Please note it is not my game - hell I wish it was!

Edit: The creator is dimoxinil. More here on IndieDB

Just posted that to show that amazing things can be done already with this engine.

Although we would all agree it needs some work on lighting, Ai, and performance - it is far far from being a failure.

We just have to work with what we have, wait for improvements, or simply use another tool. Bashing Lee will not get any results for the better.

Just mo of course.

Reliquia....

I'll be honest here.. I don't really care which route is taken, so long as:

A) the assets are usable
B) the interface is improved slightly but doesn't become something similar to Blender's train wreck
C) We get the features we need.

From a real standpoint going to Unity/Unreal as a backbone is going to significantly improve our core technology but at the same time it will probably alienate many older users. It would, however, require less cost in time to implement (most likely).

Sticking with a custom engine will require more time, more money, or more programmers. Or all three. It does, however, make sure the product stays close to its roots though.

I do think regardless of the choices it's SMARTER to open up as much as possible to LUA coding. It's the only reason the Acknex engine (my old stomping grounds) was able to compete for as long as it did - Lite-C was a masterpiece and frankly if we had anything even approaching that you'd see some seriously good games coming out of this community on a regular basis.

Agreed ... You can do painting by Numbers



Or a blank sheet and create your own masterpiece

my mistake, well whoever did the game it looks good.

same Mistake here, I jsut remember being stunned by the beauty of it all---

People wonder why I complain so much, this is my main and only real issue currently.



Why not? Generally all that is required is great models, textures, story and level design. I've seen incredibly small teams build remarkable things on low-end engines in the past.

Wow what a thread. Didn't read all of it but quite some of the replies.

Yes, Gameguru is not perfect and the progress right now is really slow. I personally would want a better lighting more than a building editor.
I stumbled across Gameguru by accident. I bought it and I was like "well, even if it does suck, the money is okay. I can't do anything wrong with that"

Half a year later, I developed a game and am selling it on steam! Gameguru gave me the opportunity to realize a dream of mine.
Creating "Hunted: One Step Too Far" was extremely fun and exciting. I think that you can make awesome stuff with this engine, you just have to do it right.
For me, Gameguru is a simple but powerful level editor with awesome community and a very cool store with tons of assets for whatever you want to create.
But it also was very painful and struggling at some points. When I released my game, the players reported issues I never heard of before. I was in a very uncomfortable position... I had to fix the game rather sooner than later. 2 weeks after release I managed to fix all the major bugs and issues. (thanks to the forum here) I even mentioned you in the credits.

Yes, Gameguru needs a lot more improvement escpecially in graphics and optimization. Biggest Issue is the stability and the bugs.

But despite all, Gameguru will always have a special place in my heart and I am looking forward to the progress.
I hope the developer keeps it up and does not stop. Sure I looked up unity and UE4 few years back. That day I found out that I'll never be a programmer or game developer. Gameguru proofed me wrong, and that's why I'll always love gameguru.

That's about all what I have to say about this.

No problem I should have clarified it anyhow. Updated that post and here is the info as well so it can't be mistaken by others.

The creator is dimoxinil. More here on IndieDB

Note that this project was started in - or first posted about - in 2015.

Reliquia....

@Uman. I agree. I often wonder why I don't just take the pain of unlearning what I have learned and move to Unity or Unreal myself. I have a try now and then but never quite click with them. I did manage a decent race game in Unreal in a few days though, which was nice. I'd have to look at actual coding though, the blueprint system was not to my liking at all.

@Cybernescence. Well put. An amusing way to highlight the Obiwan Kenobi ethos, it's all down to your point of view Of course with my username I should be against it

I hope they just come up with a set plan and let us no what is is.Then at least we will no.Everybody wants different things from GG so this conversation will be never ending.I got 2 copies for 2 of my grand children,and it's great watching there face light up when they hit the play button.its all about fun.if you want all the extras why not move onto the bigger engines.If you get fed up with a small car you by a bigger one .just my thoughts.

