Mobile phones are now as common and necessary as your purse or wallet – in fact they are well on the way to replacing them ?  

It’s hard to remember how we managed without them. They have become the centrepiece of our lives, bringing in messages and information, playing entertainment and so much more. Every year the phones get faster, have higher resolution displays, they store more data and pack a massive punch of features. Will the phone still be king in ten to twenty years’ time?

There are some who predict AR glasses will replace phones with their layered-on images over the real world. It’s hard to see currently but it’s worth watching this space. Apple are rumoured to be bringing their first AR/VR headset to market in 2023 and Facebook, oops! Meta, continue to push the boundaries with their Oculus range. The future will be different; can’t wait to see how it evolves ?

Open sourcing – we listened!

We listened to the cries of ‘open up GameGuru Classic’ and are very pleased to announce that we've updated the public GameGuru Classic repository on GitHub and now, with a little Visual Studio skill, you can compile and apply the latest binary to your GameGuru Classic installation.

This means anyone can clone the latest version of GameGuru Classic and make their own changes to the games engine for their projects. It also means we may get occasional contributions of new functionalities from the community that we can include in the official builds – watch this space!  

As part of the refactoring of the source code for the latest update we also added 64-bit support to the core executable and added back-end support for the popular IMGUI API for a possible future replacement of the current GameGuru Classic IDE. The 64-bit upgrade is of particular importance to those users who have been frustrated with the 3GB system memory cap on their games thus far, and from this release onwards you'll have access to as much system memory as you need for your larger game making projects.

We’ve continued with our two-weekly updates to GameGuru MAX and are steadily, ok - slowly ?, working our way through the bugs. In June we fixed some issues to do with object collisions, shadow casting, behaviour logic, and the particle system.

We also added the new Indian Strike Force Demo Game to the Hub and last week released Horseshoe Bend!

The much-requested feature from the GameGuru community has been for a free demo version so that users can try before they buy, and confirm that their system spec meets the minimum requirements to enable them to run GameGuru MAX. Ta-da! We released a free demo version last week that can be downloaded via Steam which includes:

  • Nine demo games you can play
  • Access to all the game objects used in the demos
  • A preview of all game objects in full 3D so you get a sense of what you will get in the full version

Save standalone game, model importing, marketplace and saving custom characters have been disabled in the free trial version but are available in the full version. 

 

We hope that the free trial version gives a good insight into GameGuru MAX and we’ve also created a quick comparison chart so it’s easy to see the differences between GameGuru Classic and GameGuru MAX

Looking for some awesome new models for your GameGuru MAX or GameGuru Classic masterpieces? Check out the Game Creator store. Each month, we'll take a quick look at what's new and highlight the best deals.

For GameGuru MAX, if you're trying to add some atmosphere? There's a range of graveyard inspired models at bargain prices. Take a look at the graves sets, or selection of headstones, tombs and statues.

If you're looking for some more firepower, and who isn't, you should grab yourself a copy of BSP's excellent futuristic weapons pack for GameGuru MAX.

For GameGuru Classic, you can travel further with the Train yard pack by Lefette.

If these suggestions don't inspire you, why not simply browse the Game Creator store - you're sure to find what you're looking for.

Our bug fix update for AppGameKit Studio and AppGameKit Classic was released last month and focused on a host of new commands including noise generators, sprite physics and tweening.  

Take a look at this forum thread as it contains some great example code demonstrating how to use the new noise generation commands.

As usual Steam owners of AppGameKit will have the update ready for them and TheGameCreators customers can download the new version direct via their order history area on the TheGameCreators website

Our first AppGameKit game jam on itch.io is over and well done to everyone who made a submission. The standard was high considering the limited time, and it was a tough public vote. We asked the community to submit an AppGameKit game, based on the theme MAZE (and how that was interpreted was up to the individual developer).

In the end, Fascimania's entry ‘Hounds of Hell’, a Doomesque maze crawler, won the public vote fairly convincingly, with ‘Star Maze’ by waldorfhammer coming in second.

Prizes are on their way to everyone and we're already seeing entries arriving for our second SPACE themed game jam!

If you want to join any of our jams, why not check out our growing community on itch.io or head straight over to the itch.io AGK game jam page register and get coding!

This month we meet AppGameKit Super-Guru Adam Biser (aka Fascimania) who talks us through his journey in coding, game-creation and music-making!

“We got a TRS-80 Color Computer when I was very young and when I wasn't playing games on it, I learned BASIC from its manuals and even attempted to make a few games for it.  My interest in computers grew as I got older, leading me to study computer science in college and I now work as a software developer."

After college, I started making game development tools for Wolfenstein 3D which led to me developing my first game, Orb of Dilaaria, which is a feature-packed modification of the original Wolfenstein 3D engine - regarded as one of the best ever made!  Its popularity gave me the idea that I should make my own games, so I started Fascimania and released Kilgazar, a fantasy rogue-like with a board game graphics style using Java and LWJGL.

I first learned of, and bought, AppGameKit through a Humble Bundle deal back in 2015 and used its BASIC language to create Toxic Terror, Daisia and Boot Hill Blaster.

Back in the days of Steam's Greenlight program I thought it would be good for AppGameKit games to have Steam achievements, so I wrote a Steam plugin, and even though the plugin is free, the AGK community members have been generous in supporting it and I appreciate them.

I developed AppGameKit for Python because I thought it would be great if AGK could be used in a modern, non-BASIC language besides C++.  Thankfully, TheGameCreators approved the project and again I appreciate everyone who uses it.

I became interested in music composition while taking a music theory course in high school, which has allowed me to write all of the music used in every game I've released.  The music for Orb of Dilaaria was very well received and I'm currently remastering the soundtrack to the game on Patreon - where there are samples available. Feel free to become a patron ?  

In addition to composition, I also play guitar and while living in Memphis, TN, I formed a band called Odd Normality and wrote the songs we played. We released some of the music we performed on a CD entitled A Taste of What Was - feel free to check it out!

My games and other projects can be found on Steam and itch.io and I’m pleased to say I have a few game ideas in mind that I'd like to work on - stay tuned!”