Hi All,

It seems the more stuff I add to GameGuru, the more negative reviews I get. Seems odd I know, but the stats on Steam don't lie. I have concluded that the old intro videos (which had been made at the very start of our little journey) are misleading users to buying GameGuru, only to set them up for some level of disappointment. I have been playing with the idea of updating the video to reflect what we have now, in the hopes I can avoid users buying GameGuru when another product might have suited them better. I would very much appreciate your ideas on how I can address the concerns below with changes to the video and product page description so that future GameGuru users can be well informed before checking out GameGuru.

Here are the crux of the negative reviews from the last 30 days (Steam: 50% negative / 50% positive):

- Level editor for the worst FPS game engine, zero user control of functionality beyond importing and arranging assets
- Fuel behind steam greenlight trash and is just asset flips. The only good way to make a game is by buying add-ons
- Type of games that you can produce is very narrow in that it's basically just fps
- The entities available are very limited unless you want to fork up some more cash just to be able to build a unique level
- They don't even bother to update their interface and tutorial videos (adding a text overlay does not count guys)
- Lags to hell
- Only buy it if you're 12, have zero experience making games or game content and don't give a FFFF about your 2016 game looking 2005
- Decade old Early Access title dressed as a full program. If you're serious about making a modern game especially with MP, look elsewhere
- Absolute crap
- This engine is so full of bugs. I backed Reloaded as a gold-pledger because of what was promised. which never came about
- I give this 'Game' a 5 out of 10, it's worth buying on sale but I don't understand how anyone could spend hundreds of dollars on all the DLC
- This engine is so easy to use because it has no features
- The only feature you can use without programming is the map editor and even that is a pain to use
- Besides the lack of features, I've experienced several crashes. I wouldn't even recommend this if it was free
- There isn't really a "Trial Version" of this software. so I was stuck with this software
- BAD!!!!! c++ is not!!....
- My PC is a piece of crap, but it should be able to run this. The specs are all met but the most fps I usually got was 10
- I tried to like it, but it's just.. eeehhhh. You're better off looking into programming and making a game that way

It's not that these negative comments are wrong, but it was wrong of me to sell them GameGuru at this time. I am sure many of the above issues will be solved in time, but I don't want to put customers through an extended period of disappointment in the meantime, and step one in that process is to clear up the message of precisely what GameGuru is 'right now'. I have made a few notes on what the new video might include, but I value your own insights into how we can improve the intro video and product page to better represent GameGuru as it stands today.

I do remember at first seeing Game-Guru appear under my "Games" section on Steam. I thought that was a bit strange and knew that there would be some back-lash from that. The steam community is VERY picky when it comes to how things are categorized in their library. But I have seen that has since been fixed.



It is unfortunate that some people do do this with GG just to make a quick buck. A concern i also have, but I wouldn't call the games trash. I think some people just get the impression they can make money quick off steam by using an engine that is pretty much prefab'ed for them already to pump out a game they can throw on Greenlight. Without any creativity or care at all for the art of game design. I don't think there is a fix for this unfortunately. Just pushes us to be more creative and unique with our own games and use our own assets.

I personally feel like most of those comments are made by teenagers completely new to game development. Considering the immaturity in the reviews. Though ironically this is who GG was being marketed to when the switch from FPSC Reloaded happened. So it was to be expected. I recall us all being a bit concerned about the new crowd we'd be attracting. "The easy game maker" certainly brought about a lot of youths and a lot more expectation from less technical minded users.

I know for a fact the new users are younger, because all the emails and DM's I get over on Youtube in regards to Game-Guru are coming from much younger users. Some of them are so young their parents bought the games for them. So its a very interesting demographic we are working with here.

FYI: I did see a case where someone asset flipped Asylum map and uploaded it to Steam and Indie DB.



I think when the development swayed to multiplayer, 3rd-person and the character creator... it put a lot of us pledgers on a waiting list to get more of the core functionality and features to be attended to. Things that were critical and vital for us to really take GG seriously and get started with making our games. As a gold level pledger I can honestly say that the wait was quite long. Was frustrating though to be honest for some of us, as it was apparent that being a gold pledger didnt really amount to much of anything later on in development. We went out of early access a bit too soon as the performance issues were still quite apparent.

Least that's my take on things. I understand that all this motions however were made for business purposes; so I'm just speaking from the end user perspective.

Hi Lee

To start off with, we know there are core feature that are still missing but are in the pipeline so maybe putting together a roadmap to show us and future users how GG is / will progress. Also their are so many great projects on this forum currently, which could be used promote GG and show people what GG can really do, just look in the work in progress forum !

Secondly, 90% of steam reviews are just nonsense, most of the people that have posted those reviews used GG for less than an hour. I have spoken to a few people recently that think because GG is the "Easy games maker", they're going to make the next AAA blockbuster in just a few clicks of the mouse.

Maybe you could do a tutorial / twitch over several weeks making a game from start to finish, that incorporates everything that GG has to offer?

Agreed! There are some gems there, easily missed.

So to fix up the landing page for Game-Guru I noticed a few things:



This quote seems a bit out-dated since we now have more terrain controls. With the smooth tool and slope tool now. Additionally the random terrain generator which i personally love by the way!



I personally think something more along the lines of "Create, play and share fun games on your PC with ease!". I think saying that no technical knowledge would be needed hasn't worked out well since quite often people come with a lot of ambition. Wanting to do things that would require scripting, or custom asset importation and etc. We see it from new users all the time.

Similarly I find this block of text, to be where the the comment about engine for 12 years might have came from:



I think a lot of people want to find a game engine that is easy to use not so that they dont have to program or do 3d art... but simply because they dont know how to do those things yet and dont want to be faced with the requirements of those skillsets right away. In a sense... Game Guru is a great introduction into those very technical things, even though its not required.

