This Week in GameGuru - 02/03/2020

This article represents solely the opinion of the author and does not reflect the opinions or views of r The Game Creators, it's employees, or subordinates.  It likewise does not reflect the views or opinions of www.tgcstore.net and it's staff.  The author receives no compensation for this work and it is done solely as a service for the GameGuru community at large.

GameGuru News

If you've not been living under a rock the past few weeks, you know about the VR Update being done to GameGuru.  Opinions are mixed but at the end of the day we're getting additional functionality so I suppose that's probably good.  Bugfixes continue on one of the branches done by Preben ... notably this right here:

https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/commit/56037907e098f6e5df71f3194f3ea57846712af1

Hallelujah! I cannot even begin to tell you how long I've been complaining about this particular quirk in GG!  I'm extremely excited to see the 'warp-speed' widget multiply issue being fixed!

Also Lee recently posted something called 'Operation Bug-Free' so it seems like this is going to be the primary focus for the next few months after they add all the features from the VR Quest branch of GG. He's shooting to resolve all 74 bugs listed in Github by March!  Should be interesting, if nothing else.

From a community standpoint - Defy has a full-mem-clearing build that he's working on which we can hope to see integrated soon into GG!

A new TGC branded DLC dropped too - the walled garden: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-walled-garden-dlc-on-sale

What's Good in The Store

Wolf's game, Amytric Pulse is *FREE* on the store.  You are doing yourself a disservice not gettin this and playing the heck out of it.

Get your copy here:  https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33873

Sula has released a Euro Truck pack.  There's a large quantity of beautifully made, fully PBR enabled European trucks in this pack.

This is just a fraction of what you get!

Get your copy here - https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11180

Fredgames77 has put together a beautiful bedroom set here:

Get your copy here - https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11181

There's plenty more. The truth is this section takes so long for me to do I can't spend as much time as I'd like these days checking the store out. Thankfully the Jason's been doing great work improving the interface steadily so I have less work to do as a whole here.  It's much easier for everyone to find what they need than it was even a year ago!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

BOTR continues his work on his heightmapping utility.  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221333?page=2#msg2625210

He's notably added youtube links and squashed many bugs.  So it's really coming along as a more mature utility at this point and is definitely worth a look!

Amenmoses is working to solve a long standing issue involving ladders in GameGuru - https://vimeo.com/388717781

Random Acts of Creativity(WIPs)

Wolf's current fantasy project is looking better and better as he fine tunes the details:

You can really see the lighting come together, along with the design of the actual map itself.

Teabone's 'wizardry style' GameGuru RPG is a pretty amazing piece of work.  Duchenkuke did a little demo runthrough of it in this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj3d3Re9eek

The above screenshot gives you a good idea of what you can expect, though if you're a fan of the genre you already know what to expect.  I know he did a significant amount of rewriting for the Lua controls to get it to function as he desired.  It's impressive stuff and I'm happy to see people doing new and interesting things in GameGuru.

Mav3r1ck continues work on his fantasy-based game, which also is coming along impressively.

A user named JALambert came out of the woodwork, apparently a long-time lurker, with two projects that look pretty impressive. One is an open-world style project:

Featuring some unique HUD elements and a beautiful set design.

The second is a Quake-inspired multiplayer Arena game, which is definitely speaking my language as a former ranked Quake III Arena player :)

To be honest, many people upon seeing his screenshots didn't even believe these were made in GameGuru!  That's probably the highest compliment you can give a GameGuru designer.

Free Stuff

The past few weeks have had a number of freebies posted on the free stuff forum for GameGuru. 

You can peruse them yourself here:https://forum.game-guru.com/board/25

In My Own Works

Well, I finally got enough money socked aside to purchase a tool I need to make some truly fantastic skies.  I've been happy with my products to this point but I really want to make some mind blowing stuff so here's to everyone who has purchased my products on the store!  2020 should be a landmark year for space skies and some code releases.

