TGC's 'Sci-Fi DLC'

So it's been a while since my last post.
I know, I know.  But to my credit - most of that time was spent shovelling.

York PA got dumped on - we got as much snow in one day as we get on average for a WHOLE WINTER.   So I've literally spent every night shoveling, every day shoveling.  It's left little time for creative pursuits.

On top of that I've had my hands full with life stuff such as my second son's upcoming birth.  That means Dr's appts, calling around, finding sitters, etc.

I never expected the level of traffic my little post to John Romero would generate and I'm happy for it.  No more excuses.  Time to knuckle down and get to work.

I've waited a long time for the vaunted "Sci-Fi DLC" by 'The Game Creators'.  I have several of their other packs (having been a FPS Creator Reloaded gold backer) and much of the content is unfortunately redundant or kind of amateurish.

That's not the case here.

The kit comes with a whole slew of useful items:

• 23 Building parts
• 7 Characters (alien, space marines and a spaceman)
• 11 Collectables
• 73 Decals
• 34 Interior sections
• 21 Rocks
• 43 Scenery items
• 3 Martian terrains
• 3 Martian skies 

Now given my store entries are purely of skies, the skies are minimally useful to me.

I don't care about the custom level they made aside from the bits of script I can rip out and repurpose.

So let's talk price.  Currently it's on sale as a promo - 14.99 USD.  That's a really good deal for a ton of very high quality assets.  Take a look:

 One of the many characters included - looks similar to a custom one I made!

A little note on the characters - all of their component parts are included in the character creator!  Which while not a fantastic builder by any stretch (the base parts are just dreadfully bad) the new heads/bodies breath lots of life into the system and further diversify user-created products.

Lots of the interior elements look really good too as set pieces:

 

 Like this little guy in his glass womb.  This is perfect for any sci-fi horror game.

I've spent a long time looking for various parts that go together as a whole and while this was originally designed for ground-based games - it works really well for a number of sci-fi pieces.

 

The outdoor pieces look way better than the preview shots did, final post-work looks great!

The indoor pieces in my opinion though are where this set really shines.

 

In particular there's a ton of decals and graphics which allow a lot of flexibility for stick-on neon lighting or displays to add flair for each room.

 

This console is modular and can be built with additional monitors and displays, for instance.

All in all I'm very surprised and pleased with the level of quality they brought to the table and ten out of ten times would buy this again, especially considering the pittance they are asking for.

Another important point to consider is that they regularly add pieces to the DLCs.  I know for a fact a drone set is coming soon after they put finishing touches on it.  The fantasy DLC is also getting stuff despite being in the wild now for around a year or so.

The bottom line on this is that it's a quality piece to own especially if you're into the genre, like I am.  Give it a look!

Thanks to TGC for the pictures which I took from their DLC store page.  I'll try to add some of my own graphics later or give a few sample shots as time goes on.

 

Project Status Monday 1/4/2016

Projects projects everywhere.

Soon I'll be swamped at work, at least in the short term.  For this moment though, I have a little free time.
With that time, I find ways to keep myself productive.

Idling projects:
MWDA Game - you know the score here.  Just not on a primary burner right now.
My book - I read a piece by George RR Martin about how he hated working for deadlines and wasn't going to finish his newest book in time for the show.  Well... yeah.  I don't know if I will ever finish this book series.  That last bit of bad criticism really put me in a sour mood and I don't think I want to just jump right back to that.
Other books - Book writing feels so tedious, you know?  I guess I enjoy shorter pieces but not so short they fit in a magazine's scant 7-9 pages.  Novellas just don't sell and expanding them into novels is a boring chore.  I have enough of those as of current, thank you very much.

Active projects:
Sci-Fi game in game guru.  I've been advancing my toolkit steadily towards my goal of completing a quality low budget title.  I made my own skies and placed them on the tgcstore (available here: https://en.tgcstore.net/artist/190502 ).

They are selling well, which is a welcome surprise.