That's just my advice. I'm no marketing expert. I do have an advanced diploma in graphic design advertising though and our education focused a lot on staying away from negatives like "no" and "non". As those types of initial phrases or paragraphs can come off either misleading or put people off, that for example may have the experience to program or do 3d art.

Game Guru is an interesting product as it is serving beginner and experienced game developers. Its very interesting learning about all the experience people have in the community here. Some even in the industry already. So I can see how challenging it must be to please both sides of the field. The feature votes from the community reflects that well...

EDIT: fulfill is spelt wrong there on the first paragraph of the GG landing page

Let's go through these, this is how i think these reviewers should be responded to ...

- Level editor for the worst FPS game engine, zero user control of functionality beyond importing and arranging assets

Sounds like someone hasn't spent more than five minutes with GameGuru, granted there's not as much control as we would like, but there is plenty fo control, especially if you learn LUA.

- Fuel behind steam greenlight trash and is just asset flips. The only good way to make a game is by buying add-ons

a) I agree there's a ton of trash games from GameGuru on Steam, but there's also a ton of trash games from other engines, including expensive AAA engines. - Invalid argument part 1.
b) Someone doesn't know what asset flipping actually means. Asset flip means to take a game and reuse the assets, it doesn't mean to use default or store bought assets. - Invalid argument part 2
c) You got me here, because in Unity you can ... oh wait you have to buy stuff from them to make ANY game, ok bad example, ah got it, Unreal Engine, you can make a ... oh wait you have to buy stuff from them to make ANY game, CryEngine? arrggg! I'll tell you a secret YOU HAVE TO BUY ADDONS AND EXTRAS TO MAKE GAMES IN ALMOST ALL ENGINES. Invalid argument part 3.

- Type of games that you can produce is very narrow in that it's basically just fps

I'll give them this one to an extent, however we do have third person, and although it's only officially one character, thanks to the creativity of the community it can be used with any character and any weapon. Here's another little secret,when Unity first came out it didn't have first person or third person, the first person and third person cameras were made by the Unity community and added later, so nothing to really complain about here.

- The entities available are very limited unless you want to fork up some more cash just to be able to build a unique level

Someone hasn't even looked in the entitybank, there are literally thousands of free entities. At least GameGuru has free entities, almost all the major engines come with at the most a single scenes worth of free entities in a demo scene.

- They don't even bother to update their interface and tutorial videos (adding a text overlay does not count guys)

If it works don't fix it. The UI works fine as it is, it doesn't need updating for the sake of the Steam crowd, when features are added that need to go into the UI, then it should be udated. Another secret Unity hasn't updated their UI (apart from a few tweaks here and there) for years, why the hell should GameGuru?

- Lags to hell

It doesn't have the high FPS of the more refined engines, i'll give you that, but i wouldn't say it lags to hell, i'm getting decent framerates, and i don't have a monster machine, hell in Hunted: One Step Too Far i get 90fps. If you lag enough to call it hell (without over exagerating for effect) then your machine is simply not meeting the requirements.

- Only buy it if you're 12, have zero experience making games or game content and don't give a FFFF about your 2016 game looking 2005

Or use it properly and get awesome lookign up to date games. Granted out of the box GameGuru isn't great on the graphics side, it's not meant to be, it's an easy game creator, not a AAA game creator. However, if you put some effort into it, make your own/commission your own models, spend some time working on the shaders, and so on, you can get some damned good scenes, you just have to look at the work in progress section of the gameguru forum to see that.

- Decade old Early Access title dressed as a full program. If you're serious about making a modern game especially with MP, look elsewhere

I agree with the multiplayer part, and to an extent the early access part, but as we all know, GameGuru is a work in progress, it's growing and changing all the time.

- Absolute crap

I think the only response to this can and should only be a reference to "your mom".

- This engine is so full of bugs. I backed Reloaded as a gold-pledger because of what was promised. which never came about

Yes, there are bugs, but then again most of them have workarounds. I've never come across a piece of software that doesn't have bugs, and i never will. I've seen far less bugs in GameGuru than i've seen in some high end proffessional software.

- I give this 'Game' a 5 out of 10, it's worth buying on sale but I don't understand how anyone could spend hundreds of dollars on all the DLC

Probably becuse they don't. These guys are working off of misconception, it isn't really DLC as you think of it, this is asset packs, EXACTLY the same as Unity has, EXACTLY the same as Unreal has, it's not content, it's models for you to use, it is entirely up to you if you buy them or not, at least with GameGuru you have thousands of FREE models by default, with the big engines you HAVE TO buy additional models, because they don't come with free ones.

- This engine is so easy to use because it has no features

It has lots of features, try spedn more than five minutes staring at the screen blowing bubbles.

- The only feature you can use without programming is the map editor and even that is a pain to use

The map editor is one of the easiest i have used, granted it's not as feature filled as some engines, but there are plenty of features in GameGuru.

- Besides the lack of features, I've experienced several crashes. I wouldn't even recommend this if it was free

Again, there's plenty of features, you just need to spend more time playing with it. As to the crashes, Unity crashes for me evey hour or so, it's must be aweful! But wait ... only a handful of peopel experience that, so maybe it's not that bad afterall. Exacty the same with GameGuru, a majority of the crashing issues have either been user error (badly coded LUA is one of the major culprits of this), or only a handful of people.

- There isn't really a "Trial Version" of this software. so I was stuck with this software

I you don't like it then apply for your money back from steam. You weren't stuck with it at all.

- BAD!!!!! c++ is not!!....

Another comment that simply requires a "your mom reference", possibly in the voice of Yoda.

- My PC is a piece of crap, but it should be able to run this. The specs are all met but the most fps I usually got was 10

I bet his specs were nowhere near the bencharks needed.

- I tried to like it, but it's just.. eeehhhh. You're better off looking into programming and making a game that way

That's just preference, people will like it, people won't like it, reviews should be on the quality of the software not whether you personally liked it or not. I don't like Big Macs, but i'm certainly not going to give McDonalds a bad review because i don't like Big Macs.