This Week in GameGuru - 1/6/2020

This article represents solely the opinion of the author and does not reflect the opinions or views of r The Game Creators, it's employees, or subordinates.  It likewise does not reflect the views or opinions of www.tgcstore.net and it's staff.  The author receives no compensation for this work and it is done solely as a service for the GameGuru community at large.

Happy new year everyone - I'm back!  I realize it's been an extended absence and for that, I do apologize.  I cannot be 100% sure that I will not have further absences but at this point I will do my level best to continue this project for the time being.  Unfortunately life sometimes simply gets in the way as it did the past few months for me. I've got a lot to catch up on as December was a highly productive month.

GameGuru News

TGC produced a 'december update' which was a welcome change from many years of long holidays with no communication from them.  This welcome change fixed a lot of persistent code issues including one of my own issues - that of projectile caching not working properly and causing erratic behavior with projectile systems like the ones included with my "Cybernoir Weapons Kit".

What's most encouraging is a renewed focus on attempting to improve the engine.  I'd liken this to the ~2015-2016 era when we had a number of big fixes and changes on a fairly regular basis.  It's an exciting time. Moreover they appear to be hiring freelancers to help bugfix.  If you are interested in this position, see this post here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221436

What's Good in the Store

AlexGCC's 2019 pack - this combines many decent elements into a well priced pack worth a look:  https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11169
I really love Sula's City Construction pack as well for its wide variety of PBR assets with just the right amount of 'grunge' to them: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11163
Lastly I have point at belidos isometric kit, which looks positively awesome: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11161

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

There are few people in the GameGuru community who don't know Wolf; he's a long standing member stretching back over a decade or so with tons of experience putting together many tutorials on lighting.  He's recently come back to GameGuru and found the static lightmapper is working to his liking again and as such has written an updated and fairly expansive guide on how to use it: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219206

A new version of BOTR's superb and pretty much 'must have' heightmap utility can be found here:
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221333 

Free Stuff

December is usually overwhelmed with 'free stuff' due to the infectious Christmas spirit. This December was no exception with a huge mass of free models and media available.

Firstly we have wolf's beautiful 'Sci-Fi archway': Get your copy here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221444

Belidos put up a number of cartoon-style assets for free you can retrieve here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/218362?page=2

Mav3r1ck1981 made a fantastic sci-fi medical table here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221371 

Lafayette put out this awesome butcher store horror-style pack: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474?page=3#msg2623695.

Random Acts of Creativity

This is where I saved my bandwidth, folks.  Lots of really good projects have started to creep their way into the daylight and it's definitely worth showcasing a few.

Let's start with Wolf's own project since returning.  He sent me several screenshots and elected to let me pick the best one.  I settled on this beauty:

I like the style and design; he uses a lot of the same techniques I illustrate in my book to reuse common assets intelligently as well.  Overall the lighting and contrast is a classic RGB wheel blue and yellow which works exceptionally well.


Duchenkuke's project, Dark Skies, the Nemansk incident, is another prime example of what can be done with competence and a good eye for artistic flair.  It's got a brutal, dark, gritty feel that really gives you a sense of Metro-style depth which really pops in this engine.

He's using some excellent Sepia tones and great modelling choices to help accentuate the atmosphere along with a completely custom HUD that looks fantastic!

Other big hitters have dominated the scene as well with Cybernessence posting a significant December update showing his own work with the engine and the heightmapper by BOTR:

I like the touch he has there of calling his build the 'cogwheel engine'.  Seems accurate, given the massive amount of updates and changes he's made to GameGuru essentially drives it to be it's own entity at this point.

That's not all either.  There are many dozens of project updates this month so swing on over to the forums and check them out!

In My Own Works

I got to see a cool 'present' of my own this month - someone who purchased a hardcover copy of my book!  I don't even have one of those - I'm a touch envious!  So far reviews have been positive though with the rate of change in GameGuru, I may have to write a revised copy in a year or so.

A few final notes - if you HAVEN'T received your free models and media as a purchaser of the book, contact me on discord or via the forums and I will see to it you receive it promptly.  Purchasers of the book get free demo maps, models, character creator assets, my cybernoir entities, and my cybernoir weapons pack - and much more!
Lastly - please leave a review at amazon for me.  This greatly assists in online sales of the book and will help boost my visibility to others who are looking for it.

