Apologies are in order for being out last week. My day job has us do an out-of-town Bi-annual disaster recovery event which requires me to travel and work throughout the week.
That said there's a lot to cover, let's get to it!
GameGuru News
I've been told that things are in the pipeline, though no specifics have been given. Expect news probably in the next few weeks with respect to that.
Rumblings from the community seem to indicate a fairly large shift centering around Multiplayer but I really hope that we also see a major spate of bug fixes given that there's a fairly heavy amount of open issues on GitHub. Once again, time will tell.
For now, your best choice is to look at what Cybernessence (see below) is doing.
What's Good in the Store
This week's totally subjective analysis of store items is.. fairly extensive. Significant amounts of creativity went into the new items on the store!
There's a superb AFV from relative newcomer Zubil0:
You can get your copy here, it's well priced at a meager $2.50!
Campana productions put out a torture pack, if you're needing something more gruesome for your project.
Graphix has been prolific in his recent PBR additions, with everything from shipping containers to fencing packs.
Sula has put together a city and road pack that is fully PBR enabled.
Full kit includes 31 fully PBR modeled entities for building roads and cities !
This is one of my few 'must buy' kits for this year, in my opinion. For the price, it's a great deal that will help you put together some really convincing cityscapes.
Dagored has been working diligently on his exploding bridges set and I have to say...
It's more than satisfying. It also allows for some interesting game dynamics so definitely take a look and see if it's your speed. For me, it definitely fits in well with other destructible entities such as rolfy's old exploding city set. Get your copy here: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11100
The music scene on the store has been exploding as well. I unfortunately haven't had time to review them all but there's some really excellent stuff that's been posted in the past few days such as:
PDKMusic's 'Wasteland Blues' music pack: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32353
Tarkus's several recent works, all horror related and recently put into the 'decay' pack: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11098
There's a lot more on the store as well. Some of the recent changes to the store, by the way, include a direct link to the GCSS discord on the seller's page and some more orientation towards providing support for other engines.
Third Party Tools and Tutorials
Maiacombra made a great tutorial on how to update your models to use the illumination shader.
Apparently Vishnu Studio has finished their 'Vishnu Packer' program. This fully featured program provides significant installation support for GameGuru standalones. You can get your free copy here:
https://vishnupacker.webs.com/vishnustudio.htm
In an update near and dear to my heart, BOTR has is working on updating his Heightmap 2 GG tool.
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219806?page=3#msg2614988
Free Stuff
AmenMoses has been hard at work on several new scripts - the most recent of which is a 'freeze player' script that works for pausing the player's movement to allow specific events to play out: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220055?page=1#msg2614939
He is apparently also working on a 'gear library' which allows mechanical gears to function in GG. Very cool stuff.
There's a free 'Sci-Fi Music' library on the TGCStore. Pick up your copy here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32337
Graphix dropped some pipes and gauges, all PBR enabled here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217932?page=14#msg2614784
Lafette put out an easter pack:
and also a beautiful fantasy loot and chest set
Thanks to all the content creators who are willing to provide freebies to the community.
Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)
Foremost, the most recent work by Synchromesh on Protascope 'Phase 2' is looking really solid. I'd say this is a great contender for a high end demo of what kind of work GameGuru is capable of.
The project Screos by Insane6 is coming along. New screenshots were posted here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220691#msg2615012
Cybernessence continues dropping huge amounts of information about his changes to the engine in his custom variation that will purportedly be merged into the main branch. In this case, he's pretty much made it clear he's heavy on trying to fix the lighting system. A great deal of new info can be found here and while technical in nature, it's quite inspiring and I truly wish him the best on his work! https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=5#msg2614959
An interesting concept called 'Ignite' is on the forums where a player doesn't fight enemies but uses a torch to stay 'alive' that must remain lit. Interesting concept, I'm hoping to see some more fleshing out on this.
Wolf has gone on to Unity, which is a shame but is rather predictable. Many of the older hats have lost interest in waiting for updates, but often return when a major patch is released. So we'll see you again soon!
Lastly is an interesting project called 'Die Zombie Sausage, Die!' ... it has to be seen to be believed.
In My Own Works
This month has been mostly about building the sidecar content for the book, stabilizing deals and the like with people who are creating content to come with the book. My weapons developer has been making great strides towards some high quality weapons for purchasers of the book. I'm really looking forward to releasing the content as soon as possible!
Michael Messina (AKA Bolt-Action Gaming) is a native of central Pennsylvania, currently residing near York. He is a Linux Systems Engineer, part-time author, part-time Indy game-dev and full-time father. He is currently working on authoring a start to finish guide for GameGuru via Taylor and Francis (via CRCPress).