MilitaryGarage Conquers the Skies with Air Aces Online

Phil Carlisle and Thomas Lund were true early adopters of Torque Game Engine Advanced. The began working on their exciting game Air Ace Online with TGE, but quickly make the decision to port to TGEA.

"I left Team17 just after we finished Worms 3D," says Carlisle. "I really enjoyed working there, but the urge to create my own games was calling. I had just found a job at a University in Bolton that was happy for me to work on my own games, so when I heard of the release of the Torque Game Engine it seemed like the planets had aligned."

After prototyping a few small games by himself, Carlisle decided that it wasn't much fun working alone and started looking for a partner in crime.

"I met Thomas at the Indie Games Conference," recalls Carlisle. "It was clear we both had a similar outlook on game design and we had both been struggling with working by ourselves or with teams separated across the globe and in multiple timezones. So we decided to see if we could work together."

The friends went on to form a stable partnership that has allowed them to develop their fledgling company to the point where they are poised to release their first product "Air Ace Online" an online-only dogfighting combat game built using the Torque Game Engine Advanced.

"We had been using various Torque technologies for a long time" explains Carlisle, "so when TGEA was first released we were really excited to see whether we could take our prototype TGE game and give it a visual makeover. I think we can say we've succeeded!"

"It is very easy to get sidetracked with technology" comments Carlisle, "but as a small developer, you simply can't allow yourself to be. We started with Torque Game Engine which has a great feature set, is tried and tested and really has proved itself to be incredibly flexible. Now we use Torque Game Builder for our 2D games, Torque Game Engine for cross platform and low-end 3D games and Torque Game Engine Advanced when we really want to push the visual envelope. Best of all, the knowledge and code we create during development often works across the entire Torque product lineup!"

Air Ace is only the start for this small developer though. With prototyping and design in progress on a number of projects, working with several partners and contractors has given them the impetus to employ their first full-time staff members.

"There is just too much opportunity right now for us to handle it all," explains Carlisle. "While we have found lots of great contractors in the Torque developer community, it seems like a logical step that we grow the company and start employing others to help us push products out in a much shorter timescale."

With a mixture of core releases almost ready and casual games waiting to be produced under the new "GameZuki" label, it seems that the future looks bright for this promising startup.

Impressed? So are we. Want to see what you can do with Torque Game Engine Advanced?

Purchase the Indie License today or try out the Demo for 30 days free!