Torque for Wii availability and licensing

Zachary Zadell — 2007-08-30T23:35:12+00:00

I would like to formally announce the availability of Torque for Wii commercial licensing and evaluation.

Torque for Wii has been in the works for a while now and was officially announced in a press release which you can view here.

Pronto has done an amazing job of putting together a version of Torque, based on TGE 1.5, that can be used to produce a game on the Wii and with Nintendo's upcoming WiiWare. In addition to porting over the bulk of TGE's features (minus networking for now), they also added comprehensive Lot Check compliance which includes required Nintendo features such as notifying the user when their batteries are low.

The major barrier to entry is that you have to be an approved Nintendo developer. This may seem like a huge limitation to a lot of you, but it isn't completely unheard of these days of studios made up of a single developer being approved. You will also need a dev kit which runs for about $2000. Visit www.warioworld.com/apply/wii.html to learn more.

Pronto and myself will be providing limited support for Torque for Wii on our forums. There are the general forums which you guys should use to ask any questions you may have regarding the engine and the private forums for licensees. Be sure to modify your forum subscriptions to see them.

Why is this a big deal?

The Nintendo Wii recently became the top selling Next-Generation console (surpassing the Xbox 360 in total world wide sales). Additionally, with the announcement of WiiWare, Nintendo is opening the door for smaller games and developers in a way that hasn't been seen before on consoles. Torque for Wii provides a relatively low cost (perhaps the cheapest) way of putting a game on the Wii.

Since Torque for Wii is based on TGE 1.5, all that knowledge and content that you the community has developed can now be applied to developing on the Wii. Pronto developed their own game using the engine, which is due out in Europe soon so this is the real deal. When they were first showing off just how easy it was to get games on the console they showed me all the Starter Kits and Content Packs they could get their hands on. That includes the racing starter kit and fps starter kit being controlled with the Wii's controller. They also showed off Tim Aste's popular content packs, which while gorgeous, are hardly optimized for the Wii's hardware. Additionally they had the original Marble Blast, which was based on TGE 1.1, up and running on the Wii within a day.

All the tools and content that apply to TGE also apply to Torque for Wii. So you can use popular tools like Constructor and Torque Show Tool, and Torsion. You can also prototype your game with a cheaper TGE 1.5 license before you commit to a Torque for Wii commercial license.

For more details please visit the Torque for Wii page.

Evaluation versions are available in addition to several licensing options. Interested parties should contact me personally at zacz@garagegames.com or sales@garagegames.com

I must stress that this product is aimed at commercial developers who are serious about putting a title on the Wii.

Friday Apr 1 0:01

Zachary Zadell — 2005-04-01T00:01:10+00:00

Improved TreeView Control

Hi everyone, this is my first .plan since becoming an intern here at GG. I have been working closely with Ben Garney to produce a replacement to the old and unintuitive treeview control that is in Torque currently.

New guiTreeViewCtrl (click for a larger pic):

The new control has been integrated into both the mission editor and the gui editor. Within the mission editor, the creator and editor trees now both use the same control, rather than a custom control for the creator.

Both editors now support shift selection for selecting multiple items and ctrl selection for deselecting or selecting single items either for movement or deletion.

Selections made within the editor are now reflected within the treeview control.

You can now drag selected items both within a group or to other groups with the mouse.

You can also use the arrow keys to re-order items and navigate the tree in an explorer like fashion.

Items are now represented by icons designed by Tim Aste. The icons can either be assigned in script or determined by the control based on the item's properties. The icons can be defined entirely from script.

This is just the inital pass at improvements to editors. I plan to make other improvements in the future based on the feedback of the artists here at GG.

Blog for Zachary Zadell at GarageGames.com

Torque for Wii availability and licensing

Friday Apr 1 0:01