I'm not saying there aren't issues with GameGuru, there are, and glaring ones, but none of these reviews actually hit even close to the actual problems, they're all overly exaggerated grievances, non-issues, or just plain selfish greed.

I think the other have said most of whats needed, it just needs some rewording, and an obvious list of dev goals in a roadmap. Most of the bad reviews seem to be either youngsters who don't know what they're getting into, or he usual Steam Crack Suicide Troll Squad.

Hi Lee

I completely agree with Emrys, and as Teabone says the wait for core features has been long and frustrating. However there are many who are confident of what Game Guru will become, and are perhaps old enough to have a bit more patience

I do think it would be good to put the target audience straight as to what is involved in the game dev process.
For example:
1) don't expect to be able use Game Guru without spending a good amount of time learning how to use it
2) there is more to making a game than just having any easy interface to work with
3) asset flipping (complete nonsense really) - be prepared to at least learn how to re-texture assets or make your own if you want something unique
4) It is highly unlikely you could make a totally unique game with out doing some scripting
5) if you need help, use the Game-Guru forums - there are talented people that are wiling to help
6) there is no spoon
7) oh, and there is no spoon!

Just a few things that run through my mind when I read that review list.

Bottom line I feel is that those kinds of comments come from young\immature or perhaps just lazy people, I mean, some talk about limited assets and others talk about asset flipping. So somehow people need to understand that there is effort involved in making a game, regardless of how easy or hard the interface is to work with. I guess if you don't want to put some real work into it, then no engine will work for you.

I have no idea how you could say all that stuff in a way that won't offend anyone (tall order for steam community) .

So:
Half the reviews are rubbish - not much you can do about that
Tell them that there is work to do - there is no spoon
Give them a solid road map (preferably not geared by the voting board)
Have some kind of showcase feature board so they can see some of the work others are doing - what is possible

EDIT - and what Belidos says - lol good one m8!
Reliquia....

I think GG is still a fps engine, you can create nice shooters with it. And walking sims...
But FIrst Person Shooters were always the games with high end gfx. But that level we can not really reach at the moment with GG.

But you're selling GG at the moment as engine for all kind of games and as the easy game maker.
But to be honest, more than fps games are not really possible at the moment...

A 2.5 sidescroller is not possible as some features for this kind of games are still missing.
3rd person games are not really 100% possible without leaving the "easy game maker" path and start editing/writing lua scripts.
RPG, racing, flying games... Well not really possible at the moment.
Some of the free assets which come with GG are really great. Some of them look... Well, a little bit outdated.

You should sell GG at what it is now, not what you can do with it somewhere in the future.

Now:
GG = easy FPS Shooter engine, for indies, for hobbyists, with retro gfx.

.... I still like GG and will continue using it.

You just made me laugh, thanks for that.

You do realize that out of all the games that have been released using GameGuru only a handful have been FPS, all the rest have been RPG, Walking Simulators, and adventure games.

Just he honest and tell/show them that GG isn't finished and is currently aimed at people with no experience in game development, good for kids and people who want to play around with rough ideas, not complete games yet... You can update again once GG gets more complete.

Showing off the showcase is fine and all but I think this will just lead to the same problem, most of these reviews are by people looking for "easy, drag and drop" like the current info tells them to expect, we all know that's not the case when creating a real (good) game.

A twitch series creating an actual game is a good idea (read: game you would be happy to play), not really much on the twitch cast for a while anyway so doesn't matter if it takes a while and would definitely help give you a real sense of how the engine performs while being seriously used. You can then show an edited version (vastly sped up) to showcase GG.

Young people particularly i think might be a bit misled here. Since GG markets as being a more rounded development tool for a variety of game types that require programming, when yet its advertised on its landing page as not requiring programming at all. I think that's where this thread started. As being more truthful and honest with what someone can get out of GG in its current state with whatever knowledge they are coming with in game dev.

Yes, walking sims... And "adventure" walking sims....
A complete RPG... I didn't see one.

Not really a good thing, this is only because the current AI is so slow to respond limited to work with that any fps game plays terribly.

If Game Guru goes back into an "In Development" model and goes back to "core features" it will be on the right track.

Fixing up the landing page so its a bit more honest and more transparent is a great idea and i think might reduce some of the higher expectations and also bring about more supportive users and customers.

I also think we should spruce up the Features Page. I really like how this engine handles theres. Its similar with a feature list but has some visuals to match:

http://www.s2powered.com/copiasito/?page_id=1769



Fact. The only partly RPG's are just tech demos. Usually in the form of videos. DVader has some great tech demo videos up on his channel.

That was kind of the point i was making.

He said the only thing you could make are FPS, yet we can't even do that properly, and are limited to first person walking/RPG type games.

It absolutely boggles my mind, that instead of tackling the issues, is to circumvent the problems and issues raised, with some glue, string and a neat little bow.This might attract new users, however it isn't going to hide previous reviews, it isn't going to stop whatever is left of the current user base.

Good and well that video's and levels ect get updated as the software moves along, but to do it, to specifically and actively try and counter negative reviews, is devious and down right lazy, sorry lee, it's harsh and as a smart consumer I see straight through it, if I can manage to put one and one together so can others.

Instead of trying to plug a leaky pool, with mud, how about actually engaging the community on steam, and do the whole 10 yards and explain exactly where you are at and actually do a roadmap for 2017, if other companies can do one, smaller, same size or take over the world size you should be able to do the same.You still haggling it as the easy game maker, it's not any more your baby is almost all growns up, so has the users, stop treating them as such.

Personally you have a choice for 2017, either man up fetch a cement truck, build a better foundation, or borrow a spade or two and get to digging again, because if you don't do some thing drastically, that is is, gameguru will not see 2018 period, and you can take that to the bank.The store sales wise has gone down the drain, and that is pretty much a good indication whether or not users are actively using the software, if the sales don't pick up soon that is it pretty much for me, there isn't actually some thing keeping me attached to gameguru, and would need to look for income else where, my store income is directly tied to what you do or don't do, and inaction is pretty much having disastrous effects.

