This Week in Game-Guru - 10/01/2018

I notice (@LeeBamber) that I'm still not showing on the news section.  Not that it's any skin off my back.  I do this for fun, but I wouldn't mind a followup so I'm not twisting in the wind (nudge nudge).

Official Game-Guru News:

This week we got a PBR update to some assets in the Sci-Fi pack and also a new 'ally' AI delivered via a drone.  I'll be interested to dig into that one to see what's different as the current AI is a bit of a slush pile that can be difficult to interpret.

You can find the official news release here: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-scifi-pack-dlc-update-released-2

On the note of AI, it appears that's Lee's primary focus right now and so far I hear the results are promising.  Those results can be found in detail here but essentially there's a demo level out there with a lot of cover objects.  The AI *SEEMS* to be productive and functional, but time will tell.  That said if the vast majority of users are claiming it's improved then I think that's a fair litmus.  I watched the demo video and I noticed a few good changes, notably that it won't shoot through walls and will path far better than it used to.

What I'd like to see:

• A system for enemy accuracy; right now they still hit 99% of the time and that's just absurd.
• Better synching of the movement to animation, which often times is a configuration setting but should be the default.  
• A system for enemies running away when injured/hiding/etc.
• A module in the AI itself that allows us to 'hook in' as modders, as it is it's more of a black box with a few function calls outside of it.

Forum AI link:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220075 (AI)
Now for those of you who are using the EAI Weapon Pack, which is phenomenal mind you, you may have noticed some errors or bugs with assigning said weapons to enemies or NPCs.  This apparently is going to be resolved in a future release after verification by EAI himself. 
Forum link for EAI Info:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219912

What's good in the store:

You know I was going to say there was nothing going on and just move on, but this week has been a big drop of lots of really great assets.  Of course as the quality goes up you may notice the price increasing but some of these are ... top shelf stuff.  I don't know any other way to put it.  Stuff you'd see in a AAA game.

Let's go over a few.
First of all, Gtox is really into fish... Well, that's true but apparently he's also into porpoises as well.

If you're making a sea-world game, this is probably right up your alley.

What's really intriguing to me is that Teabone, Robert Fitzy and Gamepoly (A new challenger appears!) all created fantastic high quality models this week.  I mean just look at this:

I really like GamePoly's work, this is a new level of quality that is desperately needed in Game-Guru's overly-asset flipped environment.  You can also see some new models by Mad Lobster and Pasquill at the bottom (the exacavator). 

Not bad for a single week!  Make sure you swing by http://en.tgcstore.net and check out the latest for yourself!

Third Party Applications and Tutorials

This week I was poking around on a project I can't discuss at this moment (wait till next week!) but I did end up at this wonderful tool - https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper/
This is a free heightmapper that I found worked a bit better than the one for terrain.party.  Definitely give it a look, the values on it are fantastic for use with the game-guru 'Heightmap to MDAT' tool.

Also in the forums, Wolf showed an older tool that I wish I'd have had in the past for my own imports - an import scaler tool to help adjust the scale on your FPE files: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/218348

And lastly there was a pretty nice video posted by Bugsy in the discord chat discussing how Mirror's Edge used lighting:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0sM7ZU0Nwo

Free Stuff

Nothing free that I could find this week.  Sorry guys!

Random Acts of Creativity

So in the WIP section we have some things from VincentHendriks who continues his use of the stock assets in the only way they could ever potentially be used - as a desert combat game.  It's looking ... well, like a reasonably good desert combat game!

Reminds me of the photos my buddies would send me from Iraq.

It's coming along well, I'd say.


There's also a new asset flip for us to look at on Steam.  Now I will say while the game itself was a fairly bland and boring flip, the demo video for it was interesting - the guy took live video with some basic video modding to provide a little more oomph to a Game-Guru game than I'm used to.  That said, it's not worth the price asked for and apparently is a buggy mess.
See it here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/798710/Voltage/

Also another new user showed up, this time with an odd cyber-punk style game where I guess you're on a rooftop?  He took some of the advice I offered him but it needs a lot more polish.  Regardless though it's getting there and at least it doesn't look like the same old same old.  I can respect the effort.

In My Own Works

This week I've been working on a special project, which but it's allowed me to focus on getting another segment for the book done - specifically a 'how to do a forest in Game-Guru'.  This is a difficult topic that I think most will benefit from a little personal understanding on.

