T2d vs. FlashMX?
by Peter Gault · in Torque Game Builder · 06/06/2005 (9:55 pm) · 25 replies
I was wondering if I could get some opinions on Torque 2d vs. FlashMX. I wish to make a game similar to Alien Hominid. A very simple 2d scroller game. I was wondering if the benfits of torque 2d outwiegh FlashMX for a project like this.
Pros of FlashMX
-You can play it online
-It has a larger community
Cons of FlashMX
-Not as advanced as torque2d
Pros of Torque2d
-Better Physics, etc.
Con
-Cant be played online
-Longer to develop
I dont have much info about torque 2d or flash mx at this point, so I could appricate the input. Again I am aiming at making a 2d scroller game so what advantages would torque2d serve?
Pros of FlashMX
-You can play it online
-It has a larger community
Cons of FlashMX
-Not as advanced as torque2d
Pros of Torque2d
-Better Physics, etc.
Con
-Cant be played online
-Longer to develop
I dont have much info about torque 2d or flash mx at this point, so I could appricate the input. Again I am aiming at making a 2d scroller game so what advantages would torque2d serve?
About the author
#22
I'm new to T2D (I just purchased it last week) but my day job is as a Sr Flash Developer so I can speak to some of these comments. In general though, I completely agree with Andrew's assessment.
Overall, the primary advantages to Flash are: A huge installed base, the fact that games can be played in a browser with no download and incredible ease of development.
IMHO, the disadvantage to Flash is pretty much just one thing: Performance! In their effort to keep the player download as compact as possible, they've limited its performance capabilities. (Also, for games, the lack of a right click button is a pretty brutal drawback as well.)
@Christopher: You are correct. The bitmap caching in Flash 8 substantially increases performance for certain types of games. Regarding vector graphics, I haven't used a single vector graphic in 2 years! It's just way too CPU intensive. Macromedia was playing up the whole vector thing several years ago when most of the world was on dial-up, but now 100 percent of all games in Flash use bitmaps. You need the CPU freed up for processing the game logic and animation and file size is just not too much of a concern anymore.
@Ray: I think you're really selling Flash a bit short. ;) Yes, it does have it's shortcomings and you are correct in that it wasn't designed to create games. However, Macromedia/Adobe realize that they need to make it more game friendly (hence the bitmap caching in Flash 8). As a matter of fact, I was just at Flash Forward a couple of weeks ago and they showed off the new Flash Player 8.5 which has a completely new virtual machine and Actionscript 3.0 has been completely rebuilt from the ground up. It's going to be a pretty serious development platform once this update is out there. However, don't expect to be able to develop for 8.5 on a wide scale until next year when the penetration level will be high enough.
Also, see this link for what is pretty much the definitive list of Flash pros and cons for game development. link
Let me just finish this long-winded post by saying that in the short amount of time I've used it, T2D is unquestionably superior to Flash for game development. I'll still use Flash for games that need to be 100 percent available online and for interactive content as that's what it does best. But I can see that once I become adept at Torquescript and the concepts of the Torque engine, it will be a far more effective tool for creating "professional quality" games.
The reason I purchased it is that I have a game concept that I want to release as a standalone, downloadable game and T2D is just a better option than Flash. Believe me, if I could do what I wanted to do in Flash I would since I know it inside and out. But even though I'm pretty much starting over with T2D, I feel it will be the right decision in the long run.
03/28/2006 (2:08 pm)
(Let me preface this by saying that I have a really bad flu so I apologize in advance if parts of this are incoherent ;)I'm new to T2D (I just purchased it last week) but my day job is as a Sr Flash Developer so I can speak to some of these comments. In general though, I completely agree with Andrew's assessment.
Overall, the primary advantages to Flash are: A huge installed base, the fact that games can be played in a browser with no download and incredible ease of development.
IMHO, the disadvantage to Flash is pretty much just one thing: Performance! In their effort to keep the player download as compact as possible, they've limited its performance capabilities. (Also, for games, the lack of a right click button is a pretty brutal drawback as well.)