Redressing will possibly back fire into the biggest fireball for 2016.........

This is quite true. Doesn't mean its difficult to use. Its just that in order to achieve desirable results... more technical work is required from the user.

Not exactly true ..


Firstly lets put this in perspective with the actual figures and take a look at these stats

User reviews:
Recent:
Mixed (16 reviews)
Overall:
Mostly Positive (681 reviews)
Release Date: 19 May, 2015

Leadwerks = Rating: 7/10 - ‎218 reviews - ‎US$99.99
CopperCube = Rating: 8/10 - ‎18 reviews - ‎US$74.99
S2 Engine HD - Rating: 6/10 - ‎70 reviews - ‎US$19.99
GameGuru = Rating: 7/10 - ‎681 reviews - ‎US$19.99

Overall GG reviews are mostly positive .. No worse than anyone else since its release and you have only listed comments from the bad ones above .... There are some Excellent page long good reviews for GG and as I check at least 3 times a day I see the pattern of how reviews stick for days until new ones come along ..

GameGuru ratings are no worse really than any other similar products on steam in fact the stats show its one of the biggest sellers if you say the stats don't lie .. It just needs to get moving a lot faster and get these features in we are all waiting for which will then increase traffic and purchasing ..

If GG was released now and called " GameGuru the easy fun Retro fps Maker " then this would probably be what users expect
Basically people are buying GG to make great games and they expect " Easy Unity "

As mentioned a lot of bad reviews are 0.4 hrs...0.5 hrs... barely time to load the product let alone test it ...
Ask yourself ..If GG had all the features in now .... How good would GG be rated and sold then

Looking at those stats above Lee you shouldn't feel down ...It should give the incentive to be the best Game Creator up there and get the features in the sooner the better

Well Lee, you're still my favorite developer.
The best response to negative reviews is better product development, work on improving performance, Ai, shaders, and so on.
The critics are the scale that measure the development and behavior of the product.
Criticism instead of being a reason for discouragement and disenchantment, should be a motivation to improve the product.

Ask what is missing in GG and work on it, remove that ballast called EBE, and start working to improve the product, that's the best anwser to the negative reviews.

We were all happier before steam.

I plan to continue using GG, in fact I'm going to spend 1,100 euros on a desktop computer, I'm just waiting for Amazon to bring me the gtx 1060, to finish mounting the pc.

Sincerely with my laptop I can do what I want, except with GG.

Currently GG is an easy game maker just for fun, anyway if you want to get something more serius, so you'll need some extra knowledges.

3com

I agree with the fact that it sounds like mostly youngsters are the culprits for the bad press, but I also agree that maybe you need to re package GameGuru so that people know what they are getting. Maybe you could think about putting a limited trial version out there that can't be used to create a standalone game.

You could tell people about the entities that come with the program and what some people have done with this. Also maybe you could split the advertising into what can be done with the software as a beginner with no scripting knowledge and then also what is possible as a more advanced user.

I think one of the most important things though is letting people know that this is a work in progress in some way and then also letting them know what sort of things are going to be in the development. This would obviously have to be changed as things change.


I agree with this 3com.

As is mentioned, a roadmap and a clear statement that Game Guru is a beta development.
Yet Game Guru already offers many opportunities for the creative mind to produce some fun and beautiful games.
Maybe add to a game demo to show what is possible and can be done with GG.

Last night I was quite tempted to respond in a very negative review, but refrained from it because synchromesh and you as the developper already replied to the reviewer.

I am disabled and have spent quite a fortune on Game Guru and asset packages from the store in terms of my very low income.
But in my view it was and is well worth it, now it is up to me as the user to be creative and produce some nice games.

What is certainly killing in my view is a negative sphere like last month, i really became afraid to have spent all that money on a product that would never come to fruition.

GameGuru is pretty much an engine which is shaped by the community. I think "the easy game maker" needs to be removed, there are aspects that are easy but a kid with no experience is going to open GG up and think "ok what now?" . Most youngsters today want instant results and dont want to get into the techy side at all and put any effort in, some do. I wouldn't try to please the whole of your audience though that's an impossible task. I would actually show a basic picture of the GG editor and another say of "Galaxy Seed" and say "with a bit of effort you can change this to this". Just my thoughts of course.
Sell GameGuru with the positives and not the negatives and which are true. Steam was introduced far too early IMHO, but I can understand why it was done.

WELL, honestly Lee this is great software with lots of work to be done to make it better.

What ever you do to address the negative reviews if you feel you must, Please don't do it yourself, get some one else to do it. I would much prefer that you keep working on the product, rather than wasting time on more diversions.

Shelve the EBE for the time being if it is still months away, and get working on the real stuff that the engine needs fixed or added.

Just remember that no matter what you do as far as Steam is concerned, will never be enough.

Reliquia....

The other thing that I miss, which also helps promote GG was the weekly newsletter that was written by Scene Commander. I used to look forward to it coming out, It was nice to see what the GG team had been working on and to see what the community had been doing.

I am sorry but first impressions are the ones that count regardless of time spend, people do the same for reviews on actual games, do you have the problem with that, how is this any different.The fact that you can quite quickly slap together some entities sculpt the terrain, add bad guys and guns lights in less then 2 or 3 minutes.

Hit test game, and you are done, even better you can load up one of many test games in even less time, you argument is seriously flawed, 30- 40 minutes is more then enough to get a good feel for the software, you really don't need 5 hours with the software to be entitled to review it, you can discover all that is to discover in less then an hour, Plus you forget that not every one is online all the time, I am personally bandwidth limited so my steam is almost always offline, while it may only show 196odd hours in gameguru, I have clocked far more then that. Offline play time doesn't reflect real usage, mine has been pretty much the same play time for nearly 2 years.

