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It’s been suggested that AI will replace programmers in the near future. It’s a worrying statement and hard to determine if this is fait accompli :-O
Back in the early 1800's the industrial revolution saw the uprising of hand loom weavers breaking into factories and destroying the new machines that made their job obsolete. Could AI have a similar devastating effect on programmers’ livelihoods? While AI is a powerful technology that has the potential to automate many tasks, it is unlikely to completely replace programmers in the foreseeable future. AI is currently more proficient at automating repetitive and well-defined tasks rather than the highly creative and complex work that programmers do.
AI can already assist programmers in various ways, such as automating code generation, bug detection and suggesting optimisations. AI-driven tools like code completion and code analysis have become increasingly popular and helpful for developers, streamlining their workflow. These advancements are meant to augment the capabilities of programmers, rather than replace them.
Programming involves much more than just writing code. It requires problem-solving, critical thinking, architectural design and a deep understanding of the underlying logic and algorithms. It involves creativity, abstraction and the ability to handle abstract and complex concepts.
While AI can automate certain aspects of coding, it lacks the intuition, creativity, and emotional intelligence that human programmers possess. Programming often involves making decisions based on judgment, experience and context, which are difficult for AI to replicate.
While AI will continue to play a significant role in assisting programmers and automating certain coding tasks, it is unlikely to fully replace human programmers due to the intricate and creative nature of programming work. But then again…
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With amazing support from the entire GameGuru MAX community, the mission to forgo all distractions in the pursuit of fixing every bug we can find is proceeding well. We have twice now reduced the 'high' bugs to single digits, and we continue to prioritise new issues that affect most users. Overall the bug count is dropping. We have a good way to go before we can start looking at feature requests, but along the way we've found time to make small improvements that connect nicely with a batch of fixed bugs.
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The most recent and exciting improvement has been to the new weapon system, expanding it to support custom hands for weapons that support the new feature. Older legacy weapons have the hands and arms baked into the overall model, but the new weapon system allows for the hands to be completely separate of the weapon, meaning your player can choose the style of hands visible in the game, and create consistency when changing between weapons. The current stock selection includes the classic combat gloves, male and female, and light and dark hands.
Now that a system exists to customise these, expect third party artists to leap in and create additional choices for your future game projects.
In additional to apparent new functionality, we have also made headway on the performance and optimisation front, significantly increasing the speed it takes to calculate nav meshes on large levels, and in some cases taking a level that took 3 minutes to calculate walkable areas, down to a few seconds.
Our priority remains on bug fixing, but it's nice to be able to report a few functionality surprises along the way!
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The GameGuru Classic community remains strong and busy, with many game projects bubbling away and game-makers seemingly happy. We have no significant news to report on the repository side of things but are always eager to check out any contributions there – take a look at the GitHub page yourself too!
As is now the custom, we are preparing the (very) imminent release of the third quarter public update for GameGuru Classic that once more attempts to squash every bug reported in the last three months, or at the very least get the list down to single digits.
As we continue to fix as we go along, and without the ordeal of changing things every five minutes, GameGuru Classic is now enjoying a period of stability and becoming a suitable platform to work on games that you might wish to publish.
By way of an example, we recently learned of a GameGuru Classic game project that was started, completed and published in less than 2 weeks by CJ! And it’s oh so cute too!
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If you like cats, definitely check out the adventures of the digital variety in A Twist of Fate
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The recent AppGameKit Studio update dealt with the exporting of iOS apps which was made impossible due to changes enforced by Apple on Mac devices. The export process in the Mac version has been updated and builds can now be exported and should work fine when you submit them for publishing to the iOS app store.
There's been a fair flurry of newly released games and apps written in AppGameKit and, as always, we've been impressed by the quality and varied content.
There was so much in fact, that we couldn't possibly cover it all, so we've cherry picked a few for your consideration ?
jd_zoo @ One Tree Hill Studios released Score Table Junior, a basketball coaching app for little kids, helping to balance even playing time throughout the season and to help coaches with fair play, and keeping score along the way.
Kevin Cross released Tile Odyssey, a fun and addictive triple tile matching game, that will challenge and keep you entertained for hours. Tile Odyssey features power-ups that you can use to undo previous actions, find matches, shuffle the tiles in play and freeze time when you're stuck.
