It’s been a great opening weekend for the Early Access release of GameGuru on to Steam! Welcome if you’re new to GameGuru, and hello again if you were with us at the start of our journey to this point. For the launch, the whole team was on standby to answer questions and a dedicated support team continues to monitor both the GameGuru board and the Steam boards to answer any questions you may have or help you with any support questions.

We all found time to join GameGuru users in some multiplayer fun, and had a great time doing so. We will continue to jump in and out of multiplayer games as time allows, so keep an eye out for us there.

We’ve also learned a lot about community needs and the areas you feel you’d like us to focus on the most. As we pride ourselves on our community lead development we take great effort to listen to all feedback and take it on board. As a result of this, we were able to produce two new builds since our first release, bringing more stability to the engine and some exciting multiplayer updates.

V1.00.011 Released on Sunday 1st March, included;

• Changed the location of DLLs to “GameGuru\Files\dllbank” to help overcome some virus checkers incorrectly deleting dlls
• When loading non DDS images, GameGuru tried to save DDS each time. This was redundant and so was removed.
• An Enhancement Module DLL was grabbing a PTR to Sound DLL. Again a redundant process and was removed.
• After loading in every test level the editor could crash when clicking on TEST GAME on WAREHOUSE level. This issue was fixed.

V1.00.012 : Released now!

• Fixed the slowdown that would occur in the GameGuru editor if running in Steam Offline mode
• When the host of a Multiplayer game leaves the game, a game over message is sent for clarity, rather than lost connection
• Changed the status bar in the editor to report if there are multiplayer lobbies open to join – ideal if you want to keep an eye open for Multiplayer games opening up, allowing you to jump in and hopefully get into any lobbies being hosted.
• Fixed a crash issue.

We’re aiming to release builds on a regular basis so that GameGuru evolves quickly in-front on your eyes! Next on our radar is fixing the issue of non-stock weapons working in Multiplayer and also adding Team play to Mulitplayer!

Multiplayer level competition part II!

That’s right, we’re launching  a new level design competition, giving all of our talented users new and old a chance to win $200 and 5,000 store points and a chance for your level to be included in a future release of GameGuru!

The Rules

1) You may use any default media that comes with GameGuru.

2) You MAY NOT use any other media, custom scripts, music or audio effects. Just the content that ships with GameGuru.

3) You may only use the default Skyboxes that ship with GameGuru

4) You may only use the default terrains that ship with GameGuru

5) You can create your level for between 2 and 8 players. We’d advise you to avoid making levels too big and also too small.

6) You can only use the default weapons that ship with GameGuru. Note that weapons and ammo re-spawn during multi-player games so don’t go crazy placing down lots of weapons and ammo.

7) Please email just the (mapfiles (FPM’s) located in the mapbank folder) to Dave Hawkins at scenecommanderTGC@gmail.com

Ensure you use the format USER – FORUM -COMPETITION4.

e.g thescenecommander-steam-competition4 in the subject line.

Entries that do not meet this criteria will be disqualified.

8) You must include the following information in your email.

• Your real name
• A valid email for an active PayPal account as we cannot offer cash prizes via any other means
• The map file “FPM” (attached to the email). Map files are stored here; Program Files/Steam/Steamapps/Common/Game Guru/Files/Mapbank

9) All entries must be received by midnight GMT 18th March 2015.

10) The competition will be judged by at least two members of TheGamesCreators staff and their decision will be final.

From the GameGuru Store

The GameGuru store has thousands of GameGuru related media for adding that extra detail to your single and multiplayer levels, prices start from a very reasonable FREE! and are rarely more than a few dollars. Check out all the latest releases here.

Nomis3d has recently uploaded this excellent Apartment. Lots of open spaces and stairs ideal for some multi-player mayhem.

Continuing in the building theme, this great bunker from artist Dagored will grace any game from 1900s to a modern day and beyond.

From the Gallery

We’re always impressed by the work of our artists and developers and now that GameGuru is live on Steam we expect some amazing screenshots and videos as we open up to a much large user base.

From the Steam Screenshots, ATTA – my town by gazz caught our eye as an exciting looking development.

From the Steam video galleries, this excellent gameplay video really shows what can be achieved with just a little media and some great level design.

Signing off

Well, that’s it for another week. We hope that you’re all enjoying GameGuru. We’re very excited about our plans for the future and we very much look forward to you joining us as we shape and develop GameGuru into the game and game maker you all want.

Until next week – Happy Gaming!

The GameGuru Team.