Your assumptions is definitely flawed....

To what end ? You try and explain to the community you decided to throw away some thing you announced often and the next big thing and see how well that goes down, think of a monkey in a cage with a banana dangling outside the cage just out of reach....

What most of you are forgetting, is the damage is done, period, lee wants to do PR damage control and simply continue on the same trend, never ever a good idea, period it's like cutting off your nose to spite your face, cut any more you are going it end up with a self lobotomy, it will massively backfire.

Lee needs to stop working on other products and to be honest the "other" product in the works isn't floating my boat either, and is another waiting disaster.So I will say to lee, you keep on hammering away on the same road using the same method, you should have figured out it isn't working, however messy it is perhaps time you add the source code it may just push the momentum forward a lot quicker, or simply change the game plan and ditch the voting board already after a million posts of the forum already recommended, if you want to continue on the same road and hammer that is your choice, it would be sad, but it will likely end up with me having to say..... told ya so !

I think additionally lee should actually post this on steam as well, not asking steam users is just another waiting disaster, like the time he called them trolls.Some times I have to hit my head on a desk just to make sure that it has been properly thought out plan, most often it's not the best execution but so far been lucky with the fallout with some of the scary actions and plans taken.

BTW Lee as agreed when I removed the initial bad review middle of the year, I was giving you 6 months to prove to me why you deserve a good review, time is up, and still can't bring my self to write a good review, It would be a lie , as you know I am a straight shooter, if I don't like it, I am not going to beat around the bush, it's honestly and ethics or nothing.....

Lee,
What you present here is a real and appreciably unvarnished understanding of new users coming in. It's one thing to have a sort of echo chamber of old users (sorry guys, no insult intended) where they know the drill, they understand your workflow, etc... but when you have new people coming in who have neither the time nor patience to wait.

You kind of dug yourself into a hole here and I'm not precisely sure how you can dig yourself out. Specifically by lowering the price point to such a degree it's accessible to anyone... anyone will access it.

I'd probably focus on the positives that exist for Game-Guru:
1) Rapid prototyping - it's really impossibly fast to put together a level design, which is a good thing
2) Massive asset store with very low priced assets in comparison with other products; I mean some of the work on the store is top shelf and costs a fraction of what you'd see elsewhere.
3) An active, helpful community
4) Lifetime updates (I personally think this was a bit akin to shooting yourself in the foot but I'll admit it sold me on the project way back).
5) An actively supported Lua system which allows significant flexibility in game design for more advanced users.


Definitely set a clear expectation that this is a WIP product, that it's subject to quasi-regular major updates and they help shape those choices via the voting board.

Beyond that, I don't know. I've said before I'd like to see a game-guru pro version with a higher price tag and a more robust feature set. I'm biased though, coming from the Acknex community with 4-5 diff upgrade levels ranging from free to 800+ dollar commercial-super-pro editions.

To me, the more money TGC makes, the more money can be spent on developing new features, hiring another coder, etc. So it's not unreasonable to me to add to a featureset. I'd probably trickle those pro features down to the cheap/free editions as well.

On that note, I'd consider making a really trimmed down free edition maybe consisting of a fixed asset set, a very limited number of features, and just get that out there as a way to sell the product on it's own merits, rather than a video.

So... like what I'd expect to see would be:
Level 1 - Free. Free edition has stripped down lighting controls, no ability to compile levels for standalone, and can't add any additional assets beyond a fixed set.
Level 2 - Current edition as we know it. Gets regular updates as well as major feature updates, but generally lags behind the more commercial edition in terms of focus on features. So typically is as good as a previous edition of professional or close to it.
Level 3 - Professional edition. Encompasses all features of previous editions, Edition focuses on more bleeding edge, AAA level stuff - HDR, better shaders, more thorough Lua scripting, volumetric fog, a particle engine, etc. Does not include lifetime updates. I say this because let's be honest, there has to be SOME penalty here and professionals will be willing to pay for it.

I'm not saying Level 2 should be completely shafted obviously. They should get the features of level 3 that were promised/paid for. But at the same time, to what degree? Like should you be developing.. can you even develop a fully featured particle engine even approaching something made in the past 5 years by a AAA engine for a product selling @ around $20-15 USD? I guess it's possible but how much time will that take?

Eh, I don't know. I can't make it work in my head without a lot of old timers getting salty (myself included). But maybe you can figure something out.

First: You made a great piece of Software, Lee.
What does irritate me is, that here in this forums, the users tell you what GG is needing. For month. Or a year. They told you many things the Steam reviews mention. But the most threads only were ignored. I don't know why you stopped answering them, as you did till last year.
I think you have your reasons. TGC is more than GG. But it looks a little bit strange when good suggestions in this forums get ignored and than you ask what to do about the steam reviews.
I know you can't make everything what everybody want at the same time. TGC is a small team for a big project like GG.

My wish is that you listen to THIS community. They don't only write what GG needs, even WHY GG needs this. I'm sure, listen to them will silence the bad steam reviews. I know you tried this with the voting board. But most steam users don't know this and if you have problems to make the EBE... drop it for this time. EBE is a big thing what would be great to have. But not if the price for it is stopping the core development for long time. This only makes the core outdated. And we start to see exactly this... old DirectX, 32 bit, no multicore, high GPU temps and and and... wait another half year while making EBE and it's only an half year older core.
When you definitifly want to make EBE... let this do another person an bring it out as paid DLC. I think the users who need it, would pay for this. And the others would get core updates in this time.

Don't get me wrong... I love GG and I will stay here. But I also love GG could be. This forums and the steam reviews are showing the way (even if in a childy language at steam). Listen to them.

I think not ..

That's like saying Load up GG slap your models I just purchased and run it ...Then say they look rubbish ... without giving them a fair try. This would be because I haven't taken the time to set the mood, lighting Perhaps lightmap etc ...
No doubt if you had that complaint about your models you wouldnt be saying anything differently

I agree with you on the EBE though .... Cancelling that now would just make things a lot worse.

