Latest News

GameGuru Release V1.121 - Happy Easter

We are pleased to announce the release of V1.121 which includes a number of fixes, plus a pre-Easter treat in the form of a complete Easter Game which you can now find in a new Standalone menu at the top of the screen.  See if you can make it all the way to the end and rescue the princess!  Here is a list of tweaks and fixes in this build:

Added documentation of PasteSprite, a new command to render sprite in LUA-time Added new PasteSpritePosition ( spr, x, y ) as above but specify XY coordinate Introduced new SAVE and LOAD menus to the Standalone Executable Updated Save Standalone LUA scripts to use style.txt to indicate folder location Added common fillgameslots.lua in titlesbank for central game slot handling Added SetFreezePosition(xyz), SetFreezeAngle(xyz) and TransportToFreezePosition() Save game position now stores; player position and player angle Added code to delete zone markers if map.way missing in FPM file and testmap folder FANTASY DLC : Added first person weapons for SWORDS and AXE Added code to hide weapon selection if have no first person model (HUD.X) Added code to not offer CAN TAKE WEAPON in character properties if no HUD.X Added gamedata and restoregame LUA scripts to handle game state functionality Game now restores game state from LOAD menu in MAIN MENU or IN-GAME MENU Fixed issue of HUDs disappearing in standalone executable Added 'Outline72' font to the fontbank for use in LUA scripting Added 'noxzrotation' to FPE to deactivate XZ rotation on spraying this entity Runtime Error Messages now use the TOPMOST flag so they are not hidden when shown Added extra runtime information to CreateSprite when image number not loaded When the DESTROY command is called in LUA script, entity health is now set to zero Fixed an issue with multi-level games not saving standalone properly Added new STANDALONE menu to IDE to host Easter Game + Easter Game Standalone Removed limit on player 'grunts when hurt', now happens anytime, not last 25% Externalized the Player Health Regeneration code into new gameloop.lua script NOTE: Above architecture will help shift more hard coded mechanisms into LUA Fixed issue causing nested ingame LUA menu to trigger invisible FPS warning box Moved drawing of weapon HUD so HIDEHUD system not making it disappear GameLoop.lua now included in Standalone Executables

Work continues on the V1.13 update which will include the Save/Load Progress feature plus another collection of tweaks, including new LUA commands so watch this space for more details. If you want to make your own Easter Game, watch out for the forthcoming Easter DLC which will be released to Steam at 6PM today. Remember this is a time limited DLC, which means you will only have a few weeks to buy it before it disappears along with the Easter bunny. Happy game making!

GameGuru Dev Blog - More To Save

After one of my drives exploded, and after repairs and file restorations, I am back in the coding seat adding more functionality, specifically the Save/Load Progress feature I am tasked to complete, which can now store the player's weapon selection, health and lives count, plus all the weapons carried, and their various ammo values. The best part is that all this happens via LUA script and not hard coded.  The standalone currently does not save or restore things like entities or other in-game metrics, but I've created a test map which shows all the states in transition so it's just a matter of laying down some more code. The method of saving the game states to a file is also pretty neat, in that to avoid backward and forward compatibility issues as more data needs saving, the script identifies properties with a key, and extracts the value from that unique key name. 

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11: Mon Mar 21 22:18:16 2016
0
0
g_PlayerPosX=25519.14453125
g_PlayerPosY=634.99572753906
g_PlayerPosZ=24842.34765625
g_PlayerAngX=9.5199975967407
g_PlayerAngY=-48.649990081787
g_PlayerAngZ=0
g_PlayerHealth=100
g_PlayerLives=3
g_PlayerGunName=modern\magnum357
g_WeaponSlotGot[1]=1
g_WeaponSlotGot[2]=0
g_WeaponSlotGot[3]=0
g_WeaponSlotGot[4]=0
g_WeaponSlotGot[5]=0
g_WeaponSlotGot[6]=0
g_WeaponSlotGot[7]=0
g_WeaponSlotGot[8]=0
g_WeaponSlotGot[9]=0
g_WeaponSlotGot[10]=0

GameGuru Twitch - An Easter Treat

The power of teamwork meant that as one Guru coder trips, another takes over to bring you the latest, and on this occasion a live broadcast of the next product to enter the GameGuru universe, our Easter DLC. This product is rather special however as the concept is that it is seasonal, which means it will only exist for a narrow window during the year. My own hope is that we can continue to grow the content of this Easter DLC each year, and make it available only during the easter fun.  For a sneak peak of what's coming, Ravey has kindly fielded the Twitch broadcast this week and provided a recording for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys04_3peRM8

GameGuru - Time For Teaser

As promised, here is another small teaser on what you might expect a little later this month, and if you join Ravey on Wednesday 4PM GMT he will be preparing a little more of that teaser for you so make your way to http://twitch.tv/gamegurulee to find out a lot more.