This Week in GameGuru - 10/14/2019

My apologies for the late updates.  It's been an absolute nightmare dealing with some of my recent work changes so this has unfortunately dropped massively in priority.

GameGuru News

The Monthly newsletter discussed my book being available. Thanks TGC - I appreciate it greatly.
There's also a free version of GG now, though it's a test version with a limited time of access.  Should help entice new users.
There were some minor fixes to the PP edition, which is essentially using the latest, most up to date version. Notably there was a load/save Game Stats fix which should help games that make it into production.

What's Good in The Store

Lots of new things are available!  One of which is of course some of the Cyberpunk Noir assets from my book materials!

If you are NOT a purchaser of the book but want some of the static assets (weapons are on the way, once I untangle a few things with free time I don't have currently) then feel free to puchase these! If you do own the book - hit me up on discord for a free code to download it.
 

Valentin321 put together this great looking motorboat:

 

There were also some scripts by corrosion, check his store page here: https://www.tgcstore.net/artist/221852

Teabone made some really well priced scripts as well: https://www.tgcstore.net/artist/45855
Sula made some great looking PBR trucks - https://www.tgcstore.net/artist/157895
Fredgames77 has put up some excellent cemetery models: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11153
Pasquill put up a really superb armored vehicle - https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33517
AlexGCC put a number of great models up but I really like his apocalypse truck: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33532
Northern put out a very nice VIP model with a decent array of scripts and animations making it a good value: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33528

And for 'most interesting/innovative' item on the store in the past month or so, we have Erart's impressively weird ghost mirror. You have to watch the video to see what I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFqdz1ZKZtQ

How cool is that?  Anyways, you can get your copy here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33521

Free Stuff

Granada made this fantastic free shotgun!

 https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221213  - get your copy at that link.
Tarkus 1971 made some pretty excellent music available for free:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213190/last
Some great scripts found their way onto the net as well such as
smallg's 'racing script' https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/207801?page=25#msg2622028
And Amenmoses's 'cold breath' script: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221215#msg2622148

Notably for me though is the Airplane script he posted to discord.  There's a video in the 'random acts of creativity' section of it.  It's really good stuff!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

This week there's some interesting Russian Language videos (I love auto-translate) on youtube for GameGuru: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3QE9rGxKVw

And also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErNFM-AoKhE

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Amenmoses is working with Bod on making GG into a flight sim.  This has to be seen to be believed at this link:  https://vimeo.com/366328897
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zgarg-algM - Bonesy's Cyberfi updates look good but the colors are still painful to me.  I realize it's the style, of course, it's just hard for me to watch. That said, it has potential so hopefully he'll keep refining it
I'm happy to see Honkeyboy has revived his galaxy-hopping game. While it lacks polish the core components look really great and I'm looking forward to seeing his future work on this! 

 https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221222

Dietara got some video updates.  This blog post is already really saturated though so I can't post much more safely - so here's a link to where you can find some more:     https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220994?page=1#msg2621936

In My Own Works

I want nothing more than to work on GameGuru projects I have outstanding but between the end stages of a basement remodel, a new baby, work woes, and the myriad other things clutching me I simply can't spare the time.  On my list of things I want to get done by the end of the year:
   - Some new script releases for the store
   - Get those @#$% weapons posted to the store
   - Make some new space skies
   - Work on my own game project

Lastly, thanks to everyone who has supported me by purchasing my book.  I'm going through some hard times right now and it's good to know that the year  of time it took me to make that is seeing some use by more people than I expected.

This Week in GameGuru - 09/23/2019

This article represents solely the opinion of the author and does not reflect the opinions or views of r The Game Creators, it's employees, or subordinates.  It likewise does not reflect the views or opinions of www.tgcstore.net and it's staff.  The author receives no compensation for this work and it is done solely as a service for the GameGuru community at large.