What I really think of some of the reviews I can't say because I don't want to be banned ..

Lance

EBE don't should be cancelled, but finished, and work in core engine as next step. Just my thoughts

There should be standard and professional version, to make everybody happy, so you start with standard and pass to professional is at your end.

If you are using standard version, you don't claim for AAA stuff, since you already know what you can waiting for.

People wanting more is something logic and it is in our nature, we always like more and more, this is not bad, they are only desires to overcome, maybe then when you discover that the standard version no longer meets your expectations, it is perhaps the time to move to the professional version?

I try to put myself in the skin of Lee, it is very difficult to sit in front of the computer and work all day and maybe much of the night, in something that many people reject; However, I am sure that Lee knows how to isolate himself from all this, and concentrate his efforts on bringing this ship to good use; Maybe it's time to take more into account those who believe in you, and your work.

3com

Haven't we all discussed this to death?

As I always say: out-of-the-box AI needs some polish.

Performance ain't stellar

And we needed more showcase like rolfys galaxy seed to present to these kids what it can do. By that I mean more sample games that aren't basic outlines.
All other engines come with spectacular showcases...if we only had something remotely close to that from the beginning.
People are going to judge the engine by how it behaves on the first few tries...that being a few models dragged and dropped into the editor, hit play, looks less than stellar "zOMG bad grapix from 2005". If it had showcases, they'd have other standards than their own inaptitude.

I'm about to release this. I don't think its retro... its not state of the art, one man projects NEVER are but its also not that outdated compared to projects with a similar scope made in something like the unreal engine.

First impressions!! And we blew that royally and the steam greenlight releases whizzed on the ashes.

What you do on the product page description is pretty much claim that "whatever you do it will look and play great". Statments like this don't go over too well.

If you'd ask me for advice, Lee, I'd say put more focus on the community. Its what held FPSC together through times where it wasn't stable and it will, if anything, hold GG together. There are some great things being made in this community and it is never highlighted to a potential customer. I have seen you spotlight borderline insultingly bad youtube videos. Why where there no projects from the board. W.I.P. or otherwise! No models, scripts or innovations by us, your customers. Instead we got clickbait videos.
I truely believe that people rather look at what other people do if its presented to them than be convinced by a well worded product presentation. At least I am. Yet only the most dedicated would browse our forums to see it.

Despite my change in tone recently, I still tremendously enjoy game guru and I dont want it to die.

Also: The bloom shader is eating all the FPS. Make it staaahp!



-Wolf

Actually considering this in an outdoor engine and has baked shadows or realtime shadows and content being predominantly outdoor stuff makes the argument moot. The fact that the users that purchase from the store are pretty much the users that actively use the the software and pretty much the same users, the store sales pretty much speak for them self, click on ANY model pack in the store and you will get an idea of actually how many users do use the store.While jason will probably not share publicly how many new or unique purchases there are in a month, it isn't a lot.

Considering there are at least 30K gameguru users if not more based on all the sales, specials even the humble bundle of last year, tells you pretty much how under use the store actually is.Even having a look at the amount of gameguru backers on the credits or at least those that elected to be displayed their names on the credit lists, the amount of gold backers each having received 5 gameguru keys, tells exactly opposite.

Most reviews do not really take into account the store, when they do it doesn't necessarily mean they actually made a purchase, and reviews are just based on first impressions.

So no I can say without a single doubt that your are wrong, with this game maker 50 minutes is more then enough time to get a feel for it, and what you keep forgetting this isn't the only game maker on steam nor the web, the vast majority testing/using the software has likely some experience with game makers, what you doing here is exactly what I hate, I don't like the new top gear it sucks but I only watched the first episode, and THAT is why they call it first impression, the rest of the season might have improved or not but that is the impression I got, didn't like it, the presenters are useless, there isn't that some thing that keeps you hooked.It set the benchmark and pretty much switch channels.

Gameguru is exactly the same, that 50 minutes whether or not you add bells and whistles, tweak settings, is more then enough time to make reasonable choice whether or not you are going to like the software, pure and simple arguing ANY differently on the subject of first impressions is just going to annoy me even more.The fact is most users never move past the first impressions, while first impressions never last, and memory fades quickly.

It is actually getting the user past that initial impression gameguru doesn't warrant a second, 3rd even a 4th impression, it's dull, lacks features, dated graphics, almost exclusively an outdoor engine, basic lighting system, poor shaders , so why exactly should users play past that initial 50 minutes, that first 50 minutes tell users exactly what they need to know.So leave your mod hat and pro gameguru attitude at the door, look at unity, udk, S2, coppercube, game studio, Axis game factory, every other 3D engine out there and tell me you can't give a review with in first 50 minutes by just looking at their demo levels or quickly constructing a simple level regardless of how simple it might be comparatively to gameguru, surprisingly your answer will be you can't review UDK or unity from 50 minutes usage, it far longer to construct a level.

And wham, bam, thank you mam, due to the simple minded approach of game guru you are actually able to construct a level a 100000000 times quicker then most engines, is there a valid reason you can give me, why a user should not be able to review software, with less then an hours play time. Logic and stats speak for it self, have a look at the most simple game on steam and the most complicated game, check the average review play time, and ironically you WILL see a direct correlation in some cases between complexity of the game or software and review time.

Stats don't lie period, which why I am saying your logic is flawed....

http://steamcommunity.com/app/322040/reviews/?p=1&browsefilter=toprated

Vs more complicated

http://steamcommunity.com/app/241240/reviews/?p=1&browsefilter=toprated

VS a really complex game

http://steamcommunity.com/app/241930/reviews/?p=1&browsefilter=toprated

WOI this isn't an argument its people opinions ... Mine included ..
I cant help it if you disagree .....

Just called over to my wife on the sofa ,Negative Review Solutions.Answer,Make it better .There you go,very strait my wife .

