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Torque 2D Game Engine Offers Full Linux Support In New Update

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You all asked for it and they finally delivered. Torque 2D has been updated to 3.0 with Linux support which means more games are now possible for Linux.

There are now very few game engines that don't support Linux, so the list of reasons for developers not to support us is getting a bit thin.

The engine itself is claimed to be used for "hundreds" of games, so it will be fun to see if many get ported over to Linux. At least developers who use it in future will have the chance to support us.

QuoteAndroid, Linux, and Web Support
The major focus of this release brings several additional platform publishing options for your game or application. T2D truly delivers on cross platform support, making it easy with one codebase to reach many different audiences on many different devices.


This major update of course adds other interesting features for gamers like:
  • Ability to create native 64bit apps
  • Skeletal Animation
  • Xbox 360 Controller built right in

There are many other changes more note-worthy for developers on the full blog post.

Torque 2D is actually open-source under the MIT license and available on github, so go check it out. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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22 comments
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Anonymous May 4, 2014
Marble Blast Gold please :)
Zapa May 4, 2014
Steam Marines!
Skully May 5, 2014
Space pirates and zombies http://store.steampowered.com/app/107200/
Is a 2d Game made with torque. Been on Linux for about a year.
So is this really just like "official support" or something?
Lordpkappa May 5, 2014
To "So what's left?"

All Bethesda games, i'll hope that sometime in the future they will change mind.
migizi May 5, 2014
Quoting: SkullySpace pirates and zombies http://store.steampowered.com/app/107200/
Is a 2d Game made with torque. Been on Linux for about a year.
So is this really just like "official support" or something?

I talked with the devs when they released it for Linux. They did the same thing a lot of people did and had help and contracted someone to port it to Linux. So I don't think Linux was native at the time and required additional work to get working. They also said they pushed the engine as far as they could with SPAZ and had to get in and change code in the engine. They way they explained it is it worked and if you're willing to play with the engine code it's fine, but for SPAZ 2 they went 3D and that is why they chose Unity.
berarma May 5, 2014
Quoting: Hamish
Quoting: liamdaweTrouble is they never actually sold Linux versions just offered them as a download, so he was talking out of his ass.
Well, there was the whole retail Quake 3 debacle, and the fact that they evidently were not happy with the amount of Linux players on Quake Live. Neither of those are terribly good metrics, but it was not completely made up.

Granted, the whole stance of id on Linux now is simply a reflection of Zenimax's policy of not allowing unsupported binaries of their games, which is what actually sank the Linux port as that is how the id Tech 4 ports were handled. Carmark claimed that he could only lobby for either Source Code releases or Unsupported binaries, and in the end he decided (rightly) that Source Code releases were more important.

...of course with Carmack no longer at id they will probably just quietly drop that as well.

Good summary. The Quake3 metric is specially bad since most people would just buy the Windows version and download the GNU/Linux binaries. And Quake Live alone isn't very representative.

I don't recall Carmack ever putting economic profit as a reason to do the ports, until Zenimax came in. Instead, I remember him saying the ports were a good way to improve the engine and that it helped them catch and fix hidden errors. As easy as it was for them to do the ports, and beneficial for testing, I highly doubt the reason for stopping doing them was the money.
gbudny May 5, 2014
Quoting: liamdaweThe latest id engine is probably capable of supporting Linux, but they chose not to port Rage as Carmack claimed Linux doesn't sell.

Trouble is they never actually sold Linux versions just offered them as a download, so he was talking out of his ass.

I hope that is a joke because I know that you are a founder of this website.

I remember that three games created by id software were published as box versions:

Quake: The Offering
Quake II: Colossus
Quake III Arena
Liam Dawe May 5, 2014
Quoting: gbudny
Quoting: liamdaweThe latest id engine is probably capable of supporting Linux, but they chose not to port Rage as Carmack claimed Linux doesn't sell.

Trouble is they never actually sold Linux versions just offered them as a download, so he was talking out of his ass.
I hope that is a joke because I know that you are a founder of this website.

I remember that three games created by id software were published as box versions:

Quake: The Offering
Quake II: Colossus
Quake III Arena

It's called an oversight, me being the founder of GOL doesn't mean anything.

Besides the Quake 3 games where released for Linux and sold in 1999, you really trust a company who uses sales from 1999 to justify stuff?

Quake Live is also an old title revamped into the browser, so again not a good way to judge Linux interest.
Anonymous May 5, 2014
I agree that Quake series is not the best example to predict sales of the games for Linux in 2014. However, I strongly believe that they are still afraid to make a risky decision about selling games for Linux. They tried to do it in the past several times, and they do not want to waste money. I can understand that id software is a bit controversial topic because many people had been describing them as a Linux-friendly company for many years. Always one person id software had a weird motivation to port games to Linux, even if in most cases they did not earn any money. Mac users spent more money on games ported by id software (or other company), and I think they have a good reason to blame id software when they dropped support for Quake Live. Linux users always believed that id software is a Linux friendly company, and they should buy games for Windows to run them on Linux - Seriously?. We have a final result of this behavior of the users, and I think that will be hard to change their opinion about Linux users.
Perhaps, Steams OS will change this situation, but I have to admit that many people was a little a bit Naive about the process of porting games to Linux by id software.
However, I should mention that Activision probably has a similar opinion about porting games to Linux, because they cooperated with Loki that was not a successful company. Id software is not single example in this case, but really popular among Linux users.
berarma May 5, 2014
I think a line should be drawn to differentiate Id Software's history from that of Zenimax. Id Software ported games to GNU/Linux, Zenimax didn't but it's now making decisions on Id Software's games.
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