@Solar: Thank you, I designed it to have a lot of winding street and alley corridors to keep the performance smooth but it still has enough sense of scale.

@Duchenkuke Happy to hear that



Haha, I appreciate the sentiment. Yeah, its been a while since my last GG release...several years actuall.



Oh sure, you'll hear from me. I took a little break from everything and will get back into it now

For a game with a small scope it has a high level of complexity. I love the fact that you have developed this and the whole community has rallied around you helping where they can while still giving you the full freedom to create and call it your own.

Can’t wait to get hold of a playable demo! Keep up the amazing work!

Hello!



Thank you! Yes, the effect this community had on this project can not be understated. We are a relatively small group but unlike other gaming communities I have been a member of, people on here generally are happy to help users and share knowledge where its a very different vibe in other places. As someone doing this as a hobby I could probably not make much of a game without the tons of code, scripts, assets and sounds I have from other people here.

UPDATE

I haven't updated this thread in a while because progress was somewhat slow and to be frank, this whole game is currently a disjointed mess. I only realized this when I wanted my friends Duke and Bugsy to test the first level due to performance issues. (Big shoutout to duke for being very helpful in already improving things but I need to make a few sacrifices to have it hit that 60 fps mark)
I wanted to add a few levels that are relatively done gameplay wise so they get a little bit of game along side the testing but then I realized...didn't have any. Everything about this project is kind of spread across a whole bunch of unfinished maps.

So whats the plan?

Well, there are some issues with game guru that make it rather difficult to make this project a full length game. I know that this was originally going to be a short 1 hour game with 4 maps and a little story. It then evolved into a fully fledged shooter, in fact, my main creative project at the moment, spanning a whole 8 missions (roughly 15 levels). However, in order to actually finish this and to make it a compelling enough game for players to enjoy I decided that 6 full levels would be enough. So a lot of things will need to be reorganized and cut out.

Still, that being said I think its the best decision. I have my doubts that a lot of players would put aside the time to play through a gigantic 15 level GG game like this and I also fear that the amount of effort I would need to put in would simply not be possible given that I'm also making a lot of changes in my personal life right now that require my attention. I mean hey, I turned 30 last month and while its not on the radar for the remainder of this year, I know full well that me taking my sweet time with certain things, like starting a family, finally getting married and the whole onslaught of events that comes with that will most likely result in said events all coming at me in full force and at once drowning me in a gigantic maelstrom of responsibility. Some time soon anyway...but not now.

But back to the game: I am currently working on finishing the alpha version of mission 1. There are some gameplay elements I want to add, some I mentioned before but I think I could pull off a decent inventory system as well... you know, for more advanced puzzles and to let the player discover more loot other than health, guns, keys and armor.

So yes. Level 1, which you might remember from the first post to this thread has been expanded and it serves as an introduction to the setting and themes of the game. There is no gameplay to it yet as I need to crack the performance nut first but I'd like to show you all some impressions from that area, including a walkthrough in the form of a youtube video:

VIDEO



SCREENSHOTS





























As always, thanks for visiting, thanks for your support and feel free to let me know what you think!



-Wolf

I am really looking forward to the next playable build. I had the privilege to play a very early alpha test and I really enjoyed the levels so far!

Cant wait to see how the story and narrative comes in and builds on top of the very appealing levels.

Very nice Level. Placement of building is as always 100% . I like the layout of the map. Nice.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it

Well, one of my new years resolutions is to try and reduce the amount of image drops and instead make more videos. It seems more contemporary and gets the game across better.



-Wolf

Yeah it's easier to showcase using video, you can get a lot ore detail in front of the camera as you move around.

Agreed. However, showing video needs a lot of HUD, Sound and gameplay stuff to be in place so the dealy between project updates increases.
I think a mix and match approach might be better.

This is a clip from one half of mission 4 . The Alpha version that is, which I sent out to testers.
There are time stamps in the video description that highlight note able moments or features in the game.

I already have part 2 of this mission up as well, but I would really like to write a bit more about all that in a future post, so I will not link it just yet. If you are curious, you can of course find it on my channel.



-Wolf

Awesome stuff, its already great fun. A bit more fine tuning and performance improvements and we have a real wolf classic

Thank you Mr. Duke! I appreciate your help in testing and tweaking this game a lot



Well what about that? A new forum design! Like a fella once said, ain't that a kick in the head?

I know I announced that I'd update this thread ages ago but I just didn't get around to it. Managed to add quite a bit to the game but not to do a write up on where its currently heading. I'm still working on SPECTRE whenever I get to it, still determined to finish one substantial GG game.
So, the Alpha tests of the previous version went quite alright. I have gotten a lot of feedback from my testers. General complaints where performance and difficulty spike. In fact, not so much difficulty, its just that the encounters in the first part of mission 4 had piss poor design. This will be tweaked later. That entire map will also be divided into 2 maps for performance reasons. In general, I also tried to see how big and detailed a map in game guru could really be and ... I know Game Guru has its detractors that like to say that its little more than a worse version of fpscreator with a terrain editor slapped on to it but... you can make some pretty large missions with it.
I will scale these back and re-design them a bit for performance reasons but at least I now know exactly how large a map can be and how to optimize it.

