Soooooo been ages, lots of projects have been completed and have done several DLCs that have been released on steam as well as updated a re-releases of older content. Sadly I some times forget I have an account here, dev work keeps one busy and some times you forget what year or day it is, definitely want to try and post more.
So without much fan fair, lets delve into what I have been up to and released on steam since and what new projects I am doing.The engine I am developing content for has matured quite a bit, still lots of bugs and improvements needed, however the developers of the engine is now focusing on performance improvements, my DLCs and content will make it to a new store front around mid year and one DLC will be on the humble bundle in 2 or so months.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2339072/GameGuru_MAX_Modern_Day_Booster_Pack__Secret_Bunker/
One of the first new project I did last year was a secret bunker DLC it contains close to 400 assets.

Then we have a cave pack, which to my surprise of all the content I have done is the best seller overall averaging over 50+ sales a month.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2605740/GameGuru_MAX_Nature_Booster_Pack__Lost_Caverns/
Then we have two re-releases for the new engine cold war pack and industrial sewer, the cold war pack has been updated with new content for the engine
The cold war booster pack
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2626800/GameGuru_MAX_Modern_Day_Booster_Pack__Cold_War_Bunker/?curator_clanid=36873247
Industrial sewer pack
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2626790/GameGuru_MAX_Modern_Day_Booster_Pack__Industrial_Sewers/?curator_clanid=36873247
Also managed to make a game demo for a change not some thing I get to do often, I updated the original morning mountain stroll game level for the new engine and it is called snowy mountain stroll, original name right? I Know !.
https://imgur.com/ojsg2aP
Here is someone playing the demo level I created, AI is unfortunately still as dumb as bricks

What am I busy with now?
I am busy with a abandoned subway pack, which is a lot of fun, I am trying to push the boundaries of what I have learned over the years, so I am always looking at improving as well setting new goals.
https://imgur.com/qqZWkUF
https://imgur.com/puQMMOu
https://imgur.com/OFB2Pqb
https://imgur.com/OFB2Pqb
https://imgur.com/OFB2Pqb
As you can see I have been a busy little bee with all the content releases and current projects, really want to make an effort to post more on the progress been made, content developers are generally behind the scenes and rarely ever seen, much like programmers, it is definitely a thankless job sometimes, they are often the guys that makes all of the games people make possible.

Hello everyone. I should have the next developer update ready by this weekend.
In the meantime, I did manage to update the low-poly developer art from the last post with something a bit better.
Here are some screenshots of the Work-in-progress table environment.

SUGBOERIE;56233" said:

So, I still have a stencil mask mesh. Then I duplicate that mask mesh and give it a separate layer, that's rendered to a render texture. That render texture is then fed into the grayscale post effect.
@dark_seth are you referring to the cracking platforms? One white and one gray texture? Could you elaborate.

No actually the background that gets revealed by the mesh

With the recent SA Game Jam theme being "Crafting" I thought it would be a good opportunity to take some time to pick apart the design of a really successful game in this space.
If you were involved in the jam, I suggest that you think about how you approached this design space and compare it to how it was implemented in Don't Starve. If you weren't involved in the jam, join us anyway!
Game Design Club Preamble
The idea is that we take a game that has proven successful and spend some time talking about it.
While playing the game, try to think about what you are experiencing and jot down some ideas before seeing what everyone else says. Here are some questions to ask yourself if you feel a bit lost:
- What I like/dislike about this game?
- What would I change?
- What is the designer trying to make me do or feel (whether by the use of music, level design, or mechanics)?
- Which interactions or mechanics are fun?
- Does this game fit in a specific genre? If not, why not?
- What is the hook of the game? What makes it stand out from other similar games.
The important thing is to practice doing this kind of analysis yourself, as we’ll learn through the process of formulating our own opinions. By sharing our opinions on the forum, we’ll also get to see how others experiences and think about games, which is super useful.
This discussion is open to everyone and as such, let’s be civil about it! We are here to learn and become better game designers. If you disagree with someone's thoughts/opinions, then try to be clear about where you think your disagreement lies, definitely don’t bash them or their opinions!
To keep it relevant and applicable to our local community, the idea is to focus on indie games made by small teams that didn't have huge budgets. It will be a bonus if the game is freely available on Itch.io or on discount on Steam.
---