Did you even asked questions, when you are developing games with GameGuru like.
1) Why AI can’t navigate trought multi-floor buildings?
2) Why I can’t change common graphic settings, mouse sensitivity and key binding in standalone game, making my games not PC-friendly?
3) Why my games are running slow, even when I can play modern games well?
4) Why people are making jokes about my game made with it, when I upload it to Steam Greenlight?
5) Why many features are in very basic state (particles, water, AI, lighting) or bugged (motion blur, SAO)?
6) Why everything takes so long to implement and why bug-fixes are coming too slowly?
Even thought GameGuru exists for almost three years.

Well, there is my opinion about GameGuru and why those issues exists
The biggest problem with GameGuru is a another engine instead of a addon to existing, more powerfull engine. The main selling thing that makes GameGuru stand out from other engines is ease to use. So it should be addon to other engine instead of standalone engine. But what is the issue with it?
The problem is, that The Game Creators are very small team and they are splitted between AppGameKit and Gameguru, so they can’t compete with manpower of other engines, that are more powerfull and are not missing many critical features, which restrict games (more down).
Well, what features are missing? If you look at the voting board, there are not five, not ten but eighty-five features, which restrict game developer is some way or another, most of which are implemented in other engines.
And do not forget bugs too. What about that bug that makes everything bright when Steam overlay is triggered. Yes, that’s right. Engine that is sold on Steam is buggy when game made with it is on Steam.

Now let’s talk about 4)
Those are all games, that are sold on Steam or Itch.io and only few of them have decent quality
Father’s Island
This game got good reviews, but is niche game and not everyone will enjoy it.
Hunted: One Step Too Far
Unique horror game for those that like this genre (i don’t)

Now we are getting into mediocre to bad area, where unfortunately most GameGuru games are
My Bones
The first Steam Game made with GameGuru, it’s very short and not much happens in this game. It’s not made by somebody living in english-speaking country, hence grammar errors.
Verge: Lost Chapter
From developer of My Bones is buggier, worse optimized, but more complete and with actual threat. One step forward and then backward.
Alone K.W.
Another buggy GameGuru game, sometimes to that point so the entire thing breaks. There is no AI in this game whatsoever.
The Return Home
What is with bugs in GameGuru games? Enemies hit you five meters around you, performance is horrible and you can beat this game withing twenty minutes.
Elves Adventure
This game takes random GameGuru assets and throw them randomly around map. Dumb, yet cheap AI, no autoheal with sparse health kits making this game laughting stock of how to not develop games.
Xmas Zombie Rampage
The game is poorly optimized, so even high-end PCs struggle. So AI. You can run out of ammo and there are no ammo pickups, so good luck beating this game. Well, you can beat this game just running to the christmass tree over and over again. Developer also removed comments on Steam Greenlight pages as a mean of censorship.
Kimulator
Now the worst. So bad. 80% of the story are two Canadians pretending to be soldiers and ¨Jesus¨…
The rest: Don’t even ask. Also the developer put many other games onto Steam Greenlight, trying to copy one of the worst gaming developers ever: DIGIHOM! Also: censorship in forums and greenlight pages for calling Kimulator crappy game.

So you have 2/7 ratio between good games and mediocre to worst games ever.

So games, when users found that they use GameGuru, they will call it. If you look at Steam Greenlight and you find game made with it, there will be comments calling it.

But, there are many crappy games made with other engines.
And I agree, but those engines have first class games. For every Time Ramesside you have every Gears of War 4 and for every Uncrowded you have every Cities Skylines. Both worst games ever and best games ever. Low productuion value and high production value. GameGuru doesn't have any high prodution value games (not even FPSCreator).

Best solution of this?
I have one. It will hurt, but this is for the best.
1) Declare GameGuru as a failture, unable to compete due to insufficient manpower.
2) Make GameGuru open-source and free, so comunity will try to fix it.
3) Port GameGuru and all assets to more powerfull engine, preferably Unreal Engine 4
I know that this step will také atleast 1-2 years to do, but it will be worth.
4) Win-Win. Ease of GameGuru and power of Unreal Engine 4
5) Congratulations. You created revolution in game developing! Enjoy your fame

I'm still suprised what GameGuru in current form is and I like it, but I strive to make it better, so that I wrote this.

A cutting analysis, and some good points, thanks for the post! Over the last few years it has become very apparent (thanks to the very frank negative reviews on Steam for GameGuru itself) that our games engine and graphics engine are inferior to the likes of Unity, Unreal and Cryengine. Further, for every year that passes, we lose ever more ground when comparing features like for like. As you say, as a small team, we have to be both technology provider AND application developers in one which is a task most companies would run away from. Even well established and well funded outfits like Marmalade (cross platform development tool) are exiting the arena to focus on pure app development, and it's no secret they had been making millions in revenue from their technology solution services. Compare that business decision to a product selling for $20 before discount and a team of one (when not on holiday). It's a grim reality to be sure. I am very curious what others in the community think about this subject. Does anyone see the logic in continuing to develop a graphics and core game system technology that will never be better than neighboring solutions? Are the higher level features of easy game making sufficient to counter the argument that all GameGuru games are dated by design?

I do plan to radically update the Steam product page to reflect the current state of the software, namely the fact it's still in development, has many omissions, not designed to compete with Unity or Unreal and is not intended for the creation of triple-A games. Naturally, being part-sales-person, I will also mention the 6GB of game making assets and the fact you can have your first run-around shooter experience created in just a few minutes

Longer-term however, I am eager to learn who in the GameGuru community would see the logic in swapping out 'Lees DX9 engine and core tech' for something more modern such as the 'Unity' or 'Unreal' technology layer. The interfaces, file formats and built-in editors would be much the same as we have now, but the underlying layer of technology would be serviced by another company to provide those much requested elements such as PBR for realistic rendering and multi-core performance (not to mention cross platform capabilities). It's worth factoring in the old adage of 'you get what you pay for', and despite popular rumor, neither Unity or Unreal are free, and you will be required to comply with their license conditions for product releases, and subscription services for access to add-on services and support. The days of '$20 gets you everything you need to make a game and sell it' would be no more. A building full of Unity technology coders need paying, and you should not be surprised at the fact it's the developers (you) who ultimately pay for their continued efforts. The reward of course is a world-class games and graphics engine, and a raising of the stakes.

Opinions, feedback, for and against, are most welcome. It will be interesting to read the fall-out from this topic and were it might lead. The part that needs no discussion was the item relating to open source access for the community to accelerate things. This will be done via externalizing LUA scripts, so the engine becomes less dependent on hard coded systems over time and fully accessible to anyone who wants to change the underlying behavior of the engine. Whatever may change in the next three years, being able to make games easily and quickly will not be one of them!

"Dated" has never been an issue, as many around here have created some visually top notch work. They are, of course, the more artistically talented folks. I don't believe that Unity or UE4 overcome the demand for some talent in that area. PBR does nothing unless you know how to use it. If you choose to incorporate it, that would be great, because those that can will probably use it, and we would all be treated to lots of eye candy! I have Substance Designer and Painter, but lacking in such talents nothing I've made looks any better or worse in UE4. Ease of use is the beauty of GG to me.


And 6GB of assets is pretty cool...

GameGuru with a Unity or Unreal engine or as good would destroy the competition of all similar engines on steam ...
As long as the easy game creation remained it couldn't fail in my honest opinion ..
In reality you only have ....

