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V12 Running on a Mac, Tribes 2 Soon?
8:54 AM | Andy Largent | Comment on this story
Jeff Tunnell, president of the start-up GarageGames, recently gave IMG an update about a possible Mac version of their upcoming V12 engine. In case you haven't heard, V12 is essentially the Tribes 2 engine, stripped of the content, which they are licensing to independent developers for the amazing price of just $100. A typical engine license usually runs $100k or more.
As we've reported in the past, V12 is also an opportunity for the Mac community to perhaps see a port of the teamplay-based shooter Tribes 2, though having a working port of the engine would only be one piece of the puzzle. According to Tunnell, they already have an Associate with a rudimentary version of V12 working on the Mac. Here's a clip from his email:
We have an Associate working on the Mac port right now. He actually has a
version up and running, and we haven't even released the engine yet! We are
hoping to get the code to duplication early next week. The Mac should be a
big part of GarageGames. Keep in mind this is the V12 engine that is set to go to duplication next week, not any Mac port of Tribes 2. Apparently, Associates get an early look at the code in return for adding specific features to V12.
A new update to the GarageGames site clarifies exactly what is working so far on the Mac. Here's an excerpt with the Associate David Chait explaining his success:
I need to get basic input really hooked in to try the console, the background on the start screen doesn't paint well if you switch out and in, and I'm not sure the progress meter worked on the loading screen. But I saw
landscape, and with the mouse could spin to the right (really fast, actually... radeon must be faster than I thought), and the compass and clock were updating. Colors were a bit off (magenta fog), and some rendering
errors, but then I didn't really expect to see anything... David is the founder of Reality Bytes, developer of games like Dark Vengeance, so you know he's got some good Mac experience. We're working on getting some clarification now about what this will mean, but it is good to see GarageGames taking such a Mac-friendly stance. Before you'll be seeing a full Mac version of Tribes 2, though, they will need to talks Sierra into releasing or licensing all of the proprietary components which were removed to make V12. We'll keep you updated as this story continues, but the Mac Tribes 2 forecast definitely looks better now, as does the chances that we will get "free" Mac versions of games created through GarageGames' licensing deals.
 IMG News: More Details on GarageGames, Mac Tribes 2
 Garage Games Web Site
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