being the first major release it had undefined processes. With rushed testing we were using processes that were still on the drawing board and we ended up with a release we couldn't be as proud of as we could have been, for which I even issued a public apology.

However, Torque 2D taught us many lessons last year and is responsible for the bulk of our QA processes now. These processes are what have allowed us to swear "Never again", and I am extremely pleased that now Torque 2D has benefited from the processes for which it is responsible. Torque 2D 1.7.6 contains many bugfixes and is a solid, stable release. There have also been some improvements that we've ported over from iTorque such as OSX Lion support.

Holiday Bundle

If you haven't seen it yet, we're running a holiday promotion with Torque 2D and iTorque 2D to purchase both together for only $199!

Changelog

Improvements:

• Updated documentation for 1.7.6 release (TDOC-321)
• Updated engine to be compliant with OS X 10.7 (Lion)
• Added Visual Studio 2010 solution
• About screen updated to reflect new GarageGames staff

Fixes:

• Game no longer crashes when custom collision mode is used. Objects will not collide until the developer writes the custom collision code (TGB-527)
• GUI Editor no longer crashes when you try to add a control outside of the root control (TGB-542)
• Updated version on Start Page (TGB-523)
• Stopped open project loop (TGB-522)
• Updated about screen credits (TGB-521)
• GUI Builder: Adding a control outside the bounds of the top-level control causes crash (TGB-542)
• UTF character rendering is working again.
• Modified image map editor scripts to get Filter Pad and Filter Mode to recognize user changes. They were being ignored previously. (TGB-504)
• Missing memory function errors resolved by including in profiler.cc
• Fixed duplicate sprite bug when loading a project (TGB-518)
• Added sourceRect serialization and deep copy to t2dScroller and t2dStaticSprite (TGB-490)
• Cleaned up the SourceRect feature for sprites and scrollers, filling out the missing sections and fixing the RectI conversion issues (TGB-490)(TGB-517)
• Object tree no longer auto-scrolls to the bottom when selecting an object higher up in the list (TGB-503)
• Debugging a project from Torsion works again (TGB-505)
• gamegameScriptsdatablocks.dso will now load without requiring the .cs equivalent to exist in the same directory (TGB-68)
• Visual Studio buttons in the editor have been updated to 2008 and 2010 (TGB-528)
• Modified window creation for OS X to stop it from opening too large
• Updated projects to use the proper output directories
• Community and forum links in Help menu now point to the correct locations (TGB-554)
• TutorialBase project now contains all the images and animations it needs to get particles working again (TGB-519)
• Added runBatchFile ConsoleFunction for OS X runtime. This allows the developer to run .sh batch files from the editor or game, but it is Mac only
• OpenFileDialog - custom cursor gets stuck on the button and does not show the hardware cursor (TGB-512)

Removed:

• Resolved compiler error with stripcache on OS X Lion. The code is not being used anywhere, so it has been deprecated (TGB-515)
• D3D mode for the editor. This is rarely used, if at all. No reason to have it, as OpenGL is the default and always works (TGB-509)
• Visual Studio 2005 solution replaced with Visual Studio 2010