GameGuru games to watch out for.

Game-Guru is fairly synonymous on steam as being a source of 'total abject shit' games.  And I don't say this lightly as someone who's a frequent user of it.

This isn't really a bad thing, it's more a predictable thing - primarily because the game engine is marketed towards and genuinely appeals towards the extremely casual novice game maker.  You unfortunately end up with a lot of this:

And for some reason this guy thought to 'improve' the stock 3d rifle with a static 2d image set.

And that's just not good for your reputation, despite the fact that it's really easy for even a total neophyte to make a game with.

There are, however, some very skilled Game-Guru game makers.  People who use it both professionally and casually but have a well of experience that make their products and offerings worth looking at or keeping an eye out for.  Some of these projects are completed.  Some are in progress.  Bottom line is they make a good baseline for what kind of work you want to emulate if you're going to create and try to be successful, legitimately, with Game-Guru.

1) Ertlov's "Father's Island"

This is probably the most commercially successful game made for Game Guru as of the time of this writing.  It's a strange game with a lot of interesting elements.   Basically a puzzle thriller with some interesting secondary elements and a lot of personally done acting done by the creator (Ertlov).  It's been critically reviewed in Austria and has a small, loyal following.  The graphics are well done, the lighting superb.  The impression I get is it's mostly stock assets too, which is even more impressive.



2) Wolf's "Acythian" and "Shavra" games.
Wolf is well known in the Game Guru Community as a unique artist and freethinker with an eye for dramatic lighting in his games.   He's got two separate projects on the table:

The above is Shavra - Renaissance .  It's a high-fantasy adventure with tons of custom assets.  The scenery is gorgeous and should stretch the limits of the engine's power.  I love the tapestries and imagery.  His custom characters are pretty impressive too. Check out the progress thread here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/209529

His other game, of comparable quality, is a Sci-Fi thriller called Acythian.  It's right up my alley with well paced action, a gritty futuristic vista, and fast action.

This game, in my opinion, is probably as close to AAA quality as you'll see from Game-Guru. You can find out more here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/211124


3) Bugsy's Kshatryia File 002

It was incredibly hard to pick a scene for this game, too many good choices.

This is another really gritty cyberpunk style game, though it's far more in the vein of blade runner or more specifically Ghost in the Shell.  It's not done yet but my only complaint about it is that it will only be three levels.  You can, however, pick up most of his objects on the store if you want to build similar levels.  That said, what's available here should be complete very soon.  Once it's done, you will likely want a copy if for no other reason than to try to learn a few things from it.

Forum thread: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216319

4) Savior v3
Savior's been in progress for a very long time.  So far, however, the results are promising.  It seems Tarkus runs into the same issues I do with life actually eating up available free time.

The positioning of the clutter items shows a fine degree of care and thought.

This is one of those games that just OOZES perfection.  He's obviously taking his time trying to make sure that this is exactly how he wants it to be, something I can respect given my own slow development tendencies.

On a side note, I made a custom sky for Tarkus and I'm hoping it finds its way into his game.  We'll see soon enough I suppose!

This is where you can learn more and see a huge volume of additional pictures: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213859

5) Hunted: One Step Too far

Ok I wasn't going to include this one, but I have to admit it's promising.  He's taken a pretty basic concept (alone in the woods but not really) and made it into a very compelling visual thriller with a good combination of eye candy and suspense.   He's smartly using the dark to hide the flaws in Game Guru and as such it looks and acts very clean.

His only problem (and he's aware of this) are the mountains are a little bland.  I pointed him at my tutorial on building good mountains in Game Guru so hopefully he'll be able to bring that up to a level he's more satisfied with.  Overall though, a good looking game and also being greenlit on steam.  Nicely done!



The full details can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216110


There are a few really superb ones I haven't seen get off the ground yet or seem stalled in their development as well:

My Little Apocalypse World  

Pretty much considered the high water mark.  Huge expectations here, but development seems DOA at this point.

Colony 3010

Interestingly this game has a similar style as MLAW but that's not a bad thing.  The game looks good but I think the dev gave up and moved on.

My own project

I should mention that I hold myself to the same standards that I hold others to.  It's part of the reason my process is so excruciatingly long and torturous.  I take every scene and evaluate it against what I want, feel, and try to maintain a reasonable performance to boot.  It's difficult, at best, using this engine.  What you see is a very early work in progress.  I hope one day, it'll be more nearly what I consider acceptable.   This scene lacks clutter objects.  That object behind the glass is a ship.  A single, massive ship.  I'm looking forward to bringing this project to fruition.

Hopefully you'll take some hard looks at my blog and see some good lessons to draw from in developing your own projects.  I truly hope to raise the level of everyone's game development and now with 1.33 available, we might have a real door opening towards a brighter future with this engine.