GameGuru News

The public preview of the beta changes arrived and the changes are about what was expected:

per https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221133
A bevvy of performance-related fixes were done including the draw-call batcher.
* F11 in Standalone no longer causes PBR debug layers to be rendered
* New DOCDOC system added to code allowing a new 'Docs\SETUP INI Description.txt' doc to be auto-created
* Improved MIXAMO FBX Importing (2-chain-finger in T-POSE), simply select 'Uber' in 'Is Character Field'
* Added Convex Hull collision shape to the physics system, use by setting COLLISIONMODE in FPE to 9
* Fixed EXPORTASSETS flag in SETUP.INI to correctly export unencrypted full entities with standalone  

Overall the results are positive but users are still reporting some errors - it's important to recall that a public preview is essentially the same as an open beta.  It is widely accessible but not an official 'stable' version.  Report your bugs!

What's Good in the Store

Erart made a somewhat bizarre but kind of cool 'magical hand' weapon.  You have to see it to understand what I mean here:

https://youtu.be/Cg8_jFwhSOc

You can get yours from: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33493

Tools and Tutorials

This week the GameGuru youtube official channel posted more tutorials.  Some of these are better than others but I think for most advanced users the useful ones would be the ones on blender and fbx imports.

Free Stuff

Smallg's transition from coder to modeller is still going strong - get your free models here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221130

Fumar built a beautiful house you can download to add to your collection:

Get your copy here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221118?page=1#msg2621303  

He also built a bench: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221118?page=1#msg2621110

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

This week we've got a lot of works in progress.  Let's start with this one by C4ever08, a project titled called "Dietara" that we've covered before with lots of updates on it:

I admire the scope and personal touch of the landscape.

Full details are available here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220994#msg2621235

Cybernessence updated/refreshed his art for the hero characters in his Cogwheel Chronicles epic:

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=7#msg2621264

He also has additional updates on his work on modifying the drawcall optimizer for his own purposes: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=7#msg2621068

Solar has lots of updates on his Resist: Revolution game here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/218343?page=3

Lastly, one of my favorite store authors, OldFlak, started work on a new project in the Sci-Fi vein that looks fantastic by my estimation:

Get the full scoop (and plenty of great looking screenshots) here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221152

In My Own Works

I'm really happy to see the response my book on GameGuru has gotten.  I haven't gotten any kind of official figures but I can honestly say that this thing was a labor of love.  I'll never break even on the time I invested or the money outlaid for things.  I'm *STILL* dealing with some minor cleanup of items before they go on the store, though I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be up this week.

In the meantime if you have purchased my book I'd really personally appreciate it if you'd stop by the listing on Amazon and write up a quick review of it.  You can do that here: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-GameGuru-Michael-Matthew-Messina/dp/1138612634

I guess we'll see!

This Week in GameGuru - 08/21/2019

This article represents solely the opinion of the author and does not reflect the opinions or views of r The Game Creators, it's employees, or subordinates.  It likewise does not reflect the views or opinions of www.tgcstore.net and it's staff.  The author receives no compensation for this work and it is done solely as a service for the GameGuru community at large.

Apologies for the late update.  Life has been ... crazy, to say the least.

For those who attempted to purchase copies of the book and use the promo code from last week, my publisher advised you must use this site to purchase it for the code to work:

https://www.routledge.com/An-Introduction-to-GameGuru/Messina/p/book/9781138612631

More details about the book and secondary materials will be found at the bottom of this posting so read it all the way through!

GameGuru News

Teabone has sent over his list of fixes to Lee and we're waiting for inclusion in the main release: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220853#msg2619317

Github has seen more work on convex hulls by Preben as well as a major merge into 'PO60' by Lee from the master.

This commit includes a lot of interesting updates you can find here:

https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/commit/59aff06cb3ec442997a5582f64e6cab636b982fb

So I'd say expect another sizeable update at this rate in the next month or so.  Don't hold me to it though as I haven't heard anything yea or nay - it's purely speculative.