Dave

ok my 2p worth

no to other engines, just prioritize correctly.

1. ai and nav
to help at least get a good working monster chase etc.

2. lua ( creator or something to make a ebe with lua )
this will unleash hundreds of scripts extras and also help none scripters script and maybe help keep their wallets un-empty win win

3. x11 its time to let go of x9
this will instantly open a can of awesome worms, optimising better visuals etc. speed up with tricks and optimise newer gcards. tricks as well

4. other features.

then release your extras




NO to unity or unreal. could get stung by hidden partys and courts may come for you, this makes for over expense and corporate trappings, and jail could loom. i am not keen on that, just to make my game

so no to legal lawyers courts bills etc. lawyars cost money too. keep it easy.

mods well more costs could incurr and again hidden fees or expenses, once you go mod or 3rd party it gets overly complicated. and a mod to me is basically a leech riding on the host. could fix its bugs or not. may have more hidden costs, could use other persons code or copied code and you again could end up in a mess.

all that is a huge red alert to me.

so gg to stay as it is just drop the vote and do things more sensibly.

@science boy

You are fear mongering here, what you have mentioned here is faaaaaaaaaaaar removed from truth it isn't even remotely funny.General indie game price is around $10- $15. Unreal license is 50K and unity 100000K and 200000K based on which version you have.

You basically need to sell 3333 copies of your game on steam to even remotely get to 50K unless your game is massively good. If you are making 50K on a game sale seriously, you have made great money paying 25% of revenue after that is minor, seriously can't you even see that.

There aren't hidden costs, so you really are much ado about nothing, licenses for either unity and unreal is in black and white on their respective websites in laymans terms, I really don't know what you are on about, but you need to do some fact checking first, bud !!!!!!

well i wanted the what i paid for with no strings attached which was do what you like with the finished product. i am patient, i am against this and thats my view and my stand and my right to do so, i was not out to fear monger the masses, i leave that to intimidating people. happy days and power to the people

I was initially against it but I changed my mind after reading some very convincing posts from people whose knowledge I have great respect for. I'm easy! The truth is I really don't care which direction it goes. I still think it's a fun program even with what it currently lacks.

@Unknown Nomad Studio:

Hi there,

Unknown Nomad Studio wrote:



Sorry, but, I disagree with you; because it's not that so easy solution as you may imagine.

Some reasons to think about:

- Development Committee creation formed by community member, willing to work for free to others full time;

- Creation and presentation to community members of a road-map for the future development of the game engine;

-In general, original game engine degradation (original features of the game engine cut off, the best of them, in general) just before becoming open-source and after each update released by the Development Committee, it's common.

-A gradual lack of technical support of the proprietary game engine company as time goes by leaving the committee alone in the dark;

-The nightmare of getting started to learn to use the Github or similar services tools;

- Gradual loss of the participating members of the forums of the game engine, hindering the creation of new Committees in the future;

- Polarization of ideas among participating members of the committee, creating a loss of motivation and resulting the committee members leaving its stations.

It's just to name some consequences after a game engine becomes a open-source stuff.

Frankly, in my opinion:

Game engine gone to open-source side = Game engine stated as dead or going to a slow and painful death.

GameGuru or any other game engine, open-source and free, the odds this solution to be successfully is near the impossible in my opinion.

Greetings,
Northern

The most frustrating thing for me has been waiting the AI (bots on levels, etc) while the EBE has been given priority.
I'm not complaining, that's what people voted for the most, and I'm in a minority.
I have over 500 steam hours, most of which have been trying to figure out workarounds for the AI limitations.
No allies, no sides, wont work inside, etc puts a real crimp on what I want to use GG for, and so I'm back to Arma3 mission scripting on someone elses map, and wondering whether that 500 hours might have been better spent learning the A3 map editor.
Until the bots/AI work reasonably well, inside and on entities steps etc, average user like me can't make much more than a walking simulator.
no offense to the developers or anybody who voted for the EBE, but I'll be glad when that distraction is out of the way and Lee gets back to developing the more important things.
But at the end of the day, it's fun learning new things, and fair mental exercise having to work with what you have got.
Roll on decent AI.