Leadwerks .............. ( great for indoor levels but not as friendly as GG in fact a real pain most of the time and £75 )
CopperCube ...........( Err...Ummm ...Nuff said and again £75 )
S2 Engine ................( Difficult, Hardly any assets .... Crashes more than it runs )
Axis Game Factory ( Unity addon but doesn't really tell you that )

GG should be wiping the floor with these

Unity and Unreal have no place here. Complain, Complain, $20.00 for Guru, Loads of cheap DLC material, Loads of free stuff. Lee is only 1 man. A person trying to run a company on his own is hard enough without everyone whining, " I want this or that" Fact is, if he could give everyone everything they all wanted, it would still not be enough for some. Plus, everyone wants a twitch broadcast, news to be updated daily and such. Lee has basically given his life to TGC and their products. Not bad for 1 man. Give him a break. Don't like the way Guru is moving? then go on to unity or unreal. You'll be back eventually, cause you will be broke and confused. I' m done ranting now.

It's not about getting it better, it about getting it right.That said even with DX9 one can get fair graphics, Gameguru doesn't have fair graphics or even remotely using DX9 to it's full potential.

However the one shader fits all doesn't work, and considering, there is still no reflection, refraction, cube mapping, or window shader or for that matter any other useful shader, let alone repeated ignoring requests of adding additional light sources, point and spot, you can't turn off the light source from the sun and yet you are complaining about matching features from unity or UDK, when gameguru it self does even have the most basic features an engine would have had in 2005.

Still using decals ? What about particles FPSC Classic eventually got a particle system which was actually pretty great for the little it could do, and it likely would not have taken more then a day or two, considering you already had the code from FPSC classic.

So as a beta even with 10 billion gigs of assets, means nothing if you don't have the basics.Throwing free assets at users can only work so long.

I asked that you look at implementing octree, as there is a very large minecraft community you can tap into for revenue, the current irritation that is ebe isn't particularly good or useful, you could have had 10 million new users easily, so meh.

Yes some of us paid a $100 and got assets and 5 gameguru keys, to do what with.

I think if this is the attitude, with regards to gameguru, without even having added even the basics of a graphics engine you clearly deserve every bad review you are getting, it's just one big mess after another.

The irony is you were working on the graphics overhaul before you stopped to do a few updates and then EBE, and now there is this excuse and that excuse.No One asked for a unity or UDK equivalent but we damn well sure wanted at least more shaders to work with.Hell I mean after 3 years players still can't access water and at that a outdoor engine.What do you have to show for the development time you have had not a whole lot.

You hit a dead end early on with darkbasic and was forced to basically rewrite the engine for C++, that was a massive, massive delay as well as an oops.
There is still no AI collision for building and things other then terrain.
There is still no proper way to render indoors without the sum ambient leaking into levels.
The light mapper was dialed back at the expense of slated roofs and other mesh designs.
No reflection, Refraction, cube mapping, or a window shader.
You added FBX format support and it only supports static meshes, what happened to the other formats like .obj and the like.What happened to things like supporting animation, and getting rid of the various limitations .X has. Why because the rendering engine is only capable of handling .X file format it's the easiest and quickest method.
No particles
Hell you don't even have a system to spray a decal onto a mesh
No point, and spot lights


The list goes on and on, stupid little things that should have been there from the start that is costing you big time. Did you make bad choices along the way some would say that, without question.Question is are you going to keep the current path, or are you actually going to get up address the issues.I mean hell I even offered to write a newsletter for gameguru, just so it isn't as quiet and that there is some thing happening news wise regardless of how small or how little.It would have been better then nothing.The reply was there is no money to pay for that blah blah. I never asked for payment. I am doing it because I want to keep interests up, because like you I have invested time and money into the store and DLC's and demo's and content for gameguru. I want to keep interest up , because the lack of news is going to cost me in the long term in gameguru and as an artist of the store.

Whatever is and isn't happening will affect other people as well, unlike the resolve that only affects you and gameguru.Considering you sold off the store Jason means there is another person that is relying that you keep up your end of the bargain, without you, his venture will be doomed before it even starts.Whether or not you see it, you have obligation to the various 3rd parties as well.

So what do we do, we can't keep on stabbing one another with jagged polygons, doesn't do any one any good.We need to sit down ignore the voting board and look what is the most serious omissions with the community and do that.Just get the basics right if it means graphics then so be it.There is really no reason why you should be shooting your self in the foot, you have the support and community behind you.

I completely agree with Wizard of ID. I myself I have dropped out of the community until the engine is able to do what I need it to do. This doesn't mean I don't support Lee and Rick. Quite the opposite, but its hard to stay positive when you have offered free help like Wizard of Id only to be turned away and ignored.

About 1 year ago, 2 other community members and myself worked on converting the Zombie Soldiers from FPSC to GG. After a couple of weeks of work I emailed all of the .lua and .fps files to Rick who graciously thanked me for the help and advised he would pass them on to Lee. I have yet to see these updated characters available to the rest of the community.

In my humble opinion if TGC would accept help from the community this would help to bridge the disconnect that many of the community are feeling. I really feel that Lee and Rick do a great job for such a small company but they need to take advantage of the strong community support that has been offered to them.

Here's my take, some may have already been answered above

1) Why AI can’t navigate trought multi-floor buildings?
This is something that has to come after the EBE development since it is in regards to interior design. There has been much talk about a navmesh system. I have only a light understanding of navmesh, since I use The Creation Kit from Bethesda which relies heavily on NavMesh path building but its incredibly bugged out. We shall see how Lee tackles this as it sounds complex to me and I don't even fully understand how this could be resolved. Maybe an alternate solution has to be created? Time will only tell.

2) Why I can’t change common graphic settings, mouse sensitivity and key binding in standalone game, making my games not PC-friendly?
We have an option in the community feature voting list for customized menus and I believe once this comes into play we should see more LUA support for things like this and hopefully some UI support.

3) Why my games are running slow, even when I can play modern games well?
It all comes down to optimization. I too get very low frame-rates which tend to fluctuate between updates. We need to look at new methods of using LODs and possibly even a billboard system for trees. Here is a working example in another engine with no FPS drops with 100s of trees:



I find the biggest drain on FPS is when I use trees which use too many polys. So a LOD stage that includes billboard trees might help. We also really need a draw distance. I believe that's like culling. I used to use culling in FPSCx9 but i couldnt get it to work on static objects.

4) Why people are making jokes about my game made with it, when I upload it to Steam Greenlight?
I highly recommend getting as much feedback from the community here and other indie game sites, before even bringing your project to Steam. Sending out Alpha's to people before you go into Beta is best. Their feedback and criticism is very vital. For example some people may not like the story, graphics or there is something wrong with the game-play mechanics. These all can contribute to negative feedback when you bring your game to Steam.

5) Why many features are in very basic state (particles, water, AI, lighting) or bugged (motion blur, SAO)?
From what I understand now is the team is focused on several products at once so development with GG is slow. Unfortunately. I too would love to have a particle system, swimming, better AI and better interior lighting.

6) Why everything takes so long to implement and why bug-fixes are coming too slowly?
Same reason as above. Also I read in a previous post that the bugs are sometimes in the 100s or possibly even more. So there is a lot of work to be done with each new update. Also with each new feature new bugs are occasionally present, that also require attention in future updates.

Even thought GameGuru exists for almost three years.
Its a small team. Incredibly small.

Hope that helps. I too hear where you are coming from, but least I've calmed down to understand the reasons behind it. Glad to hear that you are using Game-Guru with the intent to bring games to Steam. I hope to do that one day, though its looking a bit unlikely due to the timeline of things. But i guess alternately I really don't mind helping others out in the meantime.