What's Good in The Store

TeaBone put together some great clutter objects for the store in large quantity:

The quality is fairly good as usual so check out his store here: https://www.tgcstore.net/artist/45855

SounDesign also has a pack of clutter objects in the store that could see some use depending on what you are looking for in your projects: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11146

Free Stuff

Unfortunately nothing new in the free sector.  Better luck next week!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials.

https://forum.game-guru.com/board/2 also has a ton of great info this week, lots of details on many Lua related functions for the coders among us.

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

This week bod made one of his cars driveable: https://youtu.be/FEiXEwu09Rc

Schneeky put together a goofy spaceship video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ta78EP6aNE

KitaKazi's project 'Screos' has some new screenshots.  He says his first two levels are complete:

More info here - https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220691?page=1#msg2619169

Scienceboy's epic "Twin Worlds" has a new tantalizing screenshot with a beholder in it.  I'm still curious if he's using a heightmapping shader or not!

DJPulson's survival game has a screenshot as well as some updates here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220691?page=1#msg2619169

DenZelik came back after nearly a year to talk about his game 'Neir'  and post some screenshots which showed some excellent control of the Lua system for a fantasy-style game.

I'm particularly impressed by the above inventory picture, which looks exceptionally well crafted.

Relative newcomer Trollbae posted this beautiful work using the EBE on discord recently.  It uses several EBE boxes close together to create an excellent indoor environment.

 

 

Honkeyboy's project 'A tall tale' has some excellent updates with new models he's been building.

A project called Dietara popped up with lots of in-progress shots as well as some interesting details on a rather detailed post.

It's nice to see someone trying their hand with pushing the built in lighting system.

In My Own Works

So even though the book is out I've been very busy.  I've gotten numerous questions and the book has created a lot of interest though my publishers have been admittedly not moving as fast as I'd like on certain elements.

I'm fine-tuning one of my artists work before releasing it.  It will be reasonably priced on the store but for purchasers of the book you will receive it for free - simply send me an email, text, discord message is probably best honestly, or private message on the forums.  As soon as I see it and we can verify your purchase I'll send you voucher codes for the products so you can receive them for free.

There are also a number of 'included' free materials such as maps and the like for the book that the publisher hasn't posted on the site yet (despite me having submitted them over a week ago).  As soon as that is available I'll make sure that info is clearly listed and known.

LASTLY - I WILL BE ANNOUNCING A CONTEST FOR MY BOOK THROUGH SEVERAL CHANNELS BUT EXPECT IT TO BE ANNOUNCED NEXT WEEK ON THE REPORT.  THIS WILL BE DONE DIRECTLY THROUGH THE GAMEGURU FORUM CONTEST SECTION (Special thanks to Deb @ TGC for arranging this).


Thanks again to everyone for your well wishes, support, and purchases!

This Week in GameGuru - 08/12/2019

This article represents solely the opinion of the author and does not reflect the opinions or views of r The Game Creators, it's employees, or subordinates.  It likewise does not reflect the views or opinions of www.tgcstore.net and it's staff.  The author receives no compensation for this work and it is done solely as a service for the GameGuru community at large.

As you can see, this week I've included a disclaimer as I've received feedback that the way this blog is syndicated on www.game-guru.com, www.thegamecreators.com, blogarama, and gamedev.net can lead to some confusion as to the nature of these news releases. I will be including this disclaimer going forward to help clarify for those who are not familiar with my work.

While I realize that some people may disagree with my methodologies, at the same time you are free to do so.  I do reside and live in the United States of America and our rights of free speech are important to me.  I make every effort to ensure that I do not denigrate or diminish anyone's work.  If you take issue with the way I portray YOUR PERSONAL PRODUCTS then please contact me.

Thanks for your time, everyone - I now consider that issue at an end.  Also, a special note at the end so make sure you read all the way through - big news about my book! :)

GameGuru News

Per GitHub the latest information is that there is a trial version being added to GameGuru where you can use it for around 7 days before having to purchase it.  This will likely add a number of new potential buyers to the product so keep a close eye out for those new guys and gals!

Also it appears there is a relatively minor change that will allow standalones to be exported without encryption so as to allow entity sharing?  I'm not sure what that one is for but I'm sure it'll make sense eventually.