@Christopher: You are correct. The bitmap caching in Flash 8 substantially increases performance for certain types of games. Regarding vector graphics, I haven't used a single vector graphic in 2 years! It's just way too CPU intensive. Macromedia was playing up the whole vector thing several years ago when most of the world was on dial-up, but now 100 percent of all games in Flash use bitmaps. You need the CPU freed up for processing the game logic and animation and file size is just not too much of a concern anymore.
@Ray: I think you're really selling Flash a bit short. ;) Yes, it does have it's shortcomings and you are correct in that it wasn't designed to create games. However, Macromedia/Adobe realize that they need to make it more game friendly (hence the bitmap caching in Flash 8). As a matter of fact, I was just at Flash Forward a couple of weeks ago and they showed off the new Flash Player 8.5 which has a completely new virtual machine and Actionscript 3.0 has been completely rebuilt from the ground up. It's going to be a pretty serious development platform once this update is out there. However, don't expect to be able to develop for 8.5 on a wide scale until next year when the penetration level will be high enough.
Also, see this link for what is pretty much the definitive list of Flash pros and cons for game development. link
Let me just finish this long-winded post by saying that in the short amount of time I've used it, T2D is unquestionably superior to Flash for game development. I'll still use Flash for games that need to be 100 percent available online and for interactive content as that's what it does best. But I can see that once I become adept at Torquescript and the concepts of the Torque engine, it will be a far more effective tool for creating "professional quality" games.
The reason I purchased it is that I have a game concept that I want to release as a standalone, downloadable game and T2D is just a better option than Flash. Believe me, if I could do what I wanted to do in Flash I would since I know it inside and out. But even though I'm pretty much starting over with T2D, I feel it will be the right decision in the long run.
#23
03/28/2006 (6:23 pm)
Sweet, great writeup.
#24
I think the same comparison holds for TGB and Flash. Flash is great for simple things, like "hit the monkey, win a prize". The problem is, when you go much beyond that type of functionality, it falls flat. Flash is designed to make animations with simple user interaction, and it has great tools for doing just that. Doing anything beyond that is really pushing the limits of the platform.
TGB on the other hand is designed from the ground up just to make games. You can literally make a game with a few dozen lines of script code. Everything else you can do right through the very intuitive level builder interface. TGB enables you to create games so fast that it amazes you. Its really the first true RAD tool for creating games.
04/10/2006 (7:42 am)
In my opinion a comparison of Flash and TGB doesn't really make sense. It would be like comparing Visual Studio .NET to Dreamweaver. Yes you can make some nice websites in Dreamweaver, and if you are creative, you can create some nice interactive websites. On the other hand, if you want a rich user experience, rather than a standard website, you really need something like Visual Studio .NET to create the most refined user interface possible.I think the same comparison holds for TGB and Flash. Flash is great for simple things, like "hit the monkey, win a prize". The problem is, when you go much beyond that type of functionality, it falls flat. Flash is designed to make animations with simple user interaction, and it has great tools for doing just that. Doing anything beyond that is really pushing the limits of the platform.
TGB on the other hand is designed from the ground up just to make games. You can literally make a game with a few dozen lines of script code. Everything else you can do right through the very intuitive level builder interface. TGB enables you to create games so fast that it amazes you. Its really the first true RAD tool for creating games.
#25
We switched to T2D when we saw all the features. The collision and physics are fine and everything works great. I did expect to learn it faster though... pretty hard to get into the Torque feel of things. But than again, I'm much of a programmer...
04/11/2006 (12:57 pm)
In my personal experience the hittest in flash isn't that suitable for games. We ended up writing collision classes for flash... let alone thinking about physics. Not fun, but doable if you put everything in movieclips, don't add frames to the main timeline and use onEnterFrame = function {} as mainloop. We switched to T2D when we saw all the features. The collision and physics are fine and everything works great. I did expect to learn it faster though... pretty hard to get into the Torque feel of things. But than again, I'm much of a programmer...
Associate Ray Gebhardt
The other cool thing about TGB is how cool you can make your games look. Flash could never do the particle effects that you get in TGB. Also the physics in TGB are top notch, and the performance is amazing.
Well anyways, this is pretty much a useless conversation. "If you build it, they will come". This is true no matter what technology you use. And remember that games don't have to be web based to sell. Grand Theft Auto is the best selling game of all time, and its definitely not a web based game.