I still believe one day GG will catch up to where FPSCx9 left off - and beyond. That's all I want. I don't need Unity or Unreal. But maybe that's just me

You are aware, while it may not be unity is has twice the visual fidelity then gameguru.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/251810/screenshots

PBR in leadwerks
https://github.com/Mattline1/LeadwerksPBR
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=754635095

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/graphics?shownav=0&banner=vec

Not sure when last you actually bothered to check what the new engine version can do, with the addition of Volumetric lighting, deffered decals, new foilage system and the fact you can code any thing additionally you may need blows gameguru to bits.None of the engines you mentioned are even in the same league as gameguru, it is exactly the same as trying to compare gameguru to unity. All the engines mentioned with the exception of axis game factory which is more unity then any thing else. Is vastly superior regardless of their own faults and short comings. Leadwerks being the best of the lot irrespective of price.Hell game maker pro and click fusion 2.5 is able to create better games then gameguru, with all the addons and additional DLC's it costs more then leadwerks.Not sure we you are even comparing them to gameguru it is just as equally pointless as comparing it to unity or UDK regardless of price.

Lee mentioned license fees considering there is a $100000 cap on personal license and $200000 on unity plus and no license fee on professional edition.License fees would hardly be an issue if you manage to make $100000/$200000 from a game, it is really a none issue in the grand scheme of things.So not even sure why it is being mentioned by lee, if you manage to make that amount of money your well on your way to being a successful indie developer.

Again unreal license is above $50000 after which %25 royalty is payable, if you manage to make that much from a game your are well on your way and %25 royalty fee is nothing considering you had every thing at your disposal for free to start with.

I think additionally, mentioning we were all quite surprised that gameguru had such a low price point considering what FPSC costs back in the day, $40, 70 odd for X10.We didn't make the price for the software that was TGC, so using the adage "you get what you pay for" doesn't apply considering you could have asked a couple of dollars more and people would still be buying it, perhaps slightly less, but you would have been better funded in the long term, now that sales is dropping off a cliff, you are short of slitting your wrists, blaming steam users is pretty low considering they never put you in this position of having to break various development promises of what is to come. Steam users is effectively telling you they aren't happy and calling them little trolls like you did in your blog, tells an accurate story of how much you disregard steam users in general.

I have always felt that it was the wrong choice to stick with the aged DBP as the back-end engine for GG, rather than working with Paul to beef up AGK's 3D abilities and use that to create a fresh, OpenGL/OpenGL ES/WebGL/Cross-Platform GameGuru product. This would had gone to the benefit of both apps simultaneously and, as a life-long fan and supporter of both AGK and FPSC:Reloaded/GG, I would have found great value from this alternative approach.

The original decision against pursuing an OpenGL/AGK solution was at least in part due to the perceived time that would be required to build it from the ground-up in conjunction with getting AGK to be more on-par with DBP in 3D commands. Yet, the original incarnation of GG still essentially wound up being rewritten one or more times and delayed a couple years from its beginning nearly 4 years ago, and is still restricted by DX9 and only accessible on Windows machines.

When the original concept video for FPSC:Reloaded was unveiled in 2012 as part of the Kickstarter (actually I'm still impressed by the graphics and features from the X10 demonstration as well from a decade ago), it was incredibly exciting to me and made me immediately back the product. I saw in that short demonstration a visually appetizing engine with many wonderful features.



I still feel like that initial concept video from so long ago eclipses a lot that I see in the current caliper of GG. Between the video and Kickstarter page, some of the elements described that I believe still don't exist in the current incarnation of GameGuru include:

* A water system with editor controls to create pools and lakes, allowing the player to interact with with full buoyancy and underwater controls.
* Advanced multi-core AI for smarter enemies and allies.
* Difference of character reaction depending on what weapon has been fired (and what part of their body has been hit).
* Dynamic and flexible entity lights to mimic torches, lanterns, train headlights etc.
* Complete NPC barter system.
* Anti-aliasing and other advanced graphics settings.
* Enhanced fire effects including the ability for fire to spread onto other objects.
* Improved fog system.
* Multiple camera rendering to other textures for use on other models in the game (i.e., security cameras or rocket cams).
* Enhanced explosion effects including camera percussion, secondary damage sites, etc.
* Advanced lighting effects.
* Complex HUD capabilities including HUD cameras.
* Particle system and weapons.
* Dynamic and randomly generated trees that react to the weather and cast dynamic shadows.
* Cloth and water physics.
* Occlusion and advanced bump-mapping for walls and textures.

You wouldn't have. Those zombies if i remember correctly were 3rd party models, they would need permission from the artist to release them, which (considering they're not in the free FPSC models repository that i can see) probably wasn't given.



You can change the keybindings. It's done by changing lines in a file in one of the GG directories, i forget which right now and don't have access to GG to check.

That's not entirely true in all areas. The cutscenes in Robert D. Anderson (FPS Creator, 2007) landed us a gig for a major film studio and myself some roles in high-profile TV movie productions (mostly the stereotype Russian villain, though).
This doesn't contradict your statement, I just wanted to point out that production values are responsibility of the developer, not the engine.



Yes, many of that is still missing. There are even parts missing that worked perfectly in X9. However, I would prefer a focus on stability and performance now, and adding features afterwards.



Nope. You can optimise to a very large degree, no doubt about that, but if you have a blank map, some terrain, some water (for reflection performance loss), some painted vegetation and a handful of high-value assets, you should still be running in the 100+ FPS region on mid-range dev machines with all settings maxed out.
Currently you get 30 - 40 on that.



With the developer's proper effort it can match those neighbours, as long as you provide the solid background. More performance, own dynamic lights casting shadows, particles (we had that in X9!), and a variety on the shader front would be the first step. And proper AI collisions. The wish for that is not a feature request, it's the report of a A bug that needs to be fixed.



Yes, that would be an interesting option. Having worked on a professional level with Unity and Unreal, I doubt there will be a legally bullet-proof way of doing so. And it is something that can be done only after all the promises at least from the Reloaded Kickstarter are fulfilled.

However you are getting to the point of a catch 22, if gameguru isn't already there, of some features should have already been there.Lee spend a good year or so just on performance and tweaks if not slightly more.

How do you deal with it now ? You have a product on steam so you benefit from performance and tweaks, but that doesn't apply to some of the users that prefer substance over tweaks.Now with sales dropping off a cliff, spending 3 months on performance and tweaks isn't going to change the rut it is in.In the short term it would be better to push for stuff that will draw in new users, graphics and features, perhaps you can sneak in some tweaks in between.

But ultimately it is getting gameguru to a quick fix performance and tweaks ain't going to work, graphics and features will tied over gameguru far better in the short term then behind the scene stuff.I am looking at it from a purely business perspective, of what I need to do right now to gain some ground again.Yes we need some more performance and tweaks, however we likely spend more then half the development cycle doing just that, realistically you need to draw a line and decide what is going to gain the most advantage.

I am already annoyed massively when lee stated moving the AI collision thing to lua, I don't script nor do I want to script, this is fine and dandy for the users that can script and wants to script, Lua is for advance users in lee's mind every one is capable of scripting, which isn't true, looking at the comparative level the rest of the toolset is at for example the EBE, which has been designed with a 4 year old in mind, you can't help but frown and point at the massive disparity between the advancement of LUA and some thing like EBE, not all needs for advance features other then LUA is being met and simply being overlooked and it annoys me greatly, to the point of reaching for a virtual 3D pointy stick and cattle prod on the mission to cause serious 3D bodily harm, luckily perfectly legal in the virtual 3D space......

