Well, we did it! GameGuru MAX left Early Access on Steam on the 26th April and is now released on Steam as V1. To achieve a stable version on release we instigated a feature freeze during the final dev stage and gave ourselves additional resources, plus a whole month of testing and release candidate builds with the community before release. It was the right decision and we’re happy with how everything went.

As all reported high priority bugs from the RC builds have been fixed, we’ve taken the decision to continue the feature freeze while we focus on medium and low bugs and get those numbers down to reasonably small levels. We can then look at your many feature requests for the game maker moving forward.

We hope you enjoy using V1 and are happy with the many features we were able to add during the 12 months of Early Access development. As part of the release, we have dropped all splash screens, water marks and requirements on exporting and selling your standalone games, so when you are ready, you are free to sell what you make, no strings, no royalties - just freedom to create.

In addition to the continued work by the internal dev team, we also have a small DLC team who are currently talking with any third-party artists who are interested in creating content specific to GameGuru MAX. We understand not everyone can 3D model, rig, animate, texture and assign game logic to your game assets, so it's fortunate we have some amazing artists and creators in the community to do that for you. Some of the most recent DLC are featured below – take a look ? and you’ll see some familiar names!

Once again, a massive thanks to the Steam community and TGC game-making community for making V1 possible.

Now, here’s a brief foray into just some of the great DLC produced by members of our community!

The post-apocalyptic wasteland is a dangerous place, and only a fool would venture forth without some kind of weapon! Created by 42Pixels, the Wasteland Weapons Booster Pack provides 10 fully animated, high quality improvised melee weapons, each with 2 texture variations, making 20 weapon variants in total. Place as pickups for the player character or use to equip enemies or allies. Each weapon comes with 2k and 4k texture maps for further flexibility.

The Cyberpunk Booster Pack - City Streets pack from MonkeyFrog is definitely worth a look if you want to create a perfect world of the future, design a dystopian nightmare or simply make a modern city! You'll find over 260 models, created uniquely for GameGuru MAX, including multiple road sections, modular buildings, street furniture, litter, streetlights, animated holographic advertising boards and loads more.

Created by artist WizardOfId, the Modern Day Booster Pack - Secret Bunker contains hundreds of custom-made, GameGuru MAX-ready assets, designed around the theme of an underground base. The pack includes multiple corridors and rooms which all snap cleanly together, allowing you to create hidden bunkers of almost unlimited size quickly and easily, and on multiple levels. There are also some great scenic items which will help you customize each and every room, including dividing walls, pillars, cables, barriers and lights.

Finally, if you’re creating games set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland or dystopian future then check out the HUD's Asset Pack - Wasteland DLC. It contains over 250 HUD custom-made images by Mattpainting.be, allowing you to design excellent, modern looking in-game HUD's using the GameGuru MAX HUD editor.

Our guest dev in this edition is Necrym59

Necrym59 (aka Steve) is a semi-retired systems engineer and programmer living in Australia, with a diverse background ranging from large database work in online game systems to specialized solutions in automated digital and lighting engineering. He also owned a small multimedia company and to this day still gets called upon for a variety of tasks from specialist application design and programming to some robotic assistance software for the disabled.

In his early work years, he was working for a publishing company then, having some experience in programming, was introduced to computers in the workplace and was led into the area of business applications and specialist projects. His journey into game development started by accident! He was asked to help develop a multi-user database system for a client he was working for at the time, for a project they were working on with another company in the US. The project formed the database basis for an on-line RPG game and being fascinated by the intricacies of data movement and game mechanics, his passion for game development was born.

Steve tells us more, “Like Lee, I was programming on the first generation of home computers Spectrum, Commodore. I also was working with larger corporate computers and networks and eventually in print/media/publishing, which then created a mixed bag of work-related tasks from specialist programming work to media and film related work. I worked on elements such as lighting cues and spaceship console displays on the film set of Alien Covenant - an interesting experience!

Over the years I had come into contact with Lee’s work in games such as "Relics-of-Deldroneye on the Amiga", that being the first one I recall (I should have refunded that one Lee ?) and other software products too. I already had FPS Creator Dark Basic and GameGuru Classic, which I dabbled with, but alas back then work stopped a lot of nice play time. Over the years I have used many and varied game development tools. Then came GameGuru MAX, which I believe has amazing potential as a deceivingly easy to pick up game-maker with advanced capabilities. Of all the game-making communities I’ve dealt with over the years the TGC community stands out as one of the best. I have met many excellent people, from old school people like me, to young creators with some outstanding potential working together, it’s quite something to experience.

I am not, by any means, a professional game-maker or, for that matter, a super brainiac programmer, although I have worked on, and with, game development teams and projects over the years, but I enjoy bringing ideas to life whether that be an electronics project or computer project. I especially like making tools and things others use to bring their creative ideas to fulfilment.

Hopefully I have helped in a small way on some things to help TheGameCreators with extending the RPG game-making capabilities in GameGuru Max and created some practical behaviours that indy game developers can use to create games as they climb the ladder and grow their own expertise and portfolio.

As to what’s next, I have a lot of ideas now for GameGuru MAX – whether the guys (and girl!) at TheGameCreators will entertain them I don’t know, but it’s been an excellent partnership so far and one I’d love to keep going (Ed. He’s a keeper!). I also keep busy with other types of programming and music - another passion of mine that I have neglected a lot since my early years.

The future of games, I think, will see growth in all styles and genres of games, all mixed together in different and innovative ways and we’ll for sure see an increased use of virtual reality technology. Game Guru MAX is perched on the crest of these new developments, and I can see it growing further in the future.”

You can find Necrym on Discord: @Necrym59