Dave

LOL ... There ya go ...sorted

As I stated above. If we have had (past tense) 2 or 3 more fantastic showcases earlier on those first impressions would have been different.
I can't agree with Wiz in one point: Most people aren't all too educated in what makes an engine tick, even less so people buying the "easy game maker". You see, engines are initially judged by their showcases and demos. The vast majority of its users will never ever even remotely come close the quality of and epic games demo level but they know its possible and it shapes their perception of the software regardless of their own atrocious work.
Later these engines are remembered for their released games.

Initially it was barely possible to make a decent level in GG and even less so to get it to run on something other than a flux capacitor. So first showcases where rather simple, yet competently made. Now the framerate is a little better yet still "Nothing to write home about". I think the whole steam thing came way too early and features have followed its initial optimism way too slow. During that time, genouinely good games on here have been started to being made. However, these where often halted in order for us to wait for better features or are being developed much slower than "asset flippy" crap.
The crap has been churned out by the masses by now and there are very few games to in the public eye to sway against that.
This colours game guru as this kids game with the terrible performance and the cringeworthy featureless graphics. Oh! and dont forget the pathetic late 90s terrain. Everyone reading this knows that you can make pretty neat terrain in GG, knows that there is a lot you can do visually and also knows that there is a lot that can be achieved. However, initial impressions wouldn't even make you guess that.

TBH, I started with FPSC 10 years ago and so I kinda knew my way around GG from the start. If this where not the case I doubt I would have put any time or trust in it judging from its presentation. Just look at the banners in this forum. The backgrounds are okay, but the banners are screaming "NO ANTI ALIASING! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

simple. just showcase Wolf and Bugsy game as a intro video

Not forgetting dimoxinil's "Forgotten Coast"

Lee only wants ideas to slow the Negs down not sure all the above is helping, here a few I can think of.

First off I don't see you Lee or GameGuru is doing much wrong, I've seen for sometime that you were getting upset with the Steam reviews but overall GameGuru is still mostly positive 611 pos and 168 neg it has gone downhill the last few months though. Could this be when GameGuru is on offer you get a flood of new and very young users who just don't have the skills and don't want to put the time in to get those skills. It takes a good few hours to just find your way around the user interface, yet people have been giving negs for less than a hour play time.

One option would be to add a few more DLC packs to the base GameGuru pack put the price up to £29.99 this will stop these kids buying it with their pocket money. Do away with the base item altogether and don't sell it for less £29.99. If you are trying to cut Negs then move GameGuru away from the school kids.

I know you have been aiming GameGuru at the younger user which is great but we are at an age these people download apps by the hundreds and just play for a few minutes each. A small game like asylum would take a new user a few days or more to make. They just will not put the time in, also they think a few clicks of the mouse and call of duty will pop out.

Now a lot of these Steam users leaving Negs are using laptops that have been given to them for Birthdays, Christmas etc not great for 3D games at the best of times. I've seen the power of the average Computer go down as the boom in laptops has gone up, so in comes the Negs because GameGuru runs slow.

Maybe some better setting in the tab tab menu with one click to put all setting on low med or high because most new users have no idea that bloom will slow the game by 50%, Draw distance is another one, Shadows another 50% off the FPS, so 3 pre-sets to change all slides in one go would be a great help for the low end users. also changing Screen Res should be a option in the tab tab menu (would need a reset for this I think). another speed up for one click setting would be to add control for the dividetexturesize in the tab tab memu. dividetexturesize is a great way to get games to run smooth on systems with low system Ram and low VGA Ram and with a poor 3D score.

Its not just laptops that are low powered, a hell of a lot of desktops are made now using CPU's GPU's designed for the laptop market.

Right now there are 30% of people using 1366 x 768 or less screen res on steam bet is most of them are laptops users.

Now I use GameGuru a lot and get it running at speed but have to make a lot of adjustments, just think if the new user could do the same with just one click it may not look so good but their game would run smooth I think a lot would be happy with that.

Another idea would be for GameGuru to auto detect the user hardware and then setup to match.

One of my computers is a Windows 10, Atom X5 Z8300 @ 1.44Ghz total ram of just 2GB shared with intel HD graphics. Total Power 7 Watts. Yet I got Father's island to runs on it at 4FPS and Asylum at 30+ FPS after spending a lot of time on the setup files, it would be great if games like this would run with one click setup. Asylum at 30+ FPS does show very low spec computers can run GameGuru basic games.

Most of what I've said above you can do on most retail games because they know their games need to run on all sorts of computers, GameGuru needs to do the same. Just think of someone making a map for the first time and then pressing test, only to find it running at something like 15FPS if they could just set up all the tab tab options to low with one click their FPS would jump to 50FPS. it might stop some of them running to steam feedback to leave a neg.

Maybe we on these boards need to put the same amount time and effort as the posts above trying to make the first few hours of a new user of GameGuru a better experience. If we can get them over this, I think they will be hooked for life I know I was!

Actually most of those review comments are perfectly sound and valid, not all are written by twelve year olds who don't have a clue, this is obvious if they have more than sentence in their review. I wouldn't pay any attention to one liners neither would anyone checking reviews out to see if a product would suit them.
If I were truly a fanboy I could respond to these in the same manner and set them to rights but that won't actually improve your product, will it? People round here need to get over the fact that this products description on Steam is at best misleading. Yes you are all aware that sometime in the future this game creator may just live up to it's promise but right now it simply doesn't and harping about the grey murky future isn't going to do any good.
I am afraid most purchasers of this product don't share your enthusiasm and beliefs and that doesn't in any way make them too stupid to understand the plot. In my opinion most of those review snippets above are valid and if you take advice to brush them aside as inane muttering by 12 year olds would suicidal (pretty sure you know better). I don't know why you even include a comment about assets all the same as you know full well that has already been addressed and pointless now.