So no I am completely against performance work and tweaks, I want some thing new to sink my teeth in I have been patience enough, it can take a back seat till xmas next year for all I care...

I am not talking about tweaks, I am talking about providing basic functionality.

When I have 3k draw calls and 1.5mio polygons on screen, there is no way my fps should be crawling in the 20ies on an high-end machine, when an outdated PainEngine (developed from 2002 on, used by us back in 2009) did the same with similar total texture / shadermap load running 60fps on an AMD X2 with a Radeon 4870 inside.

And, if you read my post correctly, I *AM* calling for new additions to, I just don't call them features, I call them basic functionality.



And yes, I totally agree on the part. I am capable of some LUA, we can afforded doing someone else our LUA scripting, but a proper AI collision system is simply a necessary must-have and not a fancy wishlist item.

yes I agree, performance should be last thing to do, get the features in, you can spend forever improving performance.. I agree scripting isn't for everyone, this may sound strange, but I love coding but hate external engine scripting there is a difference believe it or not.

No problem Yes polygon rendering issue is a massive headache, still it can be mitigated by smart level layouts, we shouldn't have to but there is solutions to problems at least in the short term.There is definitely some thing fundamentally "broken" if the system can't muster up enough FPS for 1.5 million polygons, Commercial games hardly struggle considering as an example just the giant spider in skyrim is a few 10000 polygons.And is being rendered with ease.

So you might consider is basic rendering "functionality" it is still performance/tweak work.....regardless.

That's because you totally missed the point .....
I was comparing the competition as ease of use and price compared to GameGuru.
Every engine has good points and bad points .. all have their forums, good and bad reviews

I am also well aware of Leadwerks capabilities
Leadwerks is great for indoor levels ...It uses a GTK Radiant style editor which I spent 5 years making levels for Raven software so not to much you can tell me about that ... Once you master that you can create stunning interiors .....But outdoor terrain sculpting and water is a nightmare compared to GameGuru. That's were the downside of how its an easy Gamemaker comes in amongst other things I haven't mentioned..

GameGuru however really can easily make something very fast ....
The main complaint and problem is the engine, slow, dated GFX and secondly AI
To be honest if any of the others were as easy as GG to create a game you or I probably wouldn't be here ..

You, Sir, just triggered some horrible memories from my past work-for-hire GameDesign days



Yes, it is one of the best rapid prototyping engines I know.

Then the price point is still better with leadwerks considering how much more you can get. Considering you can import prebuild assets much like gameguru and assembly equally as quickly, with nav collision and assign a prebuild lua FPS script and done.While leadwerks isn't tailored to beginners, if has more then enough resources and abilities that you don't have to create a single script at all.If you want some thing more advance you still have to script it just as much as gameguru.

So paying $100 even $1000 in the end is just numbers if you actually sit down and do a comparative spreadsheet, and comparatively you get far more bang for you buck in the end, irrespective of how "easy" the software is to use.And considering you don't have to create a single mesh in leadwerks if you don't want to it still blows gameguru out of the water, considering ease and price point.

Ease of use and price point seems to be the predominate measurement here, there is far more to the equation then that, and is hardly the defacto measurement standard it's what seems to be the standard that is continually used here, and is so out of wack with reality.I definitely suggest a different approach to that argument of price point and ease of use not only that gameguru is the only software that uses this "easy system", doing a direct comparison is illogical in any case.

In other words price and ease of use is the only comparative thing that can be argued, it hardly to only relevant thing on the subject, it's the only advantage it has over the rest so I am sure it is going to be beaten to death as there is nothing else to argue about.

I would say we have that already, it's called camera distance and I use it whenever possible to up speed. So that's one wish you already have and don't know it! Check out the tab tab menu's it's there


Regarding the question. Making this an add on for Unreal or Unity would probably be a no go for me. Why would I worry when I can just get Unreal or Unity anyway? Perhaps, if it worked mostly the same way as GG does now, but without the faults possibly. I'm not sure. I can't really picture how that would end up working. It would certainly help my workflow if I could use Unreal as I use GG. Apart from the fact Unreal is a bit of a slow behemoth in general use and can sometimes be a lot slower than GG for certain things. It's a drastic change of direction, but apart from my initial "NO!!!!" reaction, may work well.

If sticking to the current engine.

I think that the DX11 implementation should have gone ahead as planned. Lee was very vocal about the improvements possible when he was testing it after the C++ upgrade. If it had been, we might be at a far better point now.

I think GG has fallen down a little because of the voting system. Too many options to choose from to confuse and frustrate users. GG should have stuck to developing it as they saw fit. Possibly pushing popular features or such that become hot topics when possible. I also agree that it really, really should have used AGK as it's base. Starting from the original FPSC source code was not a good decision, it was already long in the tooth even back then.

Here are the main things that I think GG needs to be useful, in no particular order.

1. Faster Speed.
Obvious to anyone who actually tried to make a game of even marginal size. This can be improved by a better multi core support, better polygon reduction with culling both on entities and the terrain and having quads for distant objects. DX11 should enable faster performance with newer faster cards as some features should be directly supported by the hardware. no fancy DX9 coding can beat that. I'm sure there are many other tweaks that can speed things. TGC should as experts in the field know what will or should, give the best boost and apply them appropriately. I am getting tired of maps I make starting well then dropping to sub 30 fps after adding media. I upgraded my video card recently to try to get a little more performance out of GG, but in reality I have gained very little compared to the big leap in performance between video cards.

2. Improved visuals.
Too many general options to truly get great looking graphics. One specular value for the entire level. This should be per entity if wanted, to truly give more variety. As it is you can set the spec up at one part of a scene and it looks great, then move to another and it looks OTT or washed out. At the moment you would have to alter every normal and specular map for each object to get it as wanted. Surely that can't be in an easy game maker? Better shader support is without doubt needed here as well. Particles, volumetric fog or at least something close would drastically improve scenes.

Solid media. This is a minor and major issue at the same time. Often with TGC media (and others on occasion, although more rare with 3rd party artists) you will see awful texture seams that let you see through the objects. I've seen it with several objects in the City pack, also the Sci-fi pack, plus several more. The Sci-Fi packs has some great looking rooms and corridors but they are mostly all marred to these little lines that flash and show the background where the seams are not quite right. Fixing these niggles would make any games using them look far more proffesional and solid. I've seen people laugh out loud at this sort of thing in GG game reviews, although the rest looks quite good, those little glitches stand out. Not to mention areas that suffer with z buffer clash that I see again on many objects, causing huge flickering parts on the models that are fighting for dominance. A simple camera setting similar to in DB would probably fix most of these I would hope without having to re-texture them. GG can look fairly good ,still dull compared to say, any of the Bioshock games, whichever version you pick original or remastered, but not as bad as some seem to think. With good solid non glitching media we would be on better ground.

Water needs a lot of work. Not only better shader's for the water but more than one! You may want the water to be flat and placid for one level. Another where it is rough and wavy. At the moment I see no way to change at all either on the fly or per level. We need water on any level. We need water that can run down walls and hills. Essentially more shader's and more dynamic ways to change on the fly or at least each level.

Using videos as textures should be possible. Relying on a shader with a few images you can flick between is very limited for anything more than a basic effect.

