I really like Gameguru and wourld like to use it in a more "Easy" project, just wonder whats the best reason to buy Max instead of The classic version?
One problem in classic is The way too small world and I have heard that the memory is running out. I also think that from FPSC to new Max The look has been a bit cartoonish and I think thats sad, sence most engines start to look more like photorealism.
How come a static object cant fall shadows on itselt (Like in an imported map)?
Any reason for Me to buy MAX?

Ok this is super easy to answer:

- True 64bit game engine
- AAA graphics pipeline
- Fully realtime lighting and shadows
- Huge open terrain node system
- Dynamic LUA and visual scripting
- Customisable volumetric particles
- Environmental and weather effects
- VR support out of the box
- Multiple model file formats
- Backwards compatibility with GameGuru

Here is a very quick example of a GG classic map imported into Max:

Yeah simple really - Classic is ugly, Max is awesome.
Along with the features mentioned above, you also have much more control over textures, for example you can boost illumination, or choose not to use it at all on a per model basis.

Lee has mentioned some awesome features in latest broadcast so would be worth lookin at that.

Rendering just kills classic:
Classic

Max


Same Models\Textures with the exception that Max is using _surface texture and I have edited the illumination map for Max.

OldFlak....

Royalty free, has quirks, may influence your design decisions, may inspire interesting ideas, may be a more enjoyable workflow for artists, etc.

@OldFlak @Pirate Myke

Them pics are awesome.

Why not buy Max? Its going to be better in every way. Im buying it at full price to get it on Steam ( or whatever the release sale will be )

@Nevin pretty sure you buy steam version now at the reduced price, get access to beta downloads, and when released the downloads are swaped for the steam key - maybe check with TGC

OldFlak....

The problem right now with Max is developers cannot start planning/designing games because 'what it is' is still undefined, in regards to gameplay and structure. For example, multiplayer.

I would disagree with that ...

It has been made clear at this point in time, Max multiplayer will be using photon, will be able to play completely standalone, will support 8 players and deathmatch / team deathmatch game modes.

Now its possible with all the rework going on in 2021 the team might decide to add more things but if you want to plan a MP game now that is what you shoiuld be shooting for.

From a SP perspective it really depends on what is required for your game. If you are looking to make a FPS with some basic RPG and Puzzle elements then you should be fine as thats what has been confirmed so far.

If you're planning a multi-level multiplayer game, that's not possible. I asked. They said the photon multiplayer standalone games are limited to one level. See? That's where the surprises come in that makes it hard, as a developer, to design something with GG Max.

Seems like it wourld be worth to try Max.. It wourld be strange not havning a full multiplayer option sence many free engines have it? Or am I wrong???

GG Multiplayer has always been restricted to a single level.

You could use a custom launcher type of program so people can choose from multiple levels but MP has always been this way. I don't think its fair to say this is a surprise but if you are new to GG thats understandable.

@Mr Love - Its worth trying out Max if you like testing new software but the product is very early on and there won't be an official demo until it releases on Steam which is going to likely be another 6-12 months.

Nomad Soul already states it from the head and wisely.

I'm only going to give reasons from the heart.
I am enjoying and learning a lot from the product, and this is fundamental for me.
I have pushed the product to the limit and beyond, and the product has responded as I expected.
I have created, executed levels with a large amount of very high poly mesh using 8k textures, many of them and GGMax beta3 responds as I expected, is it that I can ask for more?
If a program in its earliest stage of development allows me to do these things, which will allow me to make the final product, I want to find out and that for me is the only reason I need, the rest will come by itself.

@OldFlak

Not going to look into it. Id buy max if it was $200 . But you are prob right

Alright, this is interesting...
"They said the photon multiplayer standalone games are limited to one level. See? That's where the surprises come in MAX"

Now the question is, how big can the levels in MAX be? They are expandable--
unless TGC discover this ooops flaw and they block extra large levels in MAX for MP??
Otherwise, what's to stop a person from making them 10X GG junior size?