I'm waiting for the sci-fi kit coming from TGC; they have some excellent enemy characters in the kit.  The rest is pretty meh.  But the characters will be worth it.

I'm working on learning 3D modelling.  It's an experience but coming along nicely.  There's a lot to remember in blender but overall I'm surprised at how easy it is to develop organic or complex shapes.

It actually gives me a whole new perspective on model development and I will be sure to incorporate that into my reviews.

I've started putting together asset libraries (my usual first step before making a level) for the next few levels in my game.   I want the pacing of my game to be very different from other GG games.  Faster, more overwhelming is the goal.  I want it to be DIFFICULT.  Too many of these homebrew games are ridiculously simple and easy.  I want to incorporate my lessons from the Doom series into this and try to produce some interesting 'kill puzzle' challenges which will force the player to think.  A lot of these homebrew Game-Guru and FPS Creator games tend to have a very easy and simple game play style which I'm sure suits the creator.  But if you're trying to challenge gamers, you need to present them a challenge.

That's part of what I want to do.  I also need to get some 3D modelling under my belt so I can offer custom models as opposed to just more store bought stuff.

I got some new assets too, since Voodoo updated his stuff.  It gave me an idea for a later area but I need to let that stew for now.  Next stop for me is building the medlab and engineering/bridge sections.

I've got a few of my custom characters from the charactermaker done but most of them are throwaways.  Only 2-3 are worth keeping (such as the cyberknight, who came out AWESOME).

The level flow is coming together. 

Status Update: Monday 12/28/15

I missed my status update on Friday because I had a lot going on.

Christmas is a done deal, yay.  No more stressing about gifts and running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Stalled projects:
Mechwarrior Dark Age game - on hold until I finish other projects.  Still optimistic I can make it work with the right engine and some porting.
My 'Neo-Monegasque' book series - ... @#$^... I've really come to hate this book series.  After getting bad feedback from one of the preview-reviewers I'm contemplating just finishing it and letting it die a quiet death.
Other books - I keep a mental fire lit, but mostly my energy is on things below.

Active projects:
I have a lot of 'pre-baby' stuff to do in prep for this kid that's coming.  Like finding a better doctor, more suitable, etc.

I did a lot of game development work over this weekend and am very pleased with the results.

The receiving 'opening' area.  I think I've finally licked the interior lighting issues on that pillar.

The right of the pillar; a visible and nearly completed docking area, ship, warning signs/lights and some of the rest of the station extend beyond view.  Had an issue with occlusion killing the objects just beyond the glass so I had to turn occlusion down to 0 to fix it for now.  I need to re position that lightray decal though.  Also missing my red lighting for the warning light, which I had to remove in the process of troubleshooting the missing object situation.  This area still needs a lot of tweaking, I think but with proper lighting it should be fine.

 I really like this hallway, what can I say.  I use it's combination of natural and indoor lighting to provide a nice looking calm scene; this will be contrasted later when things go to pot and things are all busted up.   In all, I like how it looks so I try to include this as a 'progress' screenshot so you can kind of gauge against previous configs.

  Receiving Rec Area/Dining hall.  Continues to be a source of difficulty for me with lighting artifacts that I can't isolate the source of.  That said, it's getting there.  The addition of EAI's arcade cabinets and the old cosmic diner pinball machine gives it a more natural feel.  I cleaned up some of the elements after taking this picture (Pinball machine, walls, arcade machines) so they didn't feel so clumped together.

The new area - the fusion core. Was going to be a water reservoir but had trouble with indoor water setups.   It was tremendously tricky to get the lava functional as it is but I like it.  From here there will be pathways to engineering and the bridge, as well as crew quarters.  I have a lot more work to do here but the start is looking very nice.


I was given some feedback that the lighting looks a lot better than previous screenshots.  Also that it reminds the viewer of system shock, which to me is high praise.  I think system shock most closely embodies what I'm going for here, though obviously these two are quite different. 

Anyways at this point, I'm considering a hub and spoke design for the maps, whereas I was considering something a lot more linear.  This will allow a more reusable level design, though I'm not 100% sold on it.