yea, EBE Rage, rant over
Have a good weekend everyone

Multiple things have to be considered. I don't think a decision has been made yet if navmeshes will be added to GG. The whole system behind telling the enemies what land is land. I believe that the EBE process is suppose to help with that decision since we'll be dealing with interiors and multiple levels/floors. The AI will be much improved once we have the navigation issues solved. But that may require a navmesh solution. We shall see what Lee comes up with.

I think best thing would be make a poll, if we should stay with custom Lee engine or replace it with Unreal Engine 4 or Unity 5.

With the lastest performance boost, and the one ahead via Lees work for the next update, I would say a big fat no on changing the underlaying renderer. Agood AI and Dynamic Lights casting shadows afterwards and some visual imporvements now and then and we are good to go.

exactly, impatient people and bad moves as already put gg in turmoil. lets relax and take it calm and sensibly and in one quick update calm and demands have stopped. serious keep the faith, when lee gets that stuff done and then adds x11 there will be a good engine.

i agree with this 100%

1++

3com

+1

Nice painting. In Off Topic you will find a gallery of my paintings! (I am a complete beginner - enthusiastic but clueless!).

Teabone, my friend, I am with you! I think GG still has a long way to go, but if you work really hard and push the engine to its limits you can make AAA games right now. Crackdown doesn't have great graphics but it is successful. Borderlands. I have a golf game on my Xbox that probably could be done on GG if you have the Lua skills. I also have a casino game. And a Rollercoaster Tycoon game. FPS Reloaded was renamed for a good reason. If you look at GG's strengths and think outside the box you can do brilliant games, even with GG at a relatively early stage of development.

I bet you could also do a pretty decent flight simulator/air combat game (hard to find on the consoles) and a car racing game. I had a go at modifying the Jetpack to make a basic flying game but I don't have the skills - although I am sure someone can and will do it soon!

Absolutely agree also, my FPS has doubled since the last update, it's pretty awesome.

Everybody, listen to uncle Ivan,...+100.

[/quote]Absolutely agree also, my FPS has doubled since the last update, it's pretty awesome. [quote=]

I thought I was the only one that noticed that. I went from around 60-70 fps on average to around 110. It's awesome!

Umm, I think vsync has been defaulted to 0, it was defaulted to 1 before.

Still getting double what I was, nothing to do with v-sync. Lee posted in another thread exactly what he has done to get the performance increase...

Yes I think most are pretty savvy to the v-sync by now

I just wanted to touch on what someone was saying earlier about being dedicated to a 5 year term with GG. I personally did not want to wait that long for all the core mechanics and functionality of what was originally in x9; that were/is presently missing in GG. Consider this... you are essentially saying you dont mind waiting half a decade to seriously start your project. Its hard for me to really put any real effort in a project with GG in its earlier stages because it was quite bare-boned and there was no way of really projecting when certain performance fixes and "features" would become implemented.

I believe that development time would have been cut in half if we didn't focus so much on the Character Creator, Construction Kit (prototype) and Multiplayer, Third-Person and Steam integration so early on... performance and core game functionality (features) should have been worked on since the start and throughout. It literally pained me that I had to wait months... and months during the time these features were being worked on. I understand it was but a few people that caused the direction to change with only but a few forum threads. For myself I almost abandoned ship entirely. I was dishearten and almost lost faith in the entire project because i knew at that moment we just added a year or more to the development timeline. I lost my whole project team. I won't mention names but I was getting told NO a lot and getting shut down. Even thread locks. No to "features" we actually have now if not for my resilience and support from others in the community who are serious about using the engine. For example the widget tool, grid snapping and the ability to move the camera within the editor without using F9. These were absolutely critical tools for proper level design that were missing. Game-Guru/Reloaded at the time was being marketed as this sandbox where you whip your arm around your desk with your mouse and scribble a random map together in minutes to share with your family and friends. This also concerned me as it was not what I originally went in supporting since the start. Keep in mind i spend well over a grand in TGC products since 1999 ish to date. I'm sure others still here can say the same. So for the engine to be swayed by Steam youth that only intended to fork out 20 bucks and never touch the store, was unfortunate. I also paid the original gold pledger amount for the project...