Why is it a surprise? We were told quite clearly from day one the new photon based multiplayer would've exactly as it is in classic, with the bonus of standalone through photon hosts instead of steam, it's all we should have been expecting all along,

With a quick scan of my 'stumpy' brain, and a look- see on Google, there doesn't
seem to be a precedence with Multiplayer always being many levels.
They seem *mostly* to be for one map. //Maybe with RPG's and some of these
co-op (phone-look-style) games that's not the case?//

Or maybe I should say one map multiplayer games are very common and very
popular-- Also [if TGC found a way], a person can "make new levels" by procedural
scripting and placing things in new locations, the sky is changeable, weather, etc.

So what I would be concerned about with GGMAX is (-UNFORTUNATELY!- I've left the
multiplayer topic altogether now because it doesn't support custom scripts)--
Anyhow, I would be concerned about how slow GG lua is when you put several
dozen entities scripted into your level(s).

A person can change the resolution of textures, install efficient, low-poly models, etc.
But it's not very likely that lua can increase in speed significantly. Am I wrong?

Lua is fast, very fast, like anything though it can be used incorrectly and perform badly.

Just as a user can use inefficient textures or models with way too many poly's a user can write inefficient scripts.

I've had 300 characters on screen dancing away quite merrily with no performance issues (not using the stock AI scripts I might add!).

Amen is right, a bad script might slow the game a lot, and kill the performance, the redundancy might even crash the game.
Anyway, we already talk about times ago, IIRC.
There are some unbreakable rules you have to accomplish, a well organizes, compact code may be reusable.
Avoid globals as possible.
Local being called from the function itself as Amen many times pointed out, is the right way to go.
Using the amen's libs may help a lot.
Avoid one script waiting for some value from another one, it is usually dangerous.
If a dozen entities are doing the same most likely they are running the same script, if it does not, so, just try to run its script just when/where needed, and kill the entity as possible. and so on.

Great thread, lots of helpful answers.

This whole "you should know what to expect from Max, its the same as GG" answer really isn't helpful for newcomers. To anyone starting, GG is a very veiled engine, both in advertising, documentation, and public usage (ie youtube etc). For the past 5 years, this community has been pretty in-the-dark and private when it comes to community documentation (or proving the engine by producing finished games). If for the past 5 years using GG, devs curated more videos on youtube, folks would be able to see what MP games were made with GG.
It'd be like other engines, where you could search for help and find videos, games that use solutions you need, etc. We'd be able to answer the questions you say are easy to know if you've been privately using GG as a hobbyist for the past 5 years. But you guys didn't really document much yet as a community with GG - that's probably something that will happen in the future with GG Max.

Nothing wrong with that, it's exciting.

Lee has noticed this and has added the help video mechanic inside GG Max. My point is - this is needed. The dev community didn't take it upon themselves to help newbies in this way for the past 5 years with GG. Thus, there's no justification for shutting down questions from newbies. If folks ask about GG Max, answer as if there's no GG.

To answer the OP again, GG is a great working environment if your game can work within it's scope. Figuring out what the possible scope for your game is what I was saying is difficult with Max, since people treat GG like it's a well known and oft used engine that you should understand the uses for already.
Keep an open mind and you'll have a fun time with GG Max, and your creations are yours to use freely which means no bs.

Sorry Cobbs, I don't think that is an accurate representation of Game Guru or the community.

The reason so few GG games exist out there on YouTube or Itch IO or anywhere else is because few have been able to actually finish and release their games in a playable state. The limitations of the engine and its instability eventually put most people off. I do a YouTube series called FPS Creator Classics where I play old games made with Game Guru's predecessor, FPS Creator. I can do this series because there are literally hundreds of games out there, all with their own flavour, many of them real gems of indie game design. If I tried to do the same for Game Guru, I'd run dry after 10 episodes. You can tell this just from looking at the showcase board; the first page has games dating back from 2016, that means less than 50 games have been made by the entire forum-going community in 4 years.