I see many reviews by folks who obviously have a clue and some are less harsh than others depending on their posters nature but many say the same things, just in different ways.

There are two core problems here.
1. This product is unfinished and a long way from ever being finished.
2. Product examples aren't truly great and any that are great are only going to add to to the fact that you won't be spewing 'great' games out of GameGuru without some skills, particularly in its unfinished state where it takes real effort to get even a simple game mechanic working, which doesn't involve simply dropping in pre-made characters with terrible AI. This kinda makes the idea of 'easy game maker' a little off base where the promise of great things simply won't ever stand up.

The simple answer is that you shouldn't promise features to sell your product, deliver first and foremost.
For example third person is touted by both TGC and users around here but in reality you got one TPV character that works out of the box and limited in its use to a single genre, I don't care that users have other characters working, got one on sale myself, but it's this half finished feature that has sat on the shelf for a long time among many others that are killing your marketing strategy since the reality doesn't live up to the hype. That's only one example I could give you several others.

You know I have loved the ethos of TGC as a small company and always had a thing for the underdog but I can't honestly stand up and defend this product based on the promise of 'someday'.

How you progress with GG development is no longer of concern to me as I took myself out of the loop and besides this thread isn't asking for any advice on that though plenty seems to be being thrown into the mix here.
Perhaps if you think back to when you first created the GameGuru product page and take a look at where development now currently is, you will see where it has gone wrong

yes

Agreed ...

My original post was to point out was there are more good ones there that even mention its flaws ... GG is far from perfect as I said in my original post but I was trying to highlight the fact that every engine on steam has similar users with similar problems
Does this seem familiar ...


Or this



Well the top one is Leadwerks and the lower one is S2 Engine HD ...
Of course they also have their fair share of good reviews ..... But no matter what your going to get good and bad reviews ... you can only hope for "Mostly Positive " or " Very Positive " and GG is " Mostly Positive "

Raising the price raises expectations which could in turn lead to even more disappointment. So that's risky business.

Ok, at the moment it is mixed, just all comments are mostly positive! I always look at the current state and not on the total state.

Also the steam page shows what it is for beginners, an engine for assets placement! No searching in the file structures to find files and set all properties correct for your use, 2 hours coding in lua for a little script so a little entity do what it should, and so on. I didn´t see this on the page! (Ok there is one sentence about lua with a screenshot where it looks like it can be done in editor).

Yes GG is easy in entity placement and prototype creating, but for a game I need to go a lot deeper in GG and there is nothing "easy" anymore.

In short: That what rolfy said.

I think GG is a good product and satisfies a lot of peoples requirements. However it was never going to compete with the big game engines and its very important to get the marketing correct otherwise everyone will automatically judge it by those standards, especially when other engines are now free.

There are 2 things which I think are holding GG back:

1. The voting board. It just doesn't make sense to me having the future development of a BETA product determined by random features requested by the community. We should only have a voting board once the main engine is delivered with all core features in place like proper lighting and AI then re-introduce the board once out of BETA and people can get on with making decent games whilst the other stuff filters through.

2. Open platform. GG suffers from only having 1 engine coder doing all the work and this model can never deliver in the timescales people expect. I think GG should be open source like FPSC classic because most people will remember how much progress was made once the community were able to do this for themselves. If you look at FPSC X10 which had a closed source, it was a total failure and should not be repeated.

I'd also agree with the idea about putting high quality showcases as the main / intro videos to show what can actually be achieved. Equally TGC should be very clear about what is not done yet like AI which most people would expect to be in a good state by now.

If GameGuru had more ways easily to create custom, unique assets it might silence the critics who go on about asset flipping. So, with that in mind:

I would like to see the character creator expanded greatly with more options, more body parts/clothing, the ability to make minor shape changes and all characters 3rd person.

Maybe there could be a skybox creator.

More terrain types and tools.

The EBE will also help us to create unique buildings, provided we can easily change textures and also the binary matrix.

When we can easily edit menus, titles, etc., that will also help.

A weapons editor will help.

More control and options for AI will help the bots look unique.

Of course, we will never be able to make totally unique stuff without scripting, modelling, etc., using 3rd party software. But think GG still has a lot of potential for optimising customisation.

Regarding the video: Showcase the features that enable users to create custom content - the importer, character creator, Lua, etc. Also show clips of games that look so customised you would never guess they were made in GameGuru.

From the comments I've seen on Steam about GG (an my own game, argh), I think the perception that GG is just a scam for asset flipping is huge and needs to be stamped out.

The key portion of this quote: "how I can address the concerns below with changes to the video and product page description" is not, how can I at this time improve GameGuru. We have all heard the suggested software improvements stated in this thread before and pretty much agree, but that is not the purpose of the thread. "Changes to the video and product page description" are the key...

The "so that future GameGuru users can be well informed before checking out GameGuru" second key phase. Lee's REQUEST has not benefited from anything I've seen so far in this thread. Give the guy a break and offer up some ideas that pertain directly to the request.

Well rather than a twitch on using GG how about a fortnightly questions and answers twitch on whats happening or any progress he would like to show us .... Nothing for him to prepare ... 30 mins is a nice time to get questions in ... At least it will be interactive and keep us informed ?

How about including in the video and product description area a free 3 to 5 minute stand a lone game that potential buyers could download and make a trial run on their own computer to check out, how well or not, Game Guru fits their system. The demo game should contain a constant report on frames per second and at certain points change the game settings from lowest, medium and highest video settings. The potential buyer can then make a some what educated decision not just based on promo material. Don't like it, don't buy it!

That's all I got Lee...

This seems to be searching in order to find something to complain about.
Most games are 32 bit, the memory limit of 4 gb on 32 bit software will only be an issue if there is not enough memory installed or if it is run on a 32 bit system.

I don't see why it is down to the community to sort out TGC business issues, we are end users and we shouldn't be helping TGC make business decisions.
TGC made the software, TGC need to sort their problems out.