Welcome to the GameGuru weekly news. This week sees the project hit a key milestone as it comes out of Early Access and releases fully on to Steam.
We're very proud to announce the release of GameGuru Version 1, as well as the release of six DLC packs to expand your media collections. If you were one of our amazing supporters who originally pledged to support GameGuru when it was known as "FPS Creator Reloaded", one or more of these packs will be available to you for free as part of your pledge deal.
You can read all about the new and exciting features you'll receive as part of Version 1 a little later, but we're sure you'll be pleased with this, the first major step towards the creation of the world's easiest game maker!
Version 1 is here!
GameGuru has changed a lot recently with many new and exciting features. This has all been heading towards the first major milestone in the GameGuru development process and we're pleased to announce the very first full release, taking GameGuru out of Steam Early Access and into version 1.01.
Version 1.01 is a big advancement, even when compared to the last early access release and it introduces many improved editor features, including the much requested character creator, an excellent and friendly new tool that enables you to design your own characters and quickly and easily add them to your own games. We supply you with some templates to get you started and will be making more choices available as we continue to improve and expand GameGuru.
Please don't worry about us coming out of Early Access. We are 100% committed to GameGuru and have long term plans to expand and improve it. We felt it was the right time to come out of Early Access and to start promoting GameGuru as a complete game maker. You can be sure we'll be releasing regular updates just like we've done since we launched on Steam earlier this year.
Third Person Gaming!
Today we're also introducing a new perspective to GameGuru - adding support for 3rd person to the existing 1st person view. You can gain access to the first example of this mode with a new wizard character that comes FREE as part of the GameGuru V1.01 update! If you then purchase the new Fantasy DLC pack you'll be able to build an amazing environment around him with the new Aztec and jungle assets.
Here we've placed the wizard character in a level made from the jungle assets from the Fantasy DLC. There are many fantasy enemies to battle in the level and this starts the whole third person gaming experience in GameGuru.
As you can see from the above screenshot, version 1.01 also introduces a brand new decal system that allows game makers to immerse their players by adding animated effects to their games. We're providing 20 decals from a mix of genres to get you started, you can also find many more in a new range of Mega Pack DLCs that are released today.
Tutorial System
We've also taken the opportunity to introduce a very helpful interactive tutorial system to help new users get started with GameGuru. Over time we plan to expand the tutorials this system can provide. We've also included 24 environmental maps to kickstart your game creation - these maps come from our talented community and are a great place to start.
Competition News
As many of you will recall, we hosted a competition last month to design some impressive outdoor maps which would allow users to kickstart their own developments. In the end, we felt that all entries were worthy winners and have awarded prizes to everyone who entered. All small maps won $50, and all large maps $100. Here are a couple of screenshots from just two of the entrants:
The Garden
The Old Quarry
Congratulations to everyone who entered and thanks for making the whole competition such fun to arrange and judge.
New DLC available
The first wave of DLC's for GameGuru hit the Steam store this week, and we're sure you'll agree we're taking steps to cover as many genres as we can as well as supply you with some great value packs.
Fantasy pack - This pack contains a large selection of fantasy media set in an Aztec styled environment.
Death Valley - A great collection of modern day desert buildings and assets, fully compatible with the existing default buildings. In addition to these, you'll also get a selection of props and scenery as well as seven new army characters.
Buildings Pack: The pack contains a selection of modern day and far eastern buildings suitable for adding extra depth to a wide range of town or city games.
Mega pack 01: Contains hundreds of legacy media converted for use with GameGuru. If you're looking for some more jungle, medieval middle eastern or far east media, this is the pack for you.
Mega Pack 02: This great collection of new and converted legacy media includes a huge selection of models suitable for creating dungeons, castles and cave networks. In addition to the many props and scenic items you'll also find two demonic characters waiting to fly into your fantasy scenes.
Mega Pack 03: This has a modern day theme and contains several hundred models aimed at creating street themes, packs, offices and war torn streets. Ideal for many different genres, from 1940's upward.
Signing Off
So, the end of an exciting week for the us here at TheGameCreators, and even though version 1 is now out in the public domain, it's back to development corner for us as we continue to provide new features to GameGuru.
We hope you all enjoy the first official full version, and keep an eye out for regular additions, improvements, updates and news, both here, on Steam and on the GameGuru forums.
The GameGuru Team