GameGuru Dev Blog - Something For Easter

I did promise to give you a sneak peek into our plans for later this month, and once again I tease you with far less information than you would like. I can say that when Ravey does his live Twitch Broadcast on Wednesday 4PM GMT (https://www.twitch.tv/gamegurulee) you will be in no doubt what the surprise was about.  In the meantime, I can continue to raise my eyebrow in a knowing way about what is to come, but don't let me make this into something huge, just something that came from the community and we thought was really good for Easter.

In other news, work continues on the core of GameGuru and more updates are winging their way onto you right now, currently being beta tested and I hope to release them to you real soon. For a reason I will not delve into now, I have suddenly found myself with a little more time to dedicate to coding, and I plan to put that into what is now being called the V1.121 update so keep a weather eye out for that release to happen mid to late March.

GameGuru Dev Blog - Ouch!

Well, what a day it's been so far. If you joined me yesterday for the live Twitch Broadcast you will have learned by now that I have done something horrid and painful to my old back, and now every physical task is accompanied by extreme quantities of our mutual friend, pain. That said, I had a job to do, and as my fingers still move about without flinching, I was able to continue working on the next update, which will be V1.121.

GameGuru Twitch - Editing Terrain and Entities

Today we hosted a live broadcast giving a closer look at terrain and entity editing in GameGuru. If you feel you need more controls to edit your game world, this twitch broadcast is definitely worth watching before requesting new features as we show off quite a few.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOQOhuG51qg

AppGameKit V2.0.18 Released! Today we've released a brand new build of AppGameKit. This maintenance build fixes a range of issues reported to us by our fantastic community.   We've also updated the free trial to the latest version of AppGameKit.   Here's a breakdown the changes since the last version; Fixed an error in the default shader when an object or mesh has an image in both texture stage 0 and 1 Assigning arrays using [1,2,3,4] with fewer values than its current size now shrinks the array Fixed a crash when using CloneObject on an object containing index data Fixed ChooseRawFile not returning the path to the file on Linux Fixed Visual Studio 2015 template project trying to compile in 64-bit mode, which is not supported on Windows Fixed Windows failing to set-up the window if multisampling is not supported Fixed setup.agc file being ignored on Mac and Linux Fixed GetHTTPResponseReady on Windows never returning 1 when using GetHTTPFile Changed the ASC command to return unsigned values instead of signed values, only affects ASCII codes above 127 Fixed Android apps failing to resume if SetRenderToImage is used Fixed SetObject3DPhysicsAngularVelocity not setting the angular velocity correctly Android apps now clean up their audio objects when quitting Fixed SetObjectScalePermanent not updating the collision object Updated GoogleAdsSDK on iOS to 7.7.0 and improved interstitial loading

GameGuru Dev Blog - Standalone Scrutiny

As part of my process of getting save and load progress correct, I have recruited the help of a game created by a GameGuru community member and artist, to help me anticipate the kind of file layouts, LUA globals and other curve-balls that might throw me should I restrict my tests to the default stock examples.  It has already thrown some good 'obvious' issues with basic standalone creation, such as multi-level games that place the FPM files in a subfolder of mapbank (who would have thought GameGuru users needs that ;).  Anyhoo, fixing these silly things along the way really gets them out of the way and the result will be a very solid standalone export for V1.13, not to mention the save and load feature as a bonus.

The thumbnail image is taken from the aforementioned user game, and more on this cool family game will be revealed in the next few weeks and a final showing later in the month. For now, you can be warm and fussy over the new fixes that have gone in since the last dev blog:

GameGuru Twitch - Weeping Statues

Today hosted our live broadcast on Twitch and featured a 60-minute walk through to make a simple 3D game with scary stone enemies.  The trick to these creatures involved their ability to move ONLY when the player was not looking at them.  Naturally the game needed more work, but it was playable and had potential, and will likely never see the light of day. You are more than welcome to take the idea and turn it into something much nicer than the one I created in less than an hour.  Here is a link to the weekly broadcast in case you missed the transmission:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=penQB2Eoyr0

GameGuru Dev Blog - LUA Loading

They often say you can work hard, or you can work smart, both achieving the same result but one will take a lot less time. Today felt like something of a smart day, in that a rather bland and methodical approach produced some very cool long-term code for the way GameGuru will handle loading and recreating a game scene.  It came about from the need to have a loading menu on both the main game menu and also the in-game menu, so two ways to get the game loading back in and really did not want to have to duplicate code.  The solution involved the rather nifty 'require' keyword that LUA provides to import functionality from a common script, to serve multiple purposes. Right now the latest version only saves and restores the players position and viewing angle, but it does this very well and cleanly from both the first and second menus.  Adding more things to save and restore becomes a lot easier from here on in.

Stoke Sentinel Speaks With GameGuru Lee

On our visit to Stoke College Game Jam, we had the opportunity to speak with some lovely journalists from Stoke Sentinel and talk a little about the games industry, and more specifically, about the volume of work Stoke College Game Jam students could get through in just three days.  We had a great time checking out the final games and entertaining presentations and look forward to attending more Game Jams in the future.

GameGuru V1.12 Released!