I can also soft confirm that ... other interesting things are going on with GG.  That's the most I'll say for the moment!

What's Good in The Store

FredGames77 continues to pump out high quality assets at a record pace.  While we've all likely got a huge stash of boxes, the quality on his recent submission is definitely worth a look:

You get 10 'pack cases' (boxes) for $10 (currently on sale for $5!) - a very reasonable offer.  These are high quality to boot with low poly count and excellent PBR texturing.  Get yours here: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11145

There's also this interesting grub enemy creature by Gtox:

Get yours here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33376

Free Stuff

Honkeyboy added some horns to Character Creator: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220945

Not bad work.  I will admit my book's materials ALSO include some donated Character Creator attachments so keep an eye out for that as well. He's got additional ones here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220945#msg2618825
They include a rice farmer's hat, knight's templar's helm, skeleton warrior, and another set of demon horns.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

 

This week I caught wind of a pretty interesting blog tutorial on the best mods for Blender 2.8 (which recently dropped).  If you use Blender actively check it out here:   https://cgcookie.com/articles/the-top-10-modeling-addons-for-blender-2-8

The latest official GameGuru tutorial video was posted online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMqPsVpy2Ag

There were actually a number of non-english tutorials being posted.  Some work reasonably well enough with youtube's auto-translate function if you're interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYebtk_SETs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEova6DMa5Q

Work continues on the '3d Asset Manager' program for GG - it has come such a long way in such a short period.  The latest info can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220822?page=5#msg2618874

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Bod this week made a really serious Taxicab..which turned into a police car... which turned into this awesome street racer with neon lights and alpha-planed headlights.  https://youtu.be/dw8mi4z7isg

Bonesy also made more forward momentum through steady refinement of his cyber-fi game:

One of the more interesting bits is a new user named "Trollbae" posted one of his friends creations from amateur work in the EBE and it's an impressive manor house:

I have to admit this is quality work for someone who is just trying out the EBE and GameGuru.  It shows a pretty clear ease for new users and I proves a bit to some of us older hats that maybe the EBE is worth using from time to time after all!

Tarkus1971 posted an update to his 'Urban Histories' game that I am personally very interested in seeing - apparently he's reworking it from scratch.  More info here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220589?page=1#msg2619135

Solar is working on a side project called "Zombie Central".  It's a suburban zombie city crawl.
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220974#msg2619073

This is because his other project, Kaboom Foxie is apparently nearly complete.

In My Own Works

And lastly, in my own big news (if you even made it this far to the end of this report) ... is my book is FINALLY released!

https://www.crcpress.com/An-Introduction-to-GameGuru/Messina/p/book/9781138612631

That's right!  The first start to finish guide for making and selling a game in GameGuru is finally here! The book is 426 pages in print with a significant error index, Lua, FPI Guide, 20+ chapters on GameGuru and Game Development in general.

The assets for this (demo maps, character creator addons, custom weapons,  custom static entities, some generously donated other materials, all my scripts, skies and textures...) are all going to be uploaded TONIGHT by 12PM EST.

I will also be giving away some promotional copies for FREE in the coming week.  So keep your eyes peeled on Discord and on the Forums for more details.

For those interested, there is a special 20% off discount code I have through my publisher you can use that is valid until the END OF THE YEAR - AITGG230 

FOR THOSE NOT PURCHASING THE BOOK, THE ASSETS WILL BE POSTED TO THE STORE IN THE COMING WEEK OR SO FOR PURCHASE.  

This Week in GameGuru - 5/13/2019

GameGuru News

A wild Lee Bamber appeared in the forums and made a few quotes:

"Looks like the cat escaped the bag, but yes, I have been putting much time and coding into a non-Steam multiplayer system that improves on what you have right now. I am using Photon which means you can set up your own free server for your games, and then as your user base grows you can subscribe to Photon paid tiers if you need more than 100CCU (https://www.photonengine.com/en/server/pricing).