Better character support. Either improve CC to make it more useful and less shop dummy like or get FBX import working. Hats should work with hair for instance, why does everyone who wears a hat have to be bald? The skin tones and clothes colouring leave a lot to be desired as well, try to change them and you often have very weird bright looking clothes. I've had fuse for ages now, and although there are ways to get fuse characters in, they are very convoluted and overly complex and confusing. Again not the realms of people wanting an easy game maker. I've never managed to get a custom character into GG because of this. Perhaps this is an area TGC could get help with a third party. An importer exists, but costs more than GG. Some mutually beneficial deal may be in order there. It would save trying to code it all over internally. The media we will get in the update will help with this, but ultimately, once we all start using this, people will soon recognise the same models used and bleat about asset flipping.

3. Sound.
Not that much wrong overall, but the bugs that cause sound to stop playing when you use the menu and other odd ones where sounds do not play at all can be annoying. Mostly needs getting all round solid now.

4. AI.
Everyone will agree AI is awful. It needs a good long look. We need some way to get AI running through buildings, up stairs and lifts and ladders, opening doors etc. Get this right and we will have far better games. At the moment we have AI that gets stuck on objects unless you set the FPE to forcesimpleobstacle=3. This on store and TGC items that were made before this was updated. So we have to start deleting dbo files and update fpe's. I do this on occasion, but am never sure if the changes stick or get wiped each update. I don't want another copy of them really, I have enough duplicates from existing packs all over, but also would prefer not to lose the changes with fpe's or sometimes textures and such.

5. Better lua support.
More lua options will increase what we can do with our games. It will also decrease some of the work TGC needs to do. There's lots of ideas here, but simple things like changing the skybox, or disabling it would be useful. Some way of changing how the light from the flashlight works? Changing its strength or colour, its size. This relates to the graphics really, but silly things like the fact it doesn't light up objects in low detail mode really mar any game you make.

6. Lighting.
Need I say more? Again DX11 would help here. Lighting is badly limited with 3 lights. Which also have a really bas visibilty range you can't seem to change. Baking is an option to improve matters, but can have lot's of issues. My main bug bear with it is it tends to bake light leaks inside objects that from the inside have no issues, but outside allow you to see through them, in other words optimised. Lighting is GG's weakest area when comparing to most engines out there. I think it is needed now, lighting makes a huge difference to a scene. I see some impressive WIPS lighting wise, considering what we have to work with, but a common theme is generally dark and moody, mainly because GG is just easier to do that way (apart from the awful flashlight).

7. Better physics support.
We have a physics engine but very little we can actually use ourselves. We have to disable physics to move things around, rather than use the physics to move them around. This is low priority compared to speed, AI and graphics, but still much needed for better interaction in game.


There's probably more, that I have overlooked here, but get the above done and you will have a far better product. Even getting 2 of these done, Speed and AI would hugely help GG's credibility. For me the EBE is a distraction at this point. Yes, there seems demand for it. But really, it would have been better updating the AI first at least. Simply adding a few basic entities would have been more useful and probably far easier than the EBE. Add a basic box, sphere, cylinder etc that can be scaled, skewed and textured and we can make most things we want far faster than we can now.

All in all, if speed were better and AI worked, I'd be much happier. I don't think turning GG into a glorified add on for other engines is a move I would welcome. Here's an idea. Lee has been helping on the AGK side a little of late, why not go the other way for a period and help boost GG's lacking areas a bit faster. I would also suggest a hiatus from the voting board and a burst of activity in the areas needed to make it a better engine overall. Perhaps even another look at the voting board. Perhaps limit that to game features rather than engine updates or split them up in a way to make it more obvious as a feature or engine update. Sort the engine as TGC sees fit and works appropriately from a development point of view.

Perhaps you could get a few demo's of some WIP's to see how each performs and what would be good to help speed them up. I'm sure if you can speed up the WIP's by seeing where the frame rate drops the most it will help everyone's games speed up. Possibly find a few bugs also Perhaps see in action the kind of weird AI bugs we get. People sticking on buildings, sinking through floors, standing like dummies from far too short a distance.

Will changing to an Unreal editor help with this? Very likely, in most cases anyway. It would certainly help with features needed, as many exist there that GG users want. I am as said unsure. It's worth thinking about, if it means we get something that is capable of making games to a AAA level.

The license fee of 25% sounds a big cut to me. Yes you need to earn a lot to have to pay it, but when you do, those numbers could be quite a chunk. Unreal take 25%. Steam take 30%. Of course the 25% may relate to any amount over 100k, or it may instantly mean pay us 25k when you hit 100, I don't know. It may be yearly or for the length of the products life, again no idea, I would imagine a year, but I would be guessing. At least with the current engine we don't have that worry. We also probably don't have much chance of selling 100k worth of games, unless we get a inspirational idea that doesn't need the bells and whistles to sell it.

Good grief this is a long response. I'll stop now or I will end up writing a small novella!

You can say that again, it took me almost a week just to work out how to start a project and import models. All that creating of a folder specifically for the project, and having to put the files in certain places before you could use the importer was very confusing. I won't touch the damned thing again no matter how many bells and whistles it's got.

Neither are the others i mentioned ....But GameGuru is .... That's the market its aimed at.. Total beginners and above.
All I'm saying is with a good or improved engine GG could be amazing for beginners and the advanced
( Some old classic games look graphically better )

Even so really don't want Lee to spend the next 12 months on the engine ... Personally I would rather the features ( or functions as Ertlov states ) added first ... I want good AI on all levels, 3rd person for all characters, Platform game Support... I want to create things but like most I'm stuck waiting for these.

I do not disagree with you about Leadwerks or any other engines capabilities ... But if you want to start from scratch learning about game design with a huge catalogue of assets, ease of use and price GG is the one to go for compared to the others ... Even as just a starter engine it should be selling like hot cakes but I think the unfinished lack of features ( functions ) is causing more bad reviews than anything

I could live with
" Amazing Product . Does everything but the engine is a little dated and slow on smaller machines... Hopefully this will be improved "

If that's all Lee had to worry about he can take another months holiday for all I care

Have I missed something, I thought that GameGuru was to be THE EASY GAME MAKER
now we find out after three years, that the ENGINE will mostly run on LUA, with every
action to be a LUA Function.

Secondly some BRIGHT SPARK thinks it will be good to base it on UNITY, well I can tell you
after using Unity for a couple of years, that the Engine can be a pain, when you find out that the
software is updated every three months, which can mean that programmes that worked three
months ago, suddenly do not work, also ASSETS purchased a year ago, also will not work any more.
It is very frustrating to have to continually update Assets and Programmes that you are working on.

As a long time customer of The Game Creators, I feel that the company is always pandering to
our forum friends that are CODE CRAZY, and definitely NERDS. I am Sick and tired of those
extra cleaver, highly intelligent over achievers.

Am I happy with GG?
Yes and no.

It's the easiest and fastest way to create games.
But as many said it already, performance and graphics are the key to success.
In Jan. 2016 I was happy that GG finally moved to C++ and Lee started with the DX11 visual update....
Then came EBE... Ok the people want it ok (I don't think I will use it much). My hope was that the EBE thing will be ready by end of June and Lee will continue then on the DX11 update... Well, end of Sep. 2016 still no EBE...

I can optimize and optimize my levels. But a dark and dense forest need trees and plants... Well, a really dense vegetation is not possible at the moment...

My dream:
GG with the performance and graphics of Unreal/Unity/Cryengine.

No, I don't mean Unreal under the hood and GG as addon..

GG with great graphics, shaders and performance and you'll double the sales of GG ...