Another key point of progress was made in getting some older characters functioning with one of smallg's scripts.  It gives me a core AI to work around and that saves a lot of time.  I can clean it up and make it run a lot nicer with my background in AI code.  But the base is pretty good so I'm happy with that.   It also gives me access to models which I can configure for my own use.

The Comprehensive "Must-have Free Stuff Guide for Game-Guru" (part 1)

Just in time for Christmas, as promised!  My comprehensive free stuff list :)
Please note - there are a massive amount of free items out there.  It's to the point where I couldn't even HOPE to put them all in one place.  This is just a list for you to get started with.

As I've stated before, Game-Guru is not an exceptionally powerful engine.  It's primary strengths are really in three or four main areas:

• Community - the community is tight knit and not full of knobs.  Very nice people helping each other really is a refreshing change of pace.
• Dev team - despite their size and at times inexperience, they remain dedicated and are constantly improving the product.
• Shaders - this is the cheapest price point to get a shader-capable game engine shy of working in unreal/etc.    But those professional engines have something this one lacks:
• Assets.  Assets galore.  Granted, I'd say maybe 20% are AAA rated, most slot into the serviceable category and a few are in the 'backdrop only' area.  But still - for the price of a single 'component' for Unity you can buy an entire artist's 600 piece collection in Game-Guru.

 Exceptionally good tools at unity, but the price orients that towards a professional studio.

On the note of 600 piece artist collections, here are the three I had in mind:

Oldpman's FULL artist collection - $30

Valuable Assets 2015 Collection - $65

Wizard of Id's full artist catalog (!) - $27 *must have!

But we're not here to discuss paid collections are we?  We're here to discuss free ones.

So without much delay - here's my list of free stuff (volume 1) of must-have freebies.

TGC Store:

Free Packs on TGCStore

Free Entities on TGCStore 

Game-Guru Files:

Game-Guru Files has a ton of free stuff in models and packs

- Favorites:

•  Code Crusher's Sci-Fi Pack
• Alfredx10's Scifi world 1
• Alfredx10's Scifi world 2
• Henry Ham's Gas Bottle
• Flowing water w/ animation
• JForth's Animated Console
• Rolfy's awesome animated sirens
• Voodoo's incredible scifi build kit
• Seriously though there's tons on there - make sure you check it all out by visiting the site directly!

3rd Party Sites:

Starmind's collection of FPSC packs. Might require conversion/work to add to Game Guru 

Crazyfox's site - a few pay, a few free items.

Forum Freebies:

Animated Decals, part one: (fog, mist, lightning, forest fire) 

Animated Decals, part two: (ground fog cover) 

Animated Decals, part three: (Creepy fog) 

Animated Decals, part four: (megapack of explosions, smoke, fire, etc) 

Animated Decals, part five: (Falling leaves)

Animated Decals, part six: (Falling rain) 

Improved flashlight Graphic 

A free blood spatter decal pack 

Cosmic Prophet's Fighter Craft

Walls and doors - very useful.

14 Well made and free lamps 

Steampunk dudes and way more!

 

Forum Freebie Scripts:

3d Positional Audio

Dodge the objects

Spawn enemies

Very simple timer script

Get object ID (very useful!) 

Save/Load Feature

Exploding Door

Make enemies/NPC's sit

Oxygen

Security Camera Alert

Inventory system

AI scripts

Neutral until shot/Hit AI script

"Better" Guard AI (I've not tested this) 

Branching Text/Conversations

Heat/Water/Thirst Environmental Effects 

Night Vision Scope 

How to make driveable cars/3rd person in a nutshell 

Poison Gas and Gas Mask script

And the granddaddy of scripts collections: Smallg's massive script stockpile

As stated, there's tons more out there.  Use the forums, the tgcstore, google, whatever you can to get the free stuff.  Support the authors when you can- most of these guys do this for fun and I go out of my way to purchase some of their pay items as way of a thank you for their hard work.