Part of this is linked to same reason you say the documentation is so bad; the goalposts keep moving! Game Guru is the only software I know where a bug fix breaks two more things that were perfectly fine up to that point. The forums themselves don't help in this regard, the search function is awful and will only return results with your keyword in the title, not any threads or posts that actually use that keyboard. Plenty of threads out there are called things like "Please help", or "Three questions" or "Issues with latest build". There's probably a goldmine of info in here but it all gets lost.

On the plus side, we now have the tutorial board, although it's not like it's curated into any sort of order. GraPhiX was working on a community guide which looked interesting (https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/222335). And Bolt Action Gaming wrote his massive guide. There are resources out there, fragmented though they may be. There wouldn't be such a need for these resources if the actual program had decent documentation though.

Lee said he had plans to use the Game Guru YouTube channel as a place to showcase what the engine can do. Can't blame him for not progressing that much this year, he's been hella busy, but in any case that's more of a showcase than a help resource. And like I said, there's a limited pool of good Game Guru games to choose from out there.

AE

GMax promises to be very intuitive, through the video tutorials the user will be able to understand how GGMax works, this is just another reason to buy GGMax, at least for me.
This community is the best documentation that GameGuru has had, and with GGMax it will be the same, there is no reason to worry.

This is just one of many reasons to buy Max.

Basically just buy Max

Yeah, when searching for info in these forums, I usually just try search via google - if that can't find anything then you just pretty much left to browsing a plethora of forum posts in the hope something will catch your eye and be of use.

I don't use the forum search - it is all but useless. Usually can only use one word - phrases unless exact won't return any results.

OldFlak....

Anyway, you can use:
site://forum.game-guru.com force 2 sides
Where force 2 sides is the keyword I'm looking for, so you can change it for your own to fit your needs.

Best reason to Buy Max ?
Right here !!
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/222422

Super useful 3com


Because you spend more on junk food in a couple weeks or so and only get a one-night stand - with Max you get to play till your hearts content....


OldFlak....

The best reason is to stay on top of the latest state of evolution of this great product.

It sounds to me as if MAX is a rebuild of the product to incorporate major changes that will take our game making ventures to the next level.

I have been away for awhile, so haven't done much with GG classic, but I am excited to be coming back in time for GGMAX.

@Oldflak
Those screenshot examples of the space ship corridor are great.


Any links to learn more about that?

I think I may be getting the wrong search results, or else I am left confused about the proposed 8 player limit.

"By default, Photon can allow up to 20 players at once connected to the server. "

GameGuru Classic does have a searchable Help file it was added in the Christmas update, you can find it under Help - Community Help Guide.

Whilst it is not perfect it is a good grounding for any New user, it is a good start and can be updated/edited as and when needed

Better than what we had and i dont think your giving yourself enough credit.
Its a really good Guide.

Have you never used windows, linux or mac os then?

There fixed it for you.

Lol - yeah like why does my system suddenly take a screen shot that is bigger that the actual screen. When I use printscreen it takes an image that is 2896x1694 and yet my screen is 1920x1080.

Way to go MS

OldFlak....

Not sure you can blame MS for that one .. Just tried myself and mine is fine ?
If it was MS i think we would get it .. Are you sure its not your paint program or anything ?

Do you have two monitors? Or a monitor plus a graphics tablet?

Because windows print screen taked a screenshot of your whole available screen area across all screens, not just the one you're looking at.

Also I your windows display settings you have an option to scale your desktop, I think that effects print screen too. If that's on 150% that would account for the numbers you're getting.

And if you want to restrict print screen to just one application, use ALT. This way you don't get a screen shot of all monitors as one, big shot, but only the active app.

Sorry, spanish windows here - Windows 10 home 64bits.







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