Thanks for the on-topic replies, looks like a 50/50 vote right now, and some understandable uncertainty. Also, to those out there in 'fury' mode, my advice is to take a breath and make a nice cup of tea You are definitely looking at another few years of GameGuru development before you get even half of everything you presently want, and that's a long time! If you're no longer enjoying the journey, it's certainly worth looking at the alternatives. In the same amount of time, and long before GameGuru is complete, you can learn C++, Unity and Unreal, and still have time to create some cool games. I would only stick with GameGuru if you want to participate in the development of a community inspired Cottage Industry game maker, or if you are simply enjoying yourself, or enjoy the community banter

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams

Whatever they do, it will always run on some sort of scripting, it can't be done any other way. They just need to find a way to make it easier to use.

From what i can see, the only way they can make it easy to use is:

Step 1: Make all aspects of the engine scriptable
Step 2: Create an easily usable interface to build scripts (a drag and drop type interface would be ideal imo)

You can' have step 2 before step 1, it just wouldn't work properly and would be too messy, they're working on step 1 now.

As Lee posted in another thread:


As to your comments about code crazy nerds, you don't have to be a code crazy nerd to be able to script basic LUA, i'm a complete pleb when it comes to coding, yet with a bit of trial and error, and the occasional help from others, i can put together working scripts. LUA scripting as it is, is pretty easy already, and they will eventually make it easier with an interface, it will just takes some time before we get it, so untwist your knickers and quit with the insults.

Perhaps I should have just posted that ..... I went the long way round

I will try to keep this less than a novel but hopefully make some little contribution and tell you a little story the morale of which is for you to decide...

A few months ago I decided I could not go on any longer with GG due to not being able to make an FPS game worthy of my own humble aspirations with little sign that would change, so moved immediately to another game making product where after a little investigation to find out what it could offer to help had it up and running and making a basic playable game .exe within 1 day, including all I would need to do that. e.g. Environment, terrain, water, foliage, weapons, pickups, player, enemies, allies with pathfinding, naviagtion, obstacle avoidance and a good measure of AI battle sense and player awareness and more. I was a happy chappie. I could make a good game and enjoy playing it.....

To be sure there's more to game making than that but for the first time in many years I could actually make an FPS game quickly that did not completely frustrate me and if I want better therafter concentrate on making a game I specifically want to develop, given I am prepared to put some effort into it....

The morale is of course it works, is enjoyable and fun and the resulting game play experience is acceptable to me....

Therein I would suggest that what I needed and what most indie game makers need is what they have always needed....

The basics taken care of I can concentrate on making game levels and games at my leisure or not....

True to say that to get there I had to spend some money to buy a complete FPS/TP game asset plugin Template to provide the basics which does cost some money and saves a massive amount of time and frustration....

I don't have a very good computer and don't want to spend massive amounts of money or time - as a one man band I cant afford that but at least want to make/complete a good/reasonable game relatively quickly. The aim of most indie developers I guess and any more is a bonus.

Regarding the current thoughts therefore I would think that game making basics are still a priority as they have always been. Beyond that no amount of additional features or eye candy will make up for poor end user gameplay and enjoyment and thus gameplay and gameplay mechanics should be the priority. True for any engine at any level....

No one wants to wait for the 10 year GG development timeline at which time it would be still way behind users aspirations which will have moved on further and the main requirement is actually making a complete end game for distribution to as many end users as possible in a short as pace of time as is possible.....

Yes direct X9 games compatibility can't go on forever, easy game making is the trend all around and that does not necessarily mean at the expense of quality or features/functions where one benefit cancels out the other by and large leaving users nowhere at all....particularly now they have alternative options.....

GG cant exactly compete with others in the High End Game Making arena and at the other end of the scale a so called easy game maker but with a level and quality of features and functions which are half baked, half finished and or under developed is no option either....

You cannot have an FPS engine or any other which does not have/provide a good level of AI behaviours/interaction for game Characters/other dymanic entities. Decent gameplay mechanics/dynamics of all kinds are a must however provided for and in an easy game maker indie world that means easy....

Farming out the responsibilty for AI is a mistake in my opinion, however hard it is to implement - the underlying engine must still support that and allow for successfully integrating it to a good level of gameplay quality. AI should not need to be a programmers only domain - it's a basic requirement and should be available to a good degree of quality and user definable out of the box (editable and extendable by all if a user has that capabilty).

Seems like at this stage the main suggestion/option due to commercial realities is you can now have a fairly poor very basic easy game maker that will take a very long time to develop or look to going in another direction once more which likely will take just as long at higher cost to all concerned. If I understand the latter correctly that might suggest a High End integration that will have a level of High End sophistication that will be "Easy to Use".

Seems like there is again a lot of uncertainty about the way ahead and how to move forward. The only thing I see that is certain is that this forum and community and its users heve forever been, are and will continue to be the greatest asset TGC have and hopefully will one day be rewarded for their support and endurance and I commend all concerned for that....

I trust you will forgive me for such a long post and I will dissapear again now....

end.

I have to agree,lets remember also the people This program is aimed at,beginners .

Dave

You Code Crazy Nerd

Easy scripting... Drag and drop = clickteam fusion 2.5
Using it since version. 1 (?)
Something same their event editor would be great for GG.

But please, after a graphics shader performance dx11 update

This successful "Freddie" game was made with fusion 2.5 it's the 2D easy game maker

I don't want to script period it is not my interest, I am actively being penalized for it, so I am completely against externalizing every thing without regards for the guys who don't want script. I feel I am being actively penalized by things that do interest me, namely the modeling and level designing aspects, which by no small feat is troublesome and insanely cumbersome to say the least 90% of the things I want to do isn't possible or needs to be dumbed down to such an extent it simply isn't worth if, and at other times due to the nature it isn't content you can sell on the store or give away, simply because it won't be user friendly, EBE doesn't even remotely alleviate the problem.So more externalizing to lua, bothers me greatly as it means it goes from easy game maker to lua code heavy game maker.The reality is with all the lua coding going about, can you still call your self the easy game maker ? I seriously question that, while lee wants to make his job easier at the expense of users who do not want to code....really can't help throwing my arms up in the air.

This is where i disagree, i really don't see it that way at all.

The more the engine is exposed to LUA doesn't mean it's going to be more focused on scripting, it just means more will be available for those that script, it also means that there will be more available commands when they add an easy scripting interface.

The engines that have for example a drag and drop scripting with options and settings are even more heavily reliant on scripting than we are, you just don't see it because it's behind a nice neat interface. To provide that interface they had to open up every single one of those functions it uses to be scriptable so that the interface could access them.

Opening up all functions to LUA commands is the first, most logical, and most important step towards implementing a system of wysiwig style scripting which many non-scripters (including myself) want.

I DO want to script period AS IT IS my interest, I am actively being penalized for it, so I am completely UP FOR externalizing every thing without regards for the guys who don't want script. I feel I am being actively penalized by things that do interest me, namely the SCRIPTING and GAME PLAY designing aspects, which by no small feat is troublesome and insanely cumbersome to say the least 90% of the things I want to do isn't possible or needs to be dumbed down to such an extent it simply isn't worth if, and at other times due to the nature it isn't SCRIPTS you can sell on the store or give away, simply because it won't be user friendly. So more externalizing to lua, ENERGISES me greatly as it means it goes from easy game maker to EVEN BETTER game maker. The reality is with all the lua coding going about, YOU CAN still call your self the easy game maker! I seriously BELIEVE that, while lee wants to make his job easier USING THE HELP of users who DO want to code....really can't help throwing my arms up in the air IN EXCITEMENT.