I think those interested would like to see a video and I got one for you right here:
***********
ALPHA GAMEPLAY VIDEO:



***********

Generally speaking I am very happy with how it turned out so far. The enemies are a bit awkward (^^) its GG after all but as you can see in the video, with some new sounds here and there, some tweaks to their reactions and some vocalisations, they act competent enough for a freebie game like this.

Also sound is important to me and I hope that the musical score for the game will get noticed by some. I'm not a musician really but so far everything is a bit moody. And if I dare say so myself, not being a musician as in... not really knowing what I am doing gives my synth tracks and remixes a unique feel. I think my games have a general... student film or garage project kind of feel to them. For better or worse





These lush jungles would have been impossible with earlier versions of game guru. Now you can allow yourself to make things like this.
Its not quite the scale of a GG max biome but for these hand made, linear levels its more than enough to also hide goodies in the bushes and allow the player freedom for exploration.







The base is simple yet detailed enough to give the player the impression that its an actually functional military installation. I take great care to never design random combat arenas that make no sense but actual believable spaces. Well...to an extent at least, its still a game and scifi at that so I can take a few liberties



While subdued in this alpha version, talking to various chars will be a big part of spectre.





While I still regret the rather disappointing lighting system in GG, I can get behind the dated, yet not too dated look of its graphics. I think you can make something with it that has this dreamy nostalgic look of middlemarket games from the late 2000s. I kind of like that.

Its not going to wow any average gamer of today, certainly will be considered ugly by most people who's birth dates start with 20** but I am cool with it.



This picture is not from this alpha test, granted, but I just... really like this hair mesh. Its nice.

So thats it from me, as always, any comments are greatly appreciated.



-Wolf

Hi!
I've recently gotten this comment under one of my GG steam screenshots.



Its....accurate. At least for the few of us who still use this tool, for whatever odd reason that may be.

But before I get all doom and gloom, here are some screenshots of my current work in progress level:





This is an NPC that needs to be recruited during the story. I find that this nightclub, while simplistic, has a nice vibe to it! There are some animated shenanigans in it as well that I dont want to spoil







The exterior part of the mission. These are green houses. I quite like the moon shining through the glass in that last pic.









Work in progress impressions of the village area. Its divided into areas where I use a teleport script to get the player from place to place. That way the FPS remains high enough

As always, thanks for checking in!



-Wolf

The whole thing in motion. Be sure to also check out the time stamps in the YT video if you don't feel like watching the whole thing.



-Wolf

I really enjoyed watching that this is a credit to you Wolf

Thanks a lot! There is still quite a bit one can do in good old GG classic.

This could be a very good year for gg classic so I hope we can all benefit from a improved version in the near future!
This will lead to our projects getting even better and more enjoyable.

I agree, there is still hope that future versions might load faster and be a tad more performance effective.
There is very little needed to elevate a GG game from a chore to play to something enjoyable.

I'm late to the party, but damn it's so cool to see this level with life in it! Well done Wolf! This is looking top notch.

Wolf,
Looks GREAT! Is there a demo that I can play?
- Thanks!

Hello folks!

Its been a while since I last posted. The 5th June feels like I was in a different universe at the time. So much has changed for me in these few months its staggering. Well, most of that is personal stuff that will be of no interest to you but I also decided to move this project to a different engine. Kind of to test the waters. Some of you follow me on youtube and might remember me announcing this but I never put anything forward on the forums. There where a lot of issues with the alpha versions that made me lose motivation to continue a project of this size in game guru. HOWEVER, since the project will be continued in a different engine anyway, I feel that there is no reason not to release the work-in-progress alpha versions for everyone to play around with.

Now these are rather unstable, imperfect versions for game guru enthusiasts and people who have followed me so far and want to try something out. These are not complete games by any means.

First, those who are interested can view a little video of an early UE5 version here:



DOWNLOADS

Alpha April 2021 (this one should be the night time city seen above (Apothecary)) This is the most stable version of them all.
<<<LINK>>>

Alpha 3 - Early 2021 (this version is the most fun to play. Its the jungle base also seen above.)
<<<LINK>>>

Alpha 2 - Foggy Jungle. A good amount of jank but very playable. Might be difficult to get running. Might need to be launched
up to a dozen times to start. IDK why.
<<<LINK>>>

Alpha 1 - City Level with barely any gameplay. Terrible performance. Only for the most dedicated.
<<<LINK>>>

BONUS: Operation Iron Badger - Spectre Map repurposed as stand alone contest entry.
<<<LINK>>>

Keep in mind that these are alpha versions. Also the game guru version is discontinued, so while I always enjoy reading feedback from you guys, you don't need to take the time to review these as they will not be changed going forward. But you can always leave me a note if you had fun with those

Thanks for reading and I hope y'all are having a good one!



-Wolf