That said though I'm still behind the curve here.  I need to bang out like 20,000 words this month to stay on track and that's no easy feat.

I also aggregated all the new Lua commands since 5/12/2017 for you here:
http://gamegurureport.blogspot.com/2018/09/new-lua-commands-since-5122017.html

See you next week!

This Week in Game-Guru - 8/6/2018

Lots to cover this week!

Official Game-Guru News:

Things are really making a lot of progress.

For a long time, the Game-Guru market was fairly stable.  Fairly calm.  We had a crappy boat on fair waters, so to speak.  Sure, the thing had a five horsepower engine, but the seas were as easy as could be.  The past year has been a rocketship to the moon, by comparison.

Each week I'd write up my little report and think "well, that was easy".  I'd hunt down the 1-2 lines of detail about what is going on, put up some stuff from the store and cover the bases.

Then TGC went to github and we never came back.

There have been a whirlwind of changes done over the past year and honestly if you HAD Game-Guru at one point and dismissed it, we're now safely at a point where I can say you should give it another look over.  Literally EVERYTHING is different.

We have dynamic lighting (up to 38 simultaneously, up from 3!).
We have functional PBR.
We have memory issues fixed.
We have modifiable projectiles.
We have quality of life fixes, like needing to press shift-f1/2/3/4 to go to the lightmapper.
We have better weapons systems code.
Almost every single DLC pack has been overhauled.

Seriously, it's a lot to take in.  I highly recommend you give it another go, if you have the time.

Full details on the update can be found here: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-launches-monster-update

The big takeaway here is this isn't the first major update in the past year.  It's more like the third.  Seriously.  There's been a lot of changes and appear to be more in store.

What's New In The Store

Recently there was a new kit released, specifically a weapons package.
There's very few times when I have to list something as a 'must buy' but you're insane if you don't pick up this kit.  This ultra-high quality kit is as good as I've seen for Game-Guru and really amplifies your options for game-making.  Some minor changes to the textures and you'll have more than enough to change the game to your liking.  Even if you don't, these are superb weapons.  Check out the demo reel here:


So yeah, that's pretty much the first 'must buy' thing I've seen in a while and frankly I'm not surprised.  I've long maintained that EAI (Errant AI) is the best artist in the Game-Guru community.  This new pack sort of underscores that point.

Not that other artists aren't any good - it's just if you are looking for the absolute best of the best in terms of item/set quality items - he has no real equal (especially since his only real competition has moved on).

Speaking of must buys, there are some other really great items this week on the store.
Notably we have another top shelf artist (BSP) who created some fantastic PBR trees.  If you absolutely must have the best looking trees possible, accept no substitutes!

We've also got a great city pack from Lafette (whose work has been growing leaps and bounds lately) and a very non-ninja oriented set of NPC turtles.  While I can't imagine Gtox is going to see a lot of demand for the turtles, I have no doubt they will be of the same high quality as most of his creatures are.

Random Acts of Creativity

I want you all to know that what follows here is.. unusual for me.  I go out of my way to not ever be derisive or condescending but seriously, this can't be helped.

In literally one of the most baffling things I've ever seen, there's something for sale on the TGC store that.. I don't know what it is.
Seriously.
It's called 'Data Bafticomputer'.  It's by a 'Drstewart8klar' though if you google around you'll find he goes by drstewart2klar, 4klar, etc etc.. there's a million aliases.  You also find two books on smashwords.com which are of .. questionable english usage.  I mean I found a read-along on youtube and I literally lost all understanding of what the hell was going on.  My inner Gordon Ramsey is standing around asking "What the $@%! is this pile of *** ****?"

So yeah.  I think this qualifies, probably, as an act of creativity.  I guess.  I mean it's got some pretty fantastic ms paint art... it's marked as 'adult content' but there's nothing even indicating why or what this is... and yeah.  I mean this is a train wreck spaghetti-plate disaster.  It's worth looking at, if only as a cautionary tale as to how not to release a game.

So in a more meaningful set of reviews - Bugsy appears that he's done with Direct Action 2!  Looks great.  His minimalist "high speed low drag" approach to game design is worth taking a peek at - he is a ruthlessly efficient developer and while it's not for everyone it has some serious purpose behind it.  Moreover the cutscene work is pretty impressive, considering the limitations of the engine.

Youtube video of his work can be found here (Don't want to bog down the page with more than one video, sorry!)

