It cannot be argued that the Nintendo Switch is anything but a massive international success with gamers worldwide - it continues to sell well and there’s a new OLED version releasing this October.

With this hand-held hardware format proving hugely popular with gamers, it comes as no surprise that the style of the Switch has been embodied in Valve’s new Steam Deck. This exciting new handheld PC device, slated for release this holiday season, is a brand-new avenue for game developers to target.

On paper it looks like it will perform well and deliver a great experience, but only time will tell if it will be a success. If it does succeed, then the market for games that target the Steam Deck will be in hot demand!  We’ll be excitedly watching its progress ?

Those lucky enough to have pre-ordered and have access to our regular GameGuru MAX Friday builds will have been treated to quite a lot of game-making assets this month. The aim is to have enough core assets to create a number of different environments and scenarios for good shooter gameplay.

We are acutely aware that some users don't necessarily need over 20GB of art right now and our plans have seen us expand the auto updater so you can select whether to download the asset collections or just the core software.

To that end, and to accelerate development, we have added a new member to our GameGuru MAX development team who is currently going through the TheGameCreators coders trial by fire, and, so far, is doing very well indeed.

In the background we are working simultaneously on the new terrain system and the new gameplay logic system, perhaps the two most important aspects of the game maker in terms of delivering cool games.

As always, when we are ready to show and tell, you will learn all about them in our Live Broadcasts on our YouTube channel every Wednesday at 4pm BST.

Thanks to everyone who has supported the project so far, and we are very excited about the reveals we have planned over the next few months!

Take a look at our latest video explaining what’s been happening on the development front with GameGuru MAX

If you haven’t as yet taken the plunge and pre-ordered GameGuru MAX you can claim 25% discount off the launch price and receive all the exclusive Alpha builds as we develop what is going to be a great game-maker!

We hope you enjoyed the Bug Fixes Update we recently released, once again re-setting the bug count to zero. Since the release, a few new bugs have snuck in and we have development time scheduled to fix these in time for the next update in September.

If you are a GameGuru Classic user and you still have issues with the product, please do post your report in the GitHub Issues Board, it really is the only way we can hit every bug in Classic and make sure our legacy product remains solid and dependable.

Also, a BIG thank you to everyone who has posted reviews on Steam; it really helps us spread the word.

If you are about to embark on a game-making project, remember we regularly do promotions on additional game-making assets you might need. Here’s a selection of what’s on sale next week:

We’ll be updating AppGameKit Classic in September so watch out for that new version! One of the key updates will be support for Android App Bundles; a new directive from Google for all apps published to the Play Store.

AppGameKit Classic is discounted by 70% this month, so if you’ve been on the fence about buying a copy or would like to gift a copy to a friend then this is a great time to grab a copy!

Plus, we have some great deals this month on these products:

We will also roll out a similar update for AppGameKit Studio in September with similar changes to those in Classic, plus there’ll also be some IDE fixes and tweaks.

AppGameKit Studio Particle Editor is discounted by 60% this month and it also works with the new GameGuru MAX!  Grab your copy while it’s on this deep discount!

From 16th August the AppGameKit Studio Mega Media Pack will be discounted by 60% for two weeks so if you need lots of assets for your projects now is a great time to bag a discounted Media Pack.

This month we talk to developer Casper (aka Ghost) about his game Anthropocene Epoch and his game-making journey.

Casper was an avid gamer, and this led to his passion for modding games. He got hooked on the idea of manipulating the game to how he wanted to play it. His wife suggested that he should start making games with this interest and that’s where he began his hunt for a game engine that could provide what he was attempting to create, being easy to use and not time consuming at all.

Casper stumbled upon a game called ‘Redacted’, an FPS created with GameGuru by Wolf.

Casper says, "It inspired me to want to make something like his work, that’s when I came across GameGuru. At the time I had no clue what I wanted to create so for a few years I learned everything about the engine and how it works. That’s when I started a project called Dietara, a medieval RPG game which is still in the works.”

Anthropocene Epoch is a Sci-Fi/Apocalyptic FPS set in the Sonoma region. The main character is ‘Kas’, a cyber pirate who was sent to Sonoma prison for the crimes he has committed. The aim of the game is to complete missions assigned to you to help you get off Earth before the Mantis, an alien species, takes over. It’s a prologue to another project that Casper has been working on called Mantis Corp, a Sci-Fi shooter game.

Casper explains, "I didn’t have a story about how you ended up in space in the first place, so I decided to make Anthropocene Epoch, which is how it all starts. I initially wanted to create a game with a lot of custom assets and sounds that work. I’m happy to say it’s turning out really well and I hope to have this game released soon.

 

As I've never done an FPS shooter before I was kind of on the line when I went and sent out screenshots and made a thread on forums as I didn’t know if people would like it, but I got a lot of hype for Dietara so I decided to take my chances.

 

Then people started seeing Anthropocene Epoch and liked it, so I continued working on it. I did work hard on it and I think people will see the work put in just by playing it.

So, what’s next for me? Well, first completing this project in the next month or so. Then I’ll go back to finishing Dietara but I’m waiting on GameGuru MAX to finish it. I will still continue to make games in GameGuru Classic as I would like to do some educational games for Autistic children, helping them with speech and sign language as I have a 5-year-old son who is Autistic.

I would also like to thank a few people for helping me with GameGuru over the last few years. First off is Wolf, if I hadn’t of seen his games I don't think I would have known about GameGuru or even started with game development. Next is Maverick1981 as he helped me out with blender and making better models, he’s really good in that department. Duchenkuke, who has inspired me with his work and knowledge of GameGuru and his level design skills. Smallg for helping me with scripts for Anthropocene Epoch – and finally to the rest of the GameGuru community on Discord and on the forums – everyone is always very helpful and awesome to chat with. I hope you guys enjoy this read!”

You can find Casper on YouTube, check out his channel and keep up to date with Casper’s games and projects on his website