We buy a new PC, set up our favourite software on it and proceed to use the computer in our daily lives. BUT - how often do you stop to ask yourself if the tools you’re using all the time are the best ones for the job?  

We speak of computers, but it could be anything; such as replacing a wheelbarrow with an electric wheelbarrow. Seems trivial and perhaps even lazy but, try it for a day, and you’ll never look back. Why? Because the electric wheelbarrow can shift four times the load across a good distance with complete ease, and the same is true for the humble PC.

If you are fortunate enough to still have an old PC you might have used 8 years ago, boot it up and run some of your software. Notice how slow it is? Now think how slow your current 4-year-old PC is compared to one you can buy today, and how much more efficient or productive you could be. And what about the software itself, are you still using the same file explorer, video converter, art package from eons ago? Introspection can be good for the soul, but so can checking your hardware and software tools against what is available today, you might be pleasantly surprised ?

The last 30 days of GameGuru MAX development have seen some of the coolest updates to the games engine yet, with the release our all new terrain system, which uses procedural generation and virtual texturing to produce near infinite terrains and an extremely large area for you to explore. The benefit to generating terrains procedurally, is that you are no longer required to craft each hill and mountain yourself and can, instead, use the computer to generate natural terrain formations for you, and then edit only the bits you want to change.

In parallel to this amazing terrain work, we have been building up the logic systems for creating great gameplay for your levels, including a behaviour editor for advanced users, and a cool selection of behaviours for everyone else. This allows you to quickly assign logic to your game objects without worrying about scripting or coding, but still allows anyone who wants to create logic to do so easily in a visual way, again without needing to code.

There are many ways to create games today and we want GameGuru MAX to be a product that lets you create games, and the logic for your games, without the need to learn how to code, and our visual logic editing and visual behaviour editor are two great tools that will allow you to do that.

Take a look at our latest update video to see more about what’s been happening on the development front with GameGuru MAX.

For those of you creating games in GameGuru Classic you will by now have received your September Bug Fixes update through the automated Steam update system. This update once again took all the reported bugs on the GitHub issues board and squashed them and, in a handful of cases we provided more information to the reporting user.

However, we noticed a few issues after the launch of the update and remedied them all within 48 hours. We were on it!

As you know we release updates every quarter to ensure that GameGuru Classic remains stable and bug free for our game making community. If you do find something you would like fixed just post your issue to the GitHub issues board

If you’re planning a new game-making project then take a look at the great promotional offers available on our website!

Last month we rolled out an important new version of AppGameKit Studio to our users. The main focus of the update was to add support for Google Play Store App Bundles. Due to how App Bundles work it’s now necessary to have the Java Development Kit installed as part of your AppGameKit Studio development environment.

There were a few bumps in the road with the release which meant a further update had to be rolled out a few days later. We’re happy to report that users are now comfortable with the build and are able to release updates to their apps with the App Bundles feature in place. For full details of the release you can read the news announcement here.

The Particle Editor is on special offer this month. You can use the effects it makes in AppGameKit Studio and in the soon to be released GameGuru MAX - check it out here

We’ll be releasing the latest version of AppGameKit Classic in the next few days time. We know it’s a little later than planned but we wanted to be sure the Studio version was correct before focusing on the Classic build. As with Studio, this build will add support for App Bundles.

Notable AppGameKit deals to watch out for this month are:

This month we talk to T-Bone (aka Tyrone MacLean-Wilson) who has been around the TheGameCreator forums for just over 15 years now and has been using TheGameCreator products, like DarkBASIC Professional, since the early 2000’s.

T-Bone was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and from a young age had a desire to make video games. He puts this down to be being born in the 80’s and having a childhood in such a pivotal point in gaming culture; seeing the epic birth of videogame consoles and PC video games. His childhood was pretty much shaped around video games, and this led to his interest in how games were made and the ambition to make his own.

“I was, of course, ecstatic when FPS Creator first came out in the mid 2000’s” says T-Bone, “This allowed me to quickly put 3D levels together with ease and see results instantly. Following FPSC I started using GameGuru Classic, which encouraged me to learn 3D modelling and Lua programming. With these new skill sets I made many video game prototypes, beyond just the first person shooter genre.  GameGuru Classic is an engine designed specifically for making fast-paced, FPS games, though I was feeling quite ambitious and wanted to make a medieval fantasy RPG. I quickly learned about the limitation of a game of this scope and have since regressed it to grid-based movement, rather than an action packed, open world RPG. I would, later on, name the project ‘Guild of The Peculiars’."

‘Guild of The Peculiars’ is a first person, grid-based, dungeon crawler, inspired by classic retro dungeon crawlers of the 80’s and 90’s, such as Dungeon Master, Lands of Lore and Eye of the Beholder. These games allow you to control a party of 4 customizable characters, as you embark on epic fantasy adventures, often leading the player into the depths of caverns and dark dungeons equipped only with a fading torch to light your path.

During the early development of the game Tyrone discovered an awesome community of dungeon crawler game developers and players at www.dungeoncrawlers.org which serves as an archive and record of all first person dungeon crawlers, dating back as far as the 1970s to present. Worth checking it out if you have an interest in these types of games.

Whilst it’s a very niche group of people that play these types of games, Tyrone just knew it was the type of game he’s always wanted to make. “This is a resurgent game genre which has started to develop traction with game developers, who are now making brand new, first person, grid-based games in this retro genre using modern day graphics.” says T-Bone, “I am hoping ‘Guild of The Peculiars’ will join this collection of new grid-based dungeon crawler games.”

He adds, “However, ‘Guild of the Peculiars’ is far from being completed, in fact I’d say it's but a mere pre-alpha demo at best currently. But, this is the first time I’ve decided to put 100% into a game project, I’ve even put together a public roadmap to hold myself accountable to finishing the game from start to end!”

Watch a great trailer for the game here, check out the Guild of The Peculiars website and subscribe to T-Bones YouTube channel to stay updated!