We have just released the latest version 1.12 of GameGuru on Steam, which includes many fixes to the core product and introduces new content to those users who own the Fantasy DLC Pack (http://store.steampowered.com/app/365530/).  Thanks to the feedback over Christmas and the first few months of 2016, we collected a list of fixes you wanted to see ahead of any new features and decided to make this the subject of the current update.  Here is a complete list of the changes:

Fixed lightmapper to match same texture models better (dummy limb issue) Lightmapper can no longer duplicate polygons of first mesh in batching process Fixed issue causing character entities to rotate to player when enter unfreeze range Fixed issue with character entities not updating the 'angley' field LOCK now added to grouped entity menu Locking entities now prevents entity movement when editing terrain Fixed 'musicplaytrackX.lua' scripts to use correct full 100 volume Fixed GetTimer(e) so it reports zero immediately after using StartTimer(e) Fixed issue of entities spawning 50 units above ground, now just 30 units above NOTE: Make sure if your model has more than 60 bones, use CPUANIMS=1 and entity_basic.fx Added SETLIMBINDEX, ROTATELIMBX, ROTATELIMBY and ROTATELIMBZ as LUA commands Fixed transportinzone.lua to play sound as non-3D for louder replay Added new ai_viewanimations.lua to allow quick view of all model animations Changed the way dynamic lights calculate range to workaround NVIDIA 361 flicker bug Updated several decal textures to improve quality and looping sequence Fixed legacy behaviour whereby ISIMMOBILE FPE entities CAN lose health (but only to 1) Added 'LUA Scripting Advice' to the HELP menu The LUA command HIDEHUDS no longer hides the TAB TAB menus or metrics panel Added TITLE, OPTIONS, INGAME, SAVE, LOAD, GFX and SFX option pages under LUA scripts Added WIN, LOSE, NEXTLEVEL and more advanced loading page LUA script Added 'resolutions.lua' and usd require to use common resolution finding code in LUA Fixed issue of previous level cleanup deleting character creator heads for new level Camera Y Offset now if more than twice the camera distance, camera collision disables Removed SAVE and LOAD pages to bring forward the V1.12 release (above tweaks) Fixed g_Inkey and g_Scancode which stopped working with the recent beta update Really added new ai_viewanimations.lua to allow quick view of all model animations Updated Abandoned building meshes from Death Valley DLC (minor geometry fixes) Fixed issue of sinking characters, due to quick-physics boxes for unchanged terrain Fixed issue with occlusion hiding entities at a distance greater than 12000 Fixed issue with how entity sizes are calculated for the occluder, now less flicker Fixed issue of Inkey returning key press inside speech marks Fixed issue with flickering occlusion caused by threshold not scaling with distance Added new scriptbank\stories\HealthTypes scripts and sample level (shields!!) Corrected mask texture of Archer in Fantasy DLC - shoe tint issue resolved Added SCIFI PACK to More Media menu as prompted - good catch! Added support for View Range in Fantasy Character/Creature script (both Core and DLC) Prevented F11 menu from being blocked if HIDEHUD is in force Prevented standalone executables from using any HUDs (TABTAB and F11 menus) Standardised terrain brush size to be same size in both editor and F9 mode Added support for g_MouseWheel in DeactivateMouse() mode (absolute not relative) Corrected description in global.lua - GetImageWidth() is percentage not pixel Both GetImageWidth() and GetImageHeight() now return as float values Fixed issue of splash image being off center when set OS font > 100%

As you can see, we did take the opportunity to add some new LUA commands and additional in-game functionality to keep you on your toes. The next update will focus on the top voted feature you have requested which is the ability to save and load your progress in a standalone game, plus your usual grab bag of additional tweaks and additions.

GameGuru Field Trip - Stoke Game Jam

If you had been wondering where your beloved dev blogs disappeared to, they followed Lee all the way to Stoke-On-Trent to spend the morning with an enterprising group of students who used GameGuru to create games for their Game Jam. I was treated to a brief chat with the teams followed by live presentations of the games.  Given the extremely short deadline all teams produced some excellent designs and we even got a few giggles as we watched the play-throughs during the presentation part of the day.

GameGuru Dev Blog - Public Preview Launch

In order to give you all one last safety net, I have released the latest version as a Public Preview so you can see what is coming in the final official update release. If a critical issue emerges, we will have time to fix it before the final release, and perhaps even make a build available which lets you step back to V1.112 Christmas Build if this is requested by the community.  I have started a forum thread called V1.12 Public Preview so you can post your findings there, which also includes instructions on how you can get the Public Preview through your Steam system. Now that we have a finished version which solves many issues including the NVIDIA flicker issue, the Fantasy DLC Update and a host of tweak requests from the last 50 days, I can start back on the Save/Load Progress feature, which has it's UI in place, but now needs the meat that will save and load the game progress to and from a file.  This next update, V1.13, will also be accompanied by a few more functionality improvements as well as a grab bag full of tweaks as they pour in from the forums, email and reviews.