Hello everyone!
We are happy to finally be able to announce the beginning of our multiplayer addition to Game Master Engine! There is a lot to unpack and discuss here so please take the time to read this post to fully understand all of the big changes.
How Does Multiplayer Work?
We are very excited about this addition and we are also equally excited to announce that we will be offering a "Free Edition" of Game Master Engine along with a "GM Edition" on the Steam page very soon! Let's talk about how this will work.
We will be restructuring how Game Master Engine will appear on the store page. You should notice very soon that GME will appear to be "Free" with a "GM Edition" DLC. We have done this to make GME more accessible to groups who just want to play their favorite TTRPGs online in a 3D world without having to also drop a ton of cash in the process. The two separate of editions of GME will include the following.
GM Edition
Owners of this DLC will be able to.
- Host sessions for their players to join.
- Create unlimited battle and overworld maps.
- Unlock future updates for GM campaign management.
- Unlock future unannounced content packs.
Free Edition
Owners of this edition will be able to.
- Join sessions hosted by their GM
- Create maps in single player with a single save slot.
You may have a couple of questions about all of this so let's take a second to address them here.
Do I need to buy the GM Edition DLC if I already owned Game Master Engine before this update?
No, once Game Master Engine releases the "Free Edition", everyone who has purchased it up until that point will automatically be granted the GM Edition for free.
Does only the GM need to buy the DLC to host a session?
Correct, only a single GM Edition of Game Master Engine needs to be purchased in order to start playing together!
When will these changes hit the store so my players don't need to purchase GME to play with me?
We are currently waiting on Steam to review the DLC package and as soon as it is approved we will make the changes to the store page. There is no exact date currently but it really should be any day now. There will be another announcement once that happens.
What Has Changed?
Game Master Engine likely feels very different from the moment you open the game all the way up to interacting and editing maps. This is due to us taking the last several months to completely rebuild the engine behind it.
This was done to achieve a few things.
First
The previous version of Game Master Engine was bloated and didn't react very well to your inputs and would also take a long time to load maps. Most of this should now be fixed with much smoother loading and object interaction.
Second
We restructured our library of objects including Props, Walls, Effects and Minis. This was done so we could categorize them and present them to you the user in a more organized method. Not only that, the recategorization allows us to add future features like a "Search" bar and a "Favorites" hotbar. Some well needed quality of life features we would like to see added soon.
Third
We added some more content into the game. We now currently have.
- 1,081 Props (978 Fantasy) (103 Sci-Fi)
- 70 Tile Materials
- 44 Walls
- 46 Mini-Figures
- 56 Effects
With much more soon to come!
Fourth
This one comes with a saddened heart, but because of the rebuild of the engine you will notice that any maps you made before v0.7 are no longer compatible with the engine. We truly wish there was a way to avoid this but in order to clean up the coding behind the scenes it was necessary to achieve an overall better engine.
Although, we have kept the old version of Game Master Engine on our website under the download page. This will stay there for you to go back to and use your old maps just incase you don't want to completely lose them. Link immediately below.
https://www.gamemasterengine.com/downloads
Thank you all so much for your love and support so far! We plan to keep working on GME very hard to make sure it takes care of your virtual TTRPG needs.
Sincerely,
The GME Team