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 Game-Guru - 02/26/2018

So this week I am proud to say that I've signed a book deal for my Game-Guru book (title withheld) with CRC Press.  It's going to be a monster.  450 pages, minimum and it's already well on the way.


Stay tuned to this space for more updates on it.  If you are a content maker for Game-Guru, be aware I'm looking for assets to include with the book.  Namely some weapons, buildings, and clutter objects.  Contact me via this site, email, or PM me on the forums for more details.


Now on with the show :)

ENGINE UPDATE PROGRESS REPORT 

While not necessarily an 'engine progress' report, it's worth noting that some of the freelancers working on the git branch of GameGuru are  looking to get a donation stream started.  There's some contention about where it should go and how it should be disbursed but there's a lively discussion on the matter here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219376

Beyond that we're looking at the newest build being pipelined out as a 'main' build (no longer public preview) very shortly.  I think they're just looking for the results of this latest PP build which I have found personally to be very stable.

NEW PRODUCTS  IN THE STORE

On the store we have a few new interesting items.  Mad lobster workshop is.. STILL ADDING THINGS NEARLY A YEAR LATER TO HIS KIT.  I mean.. it's cool, I appreciate the value but I almost feel like this guy is shooting himself in the foot at this point.  He'd make more and it'd be more appealing to purchasers if he started doing a new pack. Anywho we have a new set of PBR assets from him that look great.  I'm excited to try them out.

Next we have a stogie that looks fantastic by master of clutter himself, Teabone.

And lastly there are some helicopters by AlfredX10.  Not my cup of tea but overall decently done enough.  Alfred's got a lot of skill with modelling so I'm looking forward to see him work more on new models for GameGuru.

FREE STUFF 

Lots of great new stuff this week.  Graphix has made some phenomenal models which are free for use.  They include two new weapons.  Namely a really nasty looking hammer and a barbed-wire baseball bat!

Looks nasty, doesn't it?

Tarkus1971 has added something a little different, namely a creepy basement audio track for free use.  Audio tracks are hard to find, harder still to get for free.  Definitely don't miss it!

THIRD PARTY TOOLS 

Entity welder has received an update.  Per BOTR: (here)  "version 1.7.3 now uploaded and available. Emails sent to all relevant users. Any issues, please let me know."


RANDOM ACTS OF CREATIVITY

This week we see some interesting new projects as well as some updates by the older and more established creators.

The first new project is by 'noahuk '.  It's called 'Evil of Asylym' and actually looks fairly well put together.  You can view a video of it by going here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QayycyzjZ5c

Next we have "schneeky's maze" which I have to say is an impressive departure from the typical first person shooter game we see. 

Definitely not your usual GameGuru game!

This maze game uses a robot navigating VR-style terrain from a top-down view. 

In terms of updates we have an update from the increasingly chatty Dimoxinil who has added more PBR textures to his work.

Looks great!

Lastly Wolf has made a rare appearance, though if only to unlock a thread on one of his ongoing projects.  I'm hoping to see an update there soon.

IN MY OWN WORKS

Gotta keep my cards close to the vest at this point.  I have a lot going on, though a reminder that the Camerakit was recently made available on the store.  Give it a glance, let me know what you think!

As mentioned previously - there's a book coming.  It'll probably be in print middle of next year, but in the meantime I am looking for interested authors to help me provide materials with the book.  If you have something you'd like to donate, please don't hesitate to contact me (use the contact form on the right)!  I also have a very small budget to work with or will trade you free copies of my own products.  You'll also get a mention on the acknowledgements section.  Up to you how you want to try to get in on the ground floor of something unique in the GameGuru world!

This week in Game-Guru 12/4/2017

Welcome back to my second update.  We've seen some HUGE updates this week.

ENGINE UPDATE PROGRESS REPORT

First and foremost, the public preview was released this week.  The 'beta' is now a public beta.   Get in there and test!  I ran into a problem installing mine that required me to update certain elements of my Windows 7 OS to fix a D3DDIRECT_47.dll not found error.   Other than that though, it works great.  I've had a few assets with problems and am yet to test my own products but as soon as I can verify their function I'll note that here.

More info is available here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219024

PBR Assets look great!

Beware though; this is a test version.  It's not all there yet and so it's best to make a backup before you continue.  I personally copied my 50+GB of assets and GG to a backup folder.  If you can't afford that kind of space, then I'd recommend either getting another drive or putting a copy on drive.google.com (you get like 15GB free there).

NEW PRODUCTS IN THE STORE

The store this week has some interesting December sales which are worth looking at.  Artists range from "The Wizard of Id", "that model guy" and "grobyken" all having several models or packs up to individual packs like Teabone's new warning sign set.