It should also support host migration and rejoins, so you could effectively keep your game running on your PC and users can come and go from your level as you please (not quite MMORPG but a nice start to a possible persistent world). Naturally, the non-Steam option was to allow you to save out multiplayer games and allow friends to play your multiplayer games without needing GameGuru, but all these details will come in time.

Just posted quickly here to assure you that no donations for this feature are required, it's happening as part of our primary feature development We are also planning to put an expert freelancer on the case with the issues board too so watch this space for an assault on your bug reports as we finally put your donations to good use."

This can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220661?page=1#msg2615407


He also made some comments with respect to MegaPack3's changes you can find here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220751

Lastly, I don't know how long this has been in play, but there's been a change where you can put bug reports in on steam. If you're tracking the issues log on Github, here's another point of interest for you: https://steamcommunity.com/app/266310/discussions/1/

What's Good in the Store

This week I added my 4K Space Skies to the All skies and Time of Day system pack, along with increasing it's price significantly to reflect the addition.  Current owners will be able to find the new 4k skies upon checking for store downloads.

Beyond that we have some excellent work from Valentin321 who has put together several packs this week:

He's added a Fire equipment pack, an electrical measuring equipment pack, and a village pack.  Most are well priced and include reasonably good assets for the price point.

Nomis3d has a huge repository of mid-priced, higher tier assets that he's putting a kit together for an exceptionally low price - 9.95 (on sale).  I highly recommend you grab this kit if you're into military or soviet gear.

Looks like Sula continues to put PBR cars up at $2 a piece, however I'd really like to see these fine automobiles made into a pack for extra value.  That and pressing purchase 30 times in a row isn't fun for anyone.

Pasquil has thirteen traffic objects bundled into a single download pack that look well worth the investment as well if you are building a city scene.

Free Stuff

A free cartoon farm was posted for download: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220746

Lafette put together an impressive robotic arm for download...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS78pd1zKng

You can get yours here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474?page=2#msg2615507

Dagored put together some free skyscrapers: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/210761?page=6#msg2615455

Graphix made some very decent paving slabs for those interested: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217932?page=14#msg2615432

Some great stuff is going on in the realm of Lua code as well.
SmallG posted a way to swap between third and first person: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220747?page=1#msg2615389

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

Corno_1 has removed access to the EBE V2 editor. It's unlikely to return.

A significant quantity of updates were posted onto BOTR's thread of his various third party tools.  One interesting note is he did answer my question about integration of these tools into GG's source and it looks like he is going to pursue that in the future. For a full list of what's going on with his software, check here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219806?page=4#msg2615531

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Protascope is furthering it's development (via Synchromesh).  This excellent title I think will really demonstrate some out of the box thinking for other GameGuru gamedevs and should be looked at as our engine's 'portal-style' frontrunner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXz37EsJJdQ

Nice work, synchromesh!

I'm particularly impressed with his ability to build a unique environment in a challenging engine that looks engaging and fun.

The Cogwheel Chronicles, another frontrunning GG project, is coming along very well.  I spoke at length with Cybernessence about his upcoming changes that he plans on adding to GameGuru and he's very interested in implementing a dynamic lighting solution.  I'd love to see some extra focus on this as others would as well and I'm sure TheGameCreators would likely sweeten the pot with some donation funds. He's also posted some updates here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=6#msg2615288

Make no mistake - Cogwheel Chronicles is an important project to watch because it essentially will act as a techdemo for upcoming third party changes to GameGuru's github codebase.

In My Own Works

This last week I got hit with all 23 chapters of the book needing edited by the 20th.  That's a lot of work in not a lot of time.  This final push for editing is to make the August 19th deadline. I also have been working with one of the artists, specifically the man making the weapons.  We've gotten pretty far with some of the equipment, notably this SMG that is designed as a panic-fire weapon:

Please note none of this is final, but the basic concept is like 95% close to the final product.
Beyond that I'm working on trying to figure out why my projectiles system isn't working for one of the weapons, but so far everything is coming along really well.
I plan on doing a detailed write-up of everything afterwards on how to really own the custom projectiles system.