Another super interesting one (to me, at least) is Bod (you know, the super prolific free-stuff guy) is making a game and model pack.  It's a different style but honestly I'm ok with that - I like seeing the variety in people's artistic visions.  This medieval style game has promise.  As it is refined it should really clean up well. 

A very Bod-style game, interesting to see it all put together!

Lastly we have Len the Man's 'Cowboy Shooter'.  I feel like this is a really good example of what a really concerted new game developer can do with the Game-Guru engine.  His patient and steady improvement of his levels is really showing some promise and I truly hope he keeps at it!.

Tutorials and Third Party Programs

With a lot of third party programs being integrated into the core build due to it being accessible via Github, we have a lot of potential loss for this particular section.  There was a great article a few weeks back that if you map over Game-Guru's development, it takes a very similar tract.

https://medium.com/@eigenbom/how-to-take-7-years-to-ship-a-beta-4fcfc2428d88

Of course, that's all mute now because we're seeing real progress now that the engine's been opened up.

In My Own Works

<REDACTED>

There's a lot going on right now.  Keep your eyes peeled for an old project I never released to make the light of day.  Some interesting code, for sure.  A while ago I uncovered/developed a really impressive algorithm for creating certain randomization within Lua. 

I think it's about time I showcase them!  Also, as an aside my complete time day and weather kit, along with all skies package is on sale at 14.95 this week!

Errant AI's Arcade Set

This is a long overdue review.

When I spoke with Errant AI (A.K.A. "EAI") about his vendor machine set Errant AI's TGC Store Products review , we discussed our mutual love coin-operated equipment.  At that point in time (probably a year and a half ago) he mentioned he'd do an arcade set, which I was jazzed for.  I grew up in arcades and spent more than my share of allowance money there.

It was a great time and brought back fond memories.  He soon released the kit and... I didn't have any money.  NONE.  I was flat broke.  It sucked.  So for months and months bigger priorities would come up and I'd look at the store and see the really impressive looking set for the arcade objects that EAI built.

Recently I've managed to get my finances squared away and could spend some money on new objects for my upcoming sci-fi shooter.

It was at this point... I looked again at the priciest of EAI's growing collections (4, as of this writing) - the Retro Arcade Pack.  The Retro Arcade Pack clocks in at 15 USD.  It's by no means a cheap purchase.  But I'm a believer that if you want to have a quality looking game, you need quality looking assets.  This pack delivers - in spades.

 The full kit contents.  It's like my youth, reborn!

As you can see, the pack comes with a significant bevy of 30 items, which come in about 50 cents per object, depending on if any sales are occurring.

Most of these items are doubles - in many cases they are a blank version which can likely be modified to present your own possibilities.  Very cool!

In this case, the billchanger comes in both token and cash money varieties.

Now you may look at these and think "Yeah, that's cute - but how good is it, really?"  - what really sold me were the perfectly done animated screens which of course can only be watched in the form of a movie.

The above should show you the sheer and frankly unparalleled level of quality EAI brought to the table.  Even his previous offerings are overshadowed but how absolutely perfect these are.  While I realize it's not an asset for every game, you'd be surprised how you can work them in.  The biggest difficulty in using assets like this is that they tend to make your other assets LOOK WORSE.  It's a bit like taking your ugly friend to the bar to make you look better.  It doesn't help their case to have you standing there, that's for sure.  So if you are planning on using assets like this, prepare to have other assets - LIKE THIS.  It doesn't hurt that I have the snack attack pack and some other really high quality stuff that I've gotten through the community.  I meticulously filter and comb my assets to ensure that the quality is at bare minimum, consistent.


What's interesting is I was discussing 2-D "mode" for Game-Guru with Synchromesh - a forum user.

After some experimentation, he had discovered a way to fake a 2-D mode for Game-Guru.  He shared the secrets with me and filled in the blank spots in my own testing.  So the plan is to make a virtual arcade and then have it warp you off to another level when you use the machine - the level will be a two dimensional simplified mockup of one of these games!  I intend to do a walkthrough later after I've made a functional version of a few.  The driving one should be simple enough.

The bottom line:  The simple version is are you going to need this for all your projects?  No.  It's far more specialized than other packs he offers.  Is it one of the highest quality assets on the store? Absolutely.  If you can manage it, then by all means - find a way to work it in.  I for one, will be using it.

The Retro Arcade Pack can be found here: https://en.tgcstore.net/pack/10474