January 2026 Update
Welcome to your GameGuru MAX update announcement. This month’s release brings a wealth of new behaviors and gameplay improvements to enhance your game creation experience. We’ve focused on refining scripting, adding new deployable and teleportation features, and improving stability and performance across the board. Dive in to discover the latest tools and fixes designed to make your projects smoother and more dynamic. Here’s a round-up of what’s now part of today’s release:
Major Features & Additions
We’ve introduced several exciting new gameplay elements and behavior icons to expand your creative toolkit. New deployable behaviors and teleport nodes allow for more interactive and strategic gameplay mechanics. Additionally, we’ve added delayed shot logic and enhanced animation control modes to give you finer control over combat animations. Keys collected from chests now properly flag doors, improving gameplay consistency.
New Deployable and Teleport Behaviors:
Deployable, Deployable Named, and Teleport Node behaviors with corresponding icons.
Delayed Shot Logic:
Added GUNSPEC fields "delayedshot" and "alt delayedshot" for shot delay in milliseconds.
Animation Choice Mode:
New "animchoicemode" field for attack animations with multiple selection modes.
Key Flagging Fix:
Keys from chests now correctly interact with assigned doors.
Lua & Scripting
This update includes a comprehensive set of new and updated Lua behaviors to enhance interactivity and fix existing issues. New behaviors such as dispenser.lua, deployable.lua, deployable_named.lua, refill_zone.lua, prefill_zone.lua, teleport_node.lua, and process_zone.lua have been added. Numerous internal fixes and improvements have been made to existing behaviors including add_movement.lua, lightcontrol.lua, day_night.lua, resource_node.lua, exploder.lua, affected.lua, eat.lua, break_open.lua, particle_toggler.lua, level_zone.lua, remover.lua, npc_control.lua, collect_object.lua, campfire.lua, remover_zone.lua, wpe_activator.lua, countdown.lua, destroy_object.lua, and npc_monitor.lua. Debugging and script improvements now provide better AI management flags, performance data clarity, and animation assignment feedback. Legacy NPC control scripts have been fixed to maintain compatibility with older levels.
New Behaviors: dispenser.lua, deployable.lua, deployable_named.lua, refill_zone.lua, prefill_zone.lua, teleport_node.lua, process_zone.lua.
Behavior Updates and Fixes:
add_movement.lua, lightcontrol.lua, day_night.lua, resource_node.lua, exploder.lua, affected.lua, eat.lua, break_open.lua, particle_toggler.lua, level_zone.lua, remover.lua, npc_control.lua, collect_object.lua, campfire.lua, remover_zone.lua, wpe_activator.lua, countdown.lua, destroy_object.lua, npc_monitor.lua.
Debugging Enhancements:
Improved object debugging with AI management flags, performance data font size cleanup, animation assignment warnings, and legacy NPC control fixes.
Behaviors & Gameplay Systems
Behavior icons have been added for the new dispenser behavior, enhancing visual clarity and ease of use within the editor.
Dispenser Behavior Icon:
New icon added for dispenser behavior.
General
Several housekeeping tweaks have been made to the HUB, including the introduction of a new community celebrity, Extreme Strategy. We have also improved resource handling and crash logging related to terrain rendering and GPU resource management to reduce crashes and improve stability. New flags and options have been added to help diagnose and mitigate driver stalls and GPU race conditions.
HUB Tweaks:
General housekeeping and new community celeb Extreme Strategy.
Terrain and GPU Improvements:
Enhanced logging, resource handling, and crash logging to prevent DX11 deep crashes and GPU race conditions.
New JustGrass Flag:
Added to test high grass usage impact on driver stalls (disablejustgrasssystem in SETUP.INI).
Editor & UI Enhancements
The Max_Using_Behaviors_Guide.pdf has been updated to reflect the latest behavior additions and scripting improvements, helping you get the most out of the new features.
Bug Fixes & Stability
We have significantly improved the crash log system to provide better stack traces, parameter values, and robustness during crash events. New macros and debug lines have been added to help detect driver crashes and investigate engine calls more effectively. Several fixes address crashes caused by rogue Lua scripts and missing parameters in older levels. Users can now disable crash logging to improve performance if desired.
Crash Log System Improvements
[Enhanced reporting, robustness, and new GG_CRASH_CONTEXT macro.[/p]
Crash Detection:
Added extra debug lines for driver crash detection.
Script and Level Fixes:
Fixed crashes from rogue Lua scripts and missing DLUA params in older levels.
Crash Logging Control:
Option to disable crash logging to improve performance.
Performance & Optimization
Performance debug views have been improved to highlight slower elements more clearly. Issues with save game reloads not restoring spawned object visibility and playonce flags have been fixed. A new AI management view for active playing and looping sounds has been added. Performance debug elements now clear properly when switching windows. Additionally, fixes have been made to NPC control script animation speed handling.
Performance Debug Improvements:
Better highlighting of slow elements and clearing debug elements on focus change.
Save Game Fixes:
Restored spawned object visibility and playonce flag handling.
AI Sound Management:
New view of active playing/looping sounds.
NPC Animation Speed Fixes:
Corrected usage of anim speed in NPC control scripts.
Standalone & Publishing
Standalone builds now copy version.ini to aid crash triage and allow disabling specific features via SETUP.INI flags. This provides better control over standalone behavior and helps isolate issues during development and publishing.
Standalone Versioning:
Copy version.ini for crash triage.
Feature Disabling:
Flags in SETUP.INI to disable specific features when running MAX.
If you have any questions, you will find a great community on our DISCORD channel https://discord.gg/DWuPM4CT and if you find a bug, it would be awesome if you could post a report on our GitHub issues board https://github.com/Dark-Basic-Software-Limited/GameGuruRepo/issues. Until next time, happy game making!