No pejorative intent meant Wizard ... as you're putting forward your interests as a primary requirement ... I'm putting forward mine



Mixed feelings on this one. I think it may take a fair bit of effort to port the GG ease of use to these other engines but something really special may emerge at the end of it ... but it would be a bit of a leap in the dark for a business ... those who want and can use these engines will do so now anyway ... those who can't or don't have time to ... do they really need this (with a magic wand, yes of course, but in several more years with more outlay ... not sure ... people seem to be expecting an awful lot from a small creative outfit for very little money)?

For myself I had been determined to make an "acceptable" indie release using your engine and have poured several thousands of hours into it. I am now reaching the point though that performance is the main factor I see as not being able to be resolved ... I do trust the AI, lighting etc. can be improved, I've seen what you can do , but feels like something is really dragging back the performance of the engine and I don't see this being able to be resolved easily (or you would have done so already) ... this is the main concern I have and is why I'm thinking of switching to the other engines mentioned. I don't say this as any kind of coercive tactic (as if it would make any difference anyway) or as a moan, but only to point out that with every kind of user available optimisation tried, performance isn't acceptable - but this may not be (seems like it actually isn't) a concern for the majority of users ... and volume of funding is what keeps the lights on . It'll be a sad day for me if I move on as I do enjoy being able to 'participate in the development of a community inspired Cottage Industry game maker'



A very sound strategy.


Cheers,

--Code Crazy Nerd &
--Modelling Crazy Geek (not quite at NERD level ... OK, no where near either really)

@cybernescence

Lol that was funny, since I was first I win, write your own damn pitch

Over the summer I did a project which may be relevant to the current discussion.

When FPSC Reloaded was started I was hoping for FPSC Classic with Lua scripting. That's all. I was happy with FPSC Classic graphics, performance and all the rest. As the years went by and the GOOD Lua commands did not materialize (where is scriptable camera!?) I decided to take things in my own hands.

What I did was tinker and recompile the FPSC source so that the "Build Game" command (of FPSC Classic) outputs
1. the level built with FPSC Map editor,
2. the characters placed on the level,
3. an executable which will run the above and will bind each character to a Lua script.

Furthermore, I used Barnski's Lua plugin so that the executable will understand all DarkBasic commands as equivalent Lua commands. This includes "regular" DarkBasic commands and those of the Dark AI plugin.

Using the above I can build a level and place characters in it using FPSC; and I can script the characters in Lua, having access to the complete DarkBasic command set. I can build a game with the usual FPSC Classic features and script it.

It took me a couple of months of part-time work to do the above. I did not really do something useful with it, it was more a proof-of-concept thing. I thought of making it available to the community but (a) there are all kinds of murky licencing issues and (b) my final product is really a hack, not good enough for public release.

Still, I am pretty sure there are better coders than myself out there who could do a decent version of the above plan, with relatively litle effort. And, if the licensing questions are answered, make it available to the FPSC / GG community. And this might be an interesting alternative to the current plan for GG (whatever that is).

Just saying ...

As I said before, I don't want GG being a clone of Unity/unreal/whatever engine.
GG should follow their own way, "Easy Game Maker" is not just argument, but a leitmotiv, and TGC must remain faithful to this idea; a lot of folks has buyed GG because they like this idea (including myself).

However TGC has (fortunatelly) a lot of advance users, and TGC should not ignore it, so that the reazon Lee provide when possible, advance features/LUA commands, just trying to keep everybody + or - happy; but this is a hard job.

Features or perfomance?
hard to know, here there are many factors to consider; if you've some beast machine, probably you prefer features instead of perfomance, since that's not an issue for you.

Another factor to considere is the time each one need to be achievable and full implemented, plus the need many people have about certain features, even LUA/OOP engine based, against the long time perfomance seems to take

I myself need perfomance over any other, just see my specs on mi sig. (16 fps with blank map).
However I agree about feature express, quick and working like a charm, It is my only condition.

About the features, well all they are aforementioned above.

And yes I also want all the LUA lee can done us.
Just my thoughts.

3com

Maybe just me but the tone of this reply seems a bit light-minded...
So, to all negative feedbacks your reply is that if we don't like the way GG is developed then go and use something else and it is not intended for the creation of triple-A games.

It is not the problem now. The problem is, even after the Kickstarter campaign has failed and an anonymous person backed the project, the target of making a AAA engine has not changed officially, the development of FPSC:Reloaded the AAA FPS game maker has started and opened up the possibility for people to back the project through TGC store and it made peoples hopes up and I'm not talking about people who joined after the steam release and now don't get it what is this topics are all about, I'm talking about people been here already when even the idea of reloaded was nothing but a voting board and loved the idea of Reloading FPSC with upgraded features and upgraded graphics.
But along the way the focus is completely changed and now after years you suggest if we don't like it, we should go...

So is this the plan for the next few years?
If it really what you think it is honestly scares me and I don't think GG and TGC will be around for an other few years.

At his point, I don't think a 3rd party AAA engine would help with anything other than performance, optimization and graphical features, of course would be great but it would be still a 1 man development team for the whole thing and the features we all miss so much would be still missing.
I always thought the idea of a AAA engine is too ambitious, since day 1 I was begging for a more simplistic but rock solid engine something like Cube2 and Source and just like Nomad Studio suggested I have also mentioned to use AGK this time, but not heard.
You said your shader based AAA engine going to do the trick and for AGK you said it would be too much work, by using FPSC/DBP the foundations already down and it is going to be faster that way.
Maybe this is the time to be heard now.

If GG can't be a AAA engine for any financial or technical reasons then not even try to make it look like that.
If GG can't be an open game engine with the possibility of making any kind of game for any financial or technical reasons then
not even try to attempt to lead the project in to that direction.
In my opinion GG should go back to it "FPSC:Reloaded" roots and be an FPS focused game engine with minimalist but pleasing graphics and rock solid upgraded features:
-advanced physics
-advanced AI
-advanced terrain editor
-multiplayer
-water simulation
-advanced scripts to be used out of the box for switches, doors, windows, NPC's..etc

And only if all the basics are done and rock solid, then and only then it development should move on to some unique features and extensions:

-advanced character creator
-advanced building editor
-RPG features like inventory, missions, crafting, dialogs..etc
-3rd person camera
-ground vehicle system car and van (able to apply to any entity and control the vehicle from 3rd person camera)

During the years slowly open up the engine with more and more features and when it really capable of handling any kind of game from platformer to strategy then and only then call it GameGuru(2) but not before.

If the development of GG is continue for years but certainly we won't get even half of the features we miss, and you think it better
to go with alternatives for the time it being developed, then I suggest start from scratch and this time, but only if possible try to get Lua or any scripting language integrated properly from the get go.

In case there is financial problems, because I'm still interested to see it happening, personally I would be interested to go a second round and back the development of Reloaded again with a small amount of money something like 50 pounds.
If we need to wait years to get even the half of the features we need, at least make it worth the wait.
Please do your research for a possible second fund raising and to start from scratch and please consider using AGK this time.
It would benefit both projects.

But in case, you completely drop the idea of starting from scratch again, I know for many people it may sounds crazy, but if it definitely no go then please consider make GG open source with the restriction of course it can not be used for commercial purposes without purchasing a license but even if someone has purchased the license then any changes, improvements must be shared.

This way some pro and skilled developer (obviously not me but some hopefully) may willing to add the feature they need for their own project and make a pull request and help with he development this way.

Good luck.

I don't get the anti-scripting view at all, basically any entity without a Lua script attached to it is just a static lump. In order to have the player interact with the game world you have to have a script, whether it be one provided with the basic GG download or one provided by the community as a store item. The more the engine innards are externalised to Lua scripts the more functionality these scripts can provide, it doesn't mean that game developers themselves have to learn Lua or need to write their own scripts, it means that the community can provide those scripts for games developers to use in their games. In fact the more that is externalised, the simpler the scripts become to use.

For example I have a script that allows entities to be manipulated by the player but in order to use them you need to edit the script to add details about each entity, i.e. length, width, height and offsets from the origin to the centre. Now all these things are already known to the game engine so if they were mad available to Lua scripts I could simplify my scripts use because the user would not need to edit the script at all, just attach it to the entity they want to manipulate and the script would be able to do all the hard work for them.

Basically what I'm saying is that if Lee made ALL the engine internals available to Lua scripting the users would be in a position where they wouldn't need to ever edit a script, instead they just select the one that does what they want the game to do and attach it to an entity.

I havent read all the posts so far as i'd fall asleep, but i have made 3 games with GG and would like Lee to continue along the road of where he's going yes i agree with the core issues first, not the i want this or that but i kinda get where he's coming from. Now having said that 1 of the games was kinda monkied about with with updates but hey that's gonna happen i just think if everyone clubs together things will work. We have brilliant scripters smallg, Dvader,Acid moshroom to name a few etc Some wicked modelers who charge nothing for their hard work i'll not list them cos there's too many but you guys rock. This engine and forum has the most active, helpful community on the planet for its type and that's in 3 years. I rest my case and the proof is in the pudding https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216209 try getting that together in 3 weeks with unity or UE on your own!
P.s on a side note i did play Fathers Island in beta and it shows that this engine even in its current state is capable of some seriously cool visuals (nice one Ertlov) even tho this wasnt my type of game as im a bit gung ho i keep going back and having a go as its intriguing plus i like'd the music lol love it m8 if you'd have got some doom type stuff in there i'd have run off to hide (actually i did at some points) lol. GG doesnt need unity or UE it needs some help from everyone involved (that kinda thing that says hey Lee ive discovered this i'll send it over!) Then it'll work we are a community after all.

Yes indeed!

I read all the above thread last night and even started writing a rather long post in reply, but since it was a long day and couldn't keep my eyes open I went to bed with this all on my mind.

So my take is this:

I really don't think that Lee deserves all the flak he is taking. Game Guru is what it is. Yes it has issues that we all would like sorted, but for a one man dev team he has done pretty good I think.

I actually don't find the gfx in Game Guru that bad, but I still like a good old black-and-white movie now and then. lol A good movie and or game is as much (actually More) about the story line than the visuals.

Nobody can blame the tool they use for the end result of their product. A builder uses a whole array of tools, and picks the best one for the task at hand.
If you want superior Visuals and Performance that other mega dev tools offer, then nobody is stopping you from using them, and use them you should.

Game Guru's strength is that IT IS EASY to use. And for $20 - why can anybody really complain?!

Do I want Unity or Unreal or whoever in the mix - NO WAY! - it was bad enough when steam entered the picture!
Before I found Game Guru I was using 2D game maker engine that heavily relied on third party players (google for one!) who had no vested interest in the tools success - and it was\is a nightmare when they introduce bugs that they only fix when they see fit (sometimes 12 months or more!!). The dev of that engine - like Lee - was a one man team and a real wiz with a great product, but the tool was greatly let down by the other parties.

SO - Keep all third parties out and Lee can do what he wants and fix things when they break.

In the end I would like Game Guru to stay as it is - Any easy to use tool, a great community behind it, and just patiently wait for Lee to work his magic. And not so long on the news blackout.

Post too long already!

Keep up the good work Lee. Love Game Guru

Reliquia...

I've said it from the beginning (well, pretty near the beginning) of Reloaded that I expected 5 years. Three years from now would make about six years. That isn't bad, considering you did a complete re-write in C++, which at the time I hadn't anticipated. Seems to me things are right on schedule. I see opening things up to Lua as a big plus. Not that I am an expert in Lua, but many here do some amazing things and I don't mind spending some coin for the script if it does what I want. The extra features that come about as a result can perhaps be incorporated into the engine at a later date with a fancy GUI for those who don't wish to pay for the scripts or script themselves. I don't believe Unity or UE are the way to go; GG is really in it's own niche as far as ease of use is concerned, unless there is something out there that I am not aware of. Keep up the good work!

Jesus people face it already. Stop defending this software. Im so mad that i backed it almost 3 years ago with enthusiasm that in year or two it will be something like fpsc with terrain system and better graphics. Till now we cant even swim in water...AI is so stupid that there is no reason to write about it and soooooooo much more...In my opinion people who defend GG are blind what is going on and dont care about their money and nerves invested. As a retail worker i say this project has totally failed, people didnt get after years what they wanted and payed for, new features are somewhere in the middle of nowhere and more and more of people are getting mad because of this. So ... I expected to create games in two years. Till now we cant make it done. And about Ertlovs father island.....reccomended gtx 970 and 8 gb ram? This is insane for such low graphics engine !!! Face it people...this software is failure.

One thing I see many times in this thread are statements that say GameGuru, at $20, is cheap and that it is easy.

For myself, having invested $100 towards the development of FPS Creator Reloaded, neither of these statements are valid. As for easy? I have to battle with a poor toolset, bugs, many limitations, poor performance, outdated visuals and lots of tweaking and round tripping to get my assets into GameGuru. Unity is a breeze compared to GameGuru. At least with Unity I fight with the limitations of my experience, not with the limitations of the software. Perhaps as I grow more experienced with Unity that will change, but from day one with GameGuru, I was always fighting the software.

I think the best advice you will find in this thread is from Lee himself

That is my sentiment as well, however I have yet to see it being taken seriously.

Don't fight it - work with it

My Little Apocalypse World

Reliquia....

@Reliquia-I saw your game a while ago in a video demo, looks impressive. Well done

@ reliquia lol brilliant

I'm in the NO for unity/unreal/cryengine layer here.

All GG needs is

*DX11
*deferred rendering
*multi-core 64bit support (most, if not all, new games will now only run in 64bit)
*Better lighting, Iguess this will happen with DX11
*Proper entity Kinetic objects, so player can push, pull, carry, drop and throw objects with real collision detection.
*visual LUA editor, I have learnt a little LUA now thanks to GG.
*Occlusion on/off in the entities property page, this would help with curing object pop-in sometimes, without editing the FPE.
*Hardware instancing Lee, this would make rendering faster for many copies of the same entity.
*better flashlight that will cast real time shadows.

This game was done with pre C++ GG, if you dont know about it you can download it below.

http://gamejolt.com/games/saviour-v2/108249

It's free so give it a go.

Well, I totally agree that it is insane. But with stating that out clearly that it requires such monsters and providing a free demo (obviously to check if it runs properly), we have by today 11.000 demo players and 4606 purchased copies activated. 21 total reviews, 20 positive and 1 "I can't start the game" negative one.
With blood, sweat and tears we managed to reduce the hardware demands in the latest performance patch, we will adapt the store description accordingly.

If you read my previous posts on the topic, I am not blindly defending GG, but instead I state clearly that with an immense performance boost, proper AI and some basic lighting features added, you could really make a great game without killing yourself over each single draw call like we did with Father's Island.



This is indeed one of the most consequent examples of working with GG limitations and yet creating something unique and beautiful.

I already told you that, but here you have it once again!