I understand TGC has created a unique environment where the forum community gets direct input over the years, on its products but when the Steam community jumped in, it became a misguided mess and I don't think GG should have came out of Early-Access when it did. The development seemed to be all over the place. Jumping in favor of the latest post in the Project forum thread. When the Feature Community Voting Poll came in, it helped a little bit but again the external audience that have no real investment plans or long term commitment started voting, adding even more months and years of wait for people like me... who have been here a very very long time.

That has been my experience over the years with GG. But where we are to this very date is promising. I'm seeing some speed improvements and a lot of bugs have been fixed along the way. I am a bit concerned about the current line up of voted features: Free player app for non GameGuru users, Third Person Mode for any Character and Cut Scenes. But at least in the meantime i can start working on media for my project and if GG is at a good point when I'm done then I'll use it. If not then I'll use something else. But I'll always still support the project here and the community. I mean I did spend a very long time converting 1000's of assets for everyone. of which i'm really glad have made their way over to the core engine! I'll always help out where ever I can because this a great community and I'm glad I've stuck around for so long.

With that said, here's a video from "someone" inspired by the amazing work Lee and the team have worked on over the years, from 10 years ago:



FYI, just felt I would express my opinions and thoughts. I dont mean to stir anything up and definitely dont mean to indirectly insult anyone. I very much enjoy seeing GG grow. We've come along way since that very first couple of test videos of the terrain sculpts with the ground textures... I couldn't believe my eyes or contain my excitement:

i remember the first tests, it looked awesome, and it was, then the frame pain clan put into not good enough and gg lost something graphically around the early updates, and it lost its edge graphically, i am not sure what but lee did say he removed a shader or an over layer and we have a real iffy world, i am hoping lee would tell us what he removed, but it was pretty big to me. i am not saying if you cant afford etc. but i have a sensible desktop which will be cheaper and in the long run cheaper to upgrade maybe. anyway i am sure things will improve. gg has come a long way as you say from the first blog with a showing of the fpsc grid size, which got me excited, then a world terrain editor was just awesome. i remember the vid when he had shifting shadows and the world had a sun, and then he released it, it was very hard to shape the world, and the editor is just awesome now, remember load in exit just to see a light work, size was small in fpsc, memory and sluggish speeds, so far this absolutely destroys fpsc, ( not x10 graphics ) but x9 definately, but it does not win x9 on trimmings as in commands, swimming, lifting and throwing, but it is getting there, plus editor is far superior terrain is speed is, and if you want to compare compare to the predecessor rather than industrial top standards, i think gg has got a market place, and i think it is to the hobbiest and serious game maker if you want to be serious, in the end a tool is given it is up to the craftsman to do the job. it is a half finished hammer, we have a handle at the moment, and we are hitting nails with a handle so the nails are slightly going in but on a hard surface like steam it will not do the job.

we are waiting for the hammer head to be forged,

and the voting board is wanting to decorate the handle before the hammer head, but the entire hammer will hit steam right on the head, so time for lee to craft the hammer head now.

Good analogy Science boy. I feel myself that some features have been added, but never finished. It's like, here it is, not working properly yet, but that is for another vote! Now, this isn't always the case but I can think of a few examples.

Character Creator, released, working to an extent, but still nothing like I hoped and pretty much what I imagined it would be. A standard couple of models and different textures. no way to adjust the look of a character beyond changing the face and that for me at least never worked very well, creating mostly monsters Frankenstein would have been proud of. It needs way more variety(body shapes, hair and hats at the same time!), better colour controls on the objects, why is it most just look neon? Generally not useful for a game apart from a couple of the default looks. You soon see the resemblance between characters when used too much though.

3rd person support, added in but then left with obvious issues and only one useable character. It took a forum user to address this and allow for us to use any character with it.

Characters have been an issue for awhile. No easy way to get them in. Quite frustrating when you see the program you use can export directly for Unity and Unreal for instance. Always quite a conversion and whole host of programs to get them in, which puts me off completely. I was looking at a program just yesterday for making 3D characters which looks awesome. However, I will be at the same point as Fuse again, where I have no reliable way to get them into GG. I can make great statues though I imagine If GG could be improved in this area it would make a huge difference to adding believable characters into your scenes.

Regarding this speed increase everyone seems to have noticed. I have yet to see much myself. I haven't used it too much since the update, but when I heard the speed was up, immediately tried a couple of levels that struggled. They still struggled. So, although I see a noticeable difference on a fresh map, some bigger levels I have tested so far have not increased to any noticeable degree. As said, I haven't tested many though and will be interested to see how some of the others fare when I get chance to try them. Which on reflection, I will do now!

DVader, are the CPU Specs in your signature still correct? I also had my doubts, until I noticed that the update for some reason reverted to the cpu's built-in 4600 GPU instead of the trusty nvidia 780 M. Even then,there was a 40% increase(from 12 to 18 fps) with "morning mountain stroll". That fixed, "M.M.S" played considerably more fluent even in "awkward" places than ever before with the 780m.

Yes, still using my Q6600, but I have a 970 now instead of the 660. I've had a chance to run some maps and can say I see no improvement here unfortunately. Why that is I have no idea. It seems some are getting a significant boost. Perhaps a fresh map will get better results.

Ok, the Q6600 doesn't feature a built-in GPU.
Maybe, it's curtains for your CPU now... there was this recent thread about GG being heavily cpu lopsided....
Your 970 ist still very close to the top notch models from nvidia, and it should be somewhat near 20% faster than a 780 desktop model (while I am talking of a notebook 780M model on my side, thus the difference to a 970 should be even greater) .
Before the latest update, it went well with my 780M, but after it , it's running VERY well.
So you should really see a noticable change to the better by the GG upgrade alone if the GPU is fed sufficiently by the CPU.
Just my 2 cents

When I pledged my $100 I knew I was not supporting an engine on the level of unity. After reading everything in this thread, I am not convinced that I
want or need TGC to start over by merging GG with some other engine, as some have implied. You can do some very good things now and with a few intelligent upgrades things will get better.

I've only seen a few FPS increase but I wasn't that bothered as I usually have vsync on all the time, 60 FPS is plenty when developing Lua scripts!

Big escape level has gone from maybe 85 FPS (without vsync obiously) to about 95. Can't say I've seen any AI improvement though.

@DVader : From your earlier post "I feel myself that some features have been added, but never finished". It makes me sound a little lazy, but you raise a good point and something I am sure others have felt too. Given the wide scope of feature requests from the community, I thought giving everyone a little bit of what they want seemed like a good rationale and a reason not to dwell on any one feature. If anyone wanted more, they would vote up the additional features missing from the first implementation (voting item permitting).

Let's now assume my approach could stand improvement. Do we remain on the Easy Building Editor until most users agree its finished? Do we go back to the Character Creator and similarly add more stuff there, or go back further and revisit anything marked complete to make sure we really are finished. I would be very interested in feedback on this, whether it's a good idea, or just one more way I can infuriate half the community

Here is the list of currently completed tasks, and ideas how I can work some more on them:

Character Creator = Allow support for attachments so artists can import their own 3D model parts
Top down isometric = Source some game assets and create a specific game level, with additional player controls suited to this style of game
Compass = A new compass entity collectible you can pick up which instantly shows a compass HUD on screen
Support for other 3D formats = Finish off importing of FBX by adding support for dynamic animated models exported from Fuse
Full character override = Expose further LUA commands for animation, physics and AI control
Convert engine to C++ = As a further performance boost, look for new ways to parallel the code a little more
Occlusion = Add additional per-entity controls so occlusion can be tailored to specific levels, and add LUA commands for more control
Flash Light = Add flash light offset, color and strength controls, plus the ability to cast shadows when in dark places
Save & Load Progress = Add screen grabbing when game saves, and include a picture of the save position in the load menu

As you know I am quite happy to go with the majority, and I am sure some of the above ideas (plus additions from the community) will tantalize some of you more than the EBE, but what about those waiting for the A.I improvements? Tricky one, yes!

I propose everyone take the above completed items and make a list of things each one currently lacks that you consider essential before it can be called finished. We can then see how far off the mark I was when I clicked the complete button. It will be interesting to see, and if it is overwhelming and very much what the community wants, we can freeze the EBE work and I get cracking on the additions Remember, this is a community lead development and you have the power to decide what happens next.

OMG This is really opening a can of worms now ....
Why don't we for the moment just get the EBE and AI sorted as voted for on the main board ....
Like it or not ... to take off the top slot with the most votes would upset the majority that want it .... Simple maths ..
Its not unreasonable features/ functions either to be honest

Yes, lets finish the EBE and AI, Then go back and finish the other things that were started and not quite finished.

Get them polished off, then work on performance and graphics enhancements.

That should lead to some needed shaders and physics stuff.

Always more LUA commands tied to the engine.

Agreed that's a good move ...AI is long awaited and pretty essential .... I never Voted for the EBE I put all mine on AI but its looking good and I don't relish 3 months waiting totally wasted to go back to other things ...

I fully agree with synchromesh and Pirate Myke , finish the EBE and AI. Finish the other things that were started and not quite finished.
And Lee, I think it is very right your idea expressed in another thread -

That's a really good idea as well ..... I cant really see a downside to that ... however I'm happy after the AI and EBE is finished to go back to other unfinished items first ....

I've personally not had any problems with these two items being tackled. So I've been okay with the development time that may be required for these items.

In a way they fall into the same category .... AI will need to be able to navigate the EBE as well so it kind of makes sense to finish this first ...
The last thing we want is 2 more unfinished features / functions added to the list ...

I agree with dvader that many things added seem unfinished, and I totally understand that Lee has tried to implement features to a basic standard with future review in mind so as to show a good level of progress, but to the uninformed this looks like tgc have a "good enough" attitude.

Hiwever, I also agree that the EBE and AI work needs to be completed before any changes to the roadmap are even discussed. Stopping the ebe now would just add another half finished feature, and AI is one if the updates that Is most needed at the moment, so its important to finish them first.

I agree with every post since Lee's!

Character Creator = Allow support for attachments so artists can import their own 3D model parts
Sure why not
Top down isometric = Source some game assets and create a specific game level, with additional player controls suited to this style of game
Also sounds like a good plan however, additionally we spoke about ghost rendering the character when not in view, including dynamic objects the player could use ect.
Support for other 3D formats = Finish off importing of FBX by adding support for dynamic animated models exported from Fuse
Yes,should also support, embedded textures
Convert engine to C++ = As a further performance boost, look for new ways to parallel the code a little more
Why not
Occlusion = Add additional per-entity controls so occlusion can be tailored to specific levels, and add LUA commands for more control
Yes, while great and all, occlusion can only bring so much performance before you need to start looking at, things like hardware instancing
Flash Light = Add flash light offset, color and strength controls, plus the ability to cast shadows when in dark places
Most definitely the best feature on the list, however you still obviously missing spot and point lights, those two really need to get added it isn't 2002 any more
Save & Load Progress = Add screen grabbing when game saves, and include a picture of the save position in the load men
Yes not not really essentially at this time, however if you working in this area, there needs to be an easier way for users to build a game with multiple levels, current method isn't exactly user friendly or "easy game creator" standard....