29 games released Rogue Machine where you’re a rogue machine in a fascist universe, armed with laser pistols and a laser sword, and you battle your way through 300 hundred procedurally generated levels, spread across eight galaxies.
Finally, hot off the press from Virtual Nomad is Invasion 360, an arcade-style shooter where you defend against waves of progressively difficult enemies from unknown origins. It featuring a new challenge stage and final Boss showdown, full controller support and online high scoring in both Web and Windows versions!
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In The Game Creator Store news this edition there's some great packs at amazingly low prices to be grabbed.
First off, from artist Sula is a mega pack of more than 120 cars for GameGuru Classic. The pack contains 3 of the artists existing packs for all your scenic vehicle needs including the post-apocalyptic 3D Car Pack, the Right Steering 3D Cars Pack and the Left Steering 3D Cars Pack.
Also for GameGuru Classic is a great pack of modern day soldiers from popular artist BSP.
Finally, BSP has also released a set of 6 modern day weapons, but this time for GameGuru MAX.
That's it for this quick round up of some of the exciting store content, but don't forget to check out the store itself, where you'll find 1000's of great quality assets for GameGuru Classic, GameGuru MAX and AppGameKit.
In Steam news, our 3rd party artists have been hard at work producing some top-quality packs for GameGuru MAX.
Firstly from Artist Kraven3D is a new mini kit, which focuses on a grizzly crime scene, complete with evidence bags, body bags and blood splatters.
Secondly, we've got another mini-kit, this time from artist 42 Pixel, who has continued this post-apocalyptic theme with the Wasteland Detritus pack.
Finally, newly released are 3 custom made HUD packs from Mattepaintings.be. Two of the packs cover all of your Wasteland HUD needs with packs 1 and 2, while a 3rd pack focuses on HUD's for your fantasy games.
This is just a small selection of recent releases by some great third party artists - you can find the full and growing range of packs, covering a wide range of genres, on Steam
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This month’s guest developer is Scott Tanner.
Based in the UK, Scott is a filmmaker by trade and has been making films since he was 13. He first got into game development in his early teens using FPS Creator and was an active member of the FPSC community until 2009, learning basic 3D modelling, creating tutorial videos and making a few small games including ‘Acid Factory’.
In 2017 he picked up GameGuru Classic and, shortly after, began work on a military shooter called ‘Extraction Point’ and then a horror/puzzle game called ‘Ignite’. Sadly, he didn't finish either of these projects but did go on to produce media for GameGuru Classic and in 2021 he collaborated with coding genius AmenMoses on Cine|Guru, a toolkit that helps you make in-game cinematics in GameGuru Classic.
Scott tells us more, including how he helped GameGuru Classic feature in a TV show!
“I mostly only dabble in game development these days, getting more enjoyment out of 3D modelling and designing tools. Earlier this year, I also completed a feature length documentary about the history of TheGameCreators and their products.
In early 2022, whilst prepping for the documentary, I was contacted by a German production company who were looking for someone to create some sequences set inside a fictitious video game for their upcoming show Die Nettesten Menschen Der Welt, a Black Mirror-esque anthology. GameGuru Classic appealed to them because its content is royalty-free, and because it looks like a game. What made this project doubly challenging was that it had to match live action scenes that would be shot on location in Germany.
I was eager to help but I didn’t initially have the skills in character modelling and animation they needed, so I had to give myself a crash course and upskill fast! I ended up putting in 3 months solid work learning new skills, creating 5 new characters, designing a UI for the game, and creating a unique fantasy level inspired by the national park in Germany where many of the live action scenes were filmed. I was also helped by several members of the community including Lafette and cybernescence - I couldn’t have done it without them!
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Die Nettesten Menschen Der Welt has recently aired on German TV and is available to watch HERE. It was a huge amount of work, but a great learning experience which stretched me. I also recently made a video about the project and all the challenges I faced along the way.
Right now, AmenMoses and I are working on a new version of CineGuru for GameGuru MAX which will leverage dynamic lua and MAX’s visual logic system to create a more intuitive tool.
Beyond that, I'm on the lookout for small game design competitions I can enter. I've realised I don't do well when I try to make full multi-level games, but little competitions with hard deadlines force me to be creative and restrained, teaching me way more.
I'm also following the progress of GameGuru MAX with great interest and may, one day, produce a follow up to my documentary on what happened next!”
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