Torque 2D is a simple-to-use computer game engine. Its user interface emphasizes level design and character creation over hard-core programming. With a player, a level, and an enemy, you can immediately start playing. The developer, GarageGames, tweaked the engine of its 3D game maker to create Torque 2D. You can develop games for Windows, Mac and console platforms. Expect the process to learn the basics of Torque 2D to take about 30 minutes.
Instructions
1. Open the Torque 2D Game Builder. Select "New Project" and "Empty Game" template. This loads relevant game settings to your project workspace.
2. Copy any image files you wish to use for your new game made in other programs, such as Adobe Illustrator or Coral Painter, and paste them into the folder at the end of the following path: TorqueGameBuilder/Games/Sprites/data/images. Click the "Create" tab on the right of the user interface. Click the "Choose a New ImageMap" to open the search dialog box. Search for the image you just pasted into the image folder. Select it. This automatically loads the image into the Sprites gallery.
3. Click and drag the image you chose into the "Scene View," the main panel in Torque Game Builder. The instructions for Steps 2 and 3 are the same if you wish to load an animation, such as a Flash file of a character, rather than just an image file.
4. Click on the image you put in the Scene Viewer. Six tiny icons appear above the image. Click on the one on the far left. This sets the Collision parameters so that the character does not fall through the level as soon as the game starts. Drag the tiny blue squares around the character until all of the character's parts are inside the blue squares.
5. Click the "Create" tab again. Scroll through the list of options until you see the "Tile Map." Select the "Tile Map" and drag it into the Scene View. Stretch The Tile Map's size until it looks like a platform under the character you already mapped. Change the height and width of the tile manually in the properties panel to the right of the Scene View if you prefer that method.
6. Click the "Materials" drop-down menu to choose a material fill for the tile, such as brick, grass, or wood. Choose any that you like. Play around with the options to load whole levels built just from these basic tiles.
7. Click on your character again. Select the "Edit" tab to the right of the screen. Select the "Behavior" drop-down menu list. Examine the long list of behaviors you can add to your character without a single word of coding. Choose some, such as "Flee Mouse," which makes the character flee from the cursor, or "Tank Controls," which gives your character rolling movement that fits what you want your character to do. Click the green button above the behaviors to add the behavior to the character.
8. Click the "Play" button at the top of the interface. It looks like a right arrow inside a circle. This activates your game. Test that your behaviors work for your character.
9. Continue adding more characters with behaviors and tiles to create a richer interactive game world.
Tags: your character, Scene View, blue squares, character Click, Click Create, drop-down menu