These high quality clutter objects cost only 70 cents.. TOTAL!  For the whole pack!

Teabone's done a fantastic job of creating high quality assets that are extremely affordable but possibly more importantly - they are very useful!  I have several signs from older packs that just don't measure up.  They look chunky and out of date.  These signs are clear, easy to read, are well lit but yet still have just the right amount of grunge to keep them from looking out of place.

Also on the store I noticed this gem from an artist I've only seen the occasional piece from: AlexGCC.  I took a look and noticed two separate products which appear relatively new that are of pretty excellent quality:

The Arcade will go well with EAI's set and the playground will go well with dagored's Carnival.

They're both reasonably priced so definitely give these and his other interesting products a look!

FREE STUFF

As always, there's a veritable bevy of free stuff available on the Game-Guru forums.  This week we have a nice freebie from Wolf, a set electrical boxes which he's also put up on the store as well.  I have several of his 'junction box' sets and I've noticed a clear trend upwards in terms of quality and technical skill.  Of note are the illuminated lights on the boxes.

The perfect touch for all your cyberpunk set dressing needs.

Also on the forums it appears Bod's been at it again.  Now if you don't know Bod, you should.  He's made a titanic mass of free stuff over the past few years.  While his art style and approach might limit other assets you can use with it, it does definitely fill a role and niche.  Very often he's got things you simply can't find anywhere else.  Or things that you'd pay a fair penny for on the store.

In this case he's been working on a ton of railroad assets.  This week he's added a switching booth which looks great.  It's probably one of his best physical models for buildings that I've seen so far.

His texturing is really going places.

At some point I'm going to take all my free assets and open up a google drive with them so people can access them freely in the future.  It'd be a shame if this stuff just fell off into oblivion from lack of upkeep or if the forums went away.

The interior on this building is top notch.  I love the way it turned out.

One final one to look at is this thread: https://forum.game-guru.com/board/25 which has a repository of all of "tarkus1971"s hard work.  He's got some interesting things there but most notably he has been adding lots of great music for free use in your games.

THIRD PARTY TOOLS

In the world of third party tools, it looks like BOTR's 'HeightMap to Game-Guru' tool is getting a new user interface which will really help with it's function.  On top of that he's added a preview mode which should REALLY shave time off pulling maps from http://terrain.party and importing them into Game-Guru. Granted I'm really thankful for a free tool like this but I have to admit it's always nice when it becomes truly functional.

This is going to massively help level development for Game-Guru!

Also of note is that OldPMan's "normalizator" tool has apparently reached a new stage of development and will be offered shortly on the store.  Per OldPMan himself:

"Hello everybody!
I'm happy to report that I finally recovered the lost source code "NORMALIZATOR". So I added a height channel and several auxiliary functions, this is copying the image from layer to layer, cropping the image and copying / pasting the selected part of the image. Fixed several bugs.
Now I will have all my time in touch and any questions will not be left without attention.
Concerning people who donated to the development of the application, I sent everyone emails with the keys for NORMALIZATOR in the tgcstore store. I noticed that not all of the keys I sent were activated, if for some reason you did not receive a letter with a key from me, write me a PM and I will give you instructions for obtaining a key in the tgcstore store.
The new version will soon be available at the tgcstore store, now in the status of approval.
For those who expect STEAM version, now you can get access to the closed beta test of the application, just write me a PM and I'll send you the key for access via STEAM client."

RANDOM ACTS OF CREATIVITY

So there's a lot of activity going into the holidays with projects.  I have a lot to cover here.

Let's start from the top!

First up we have MrEaKing(YT)'s 'Santa's Workshop(1 week challenge)'.  What can I say?  He's retextured assets and modified some of the soldiers to provide a shall we say a truly 'unique' experience.

Beyond that we have Dark Harbour; Honkeyboy's newest attempt at making a Skyrim Style game which will undoubtedly push the boundaries of how many assets Game-Guru can run without crashing.  He's got some interesting crafting scripts in there that he's working on and it's definitely got some work behind it.

Of particular note here is AmenMoses's 'asteroids-ish thingy'.  AmenMoses is the maker of the quaternion library for Game Guru and he uses it for rotation in very impressive fashion.

I'll have to play with it later but should run great, knowing AmenMoses.

Beyond that we have some updates to the Cogwheel Chronicles 1 and LenTheMan's Cowboy shooter.  Lots of good stuff in the pipeline.

Personally I have my own projects as well that are stalled out but will revive after the new year.  Lots of things to work on and do.  I'd like to get some stuff done for Christmas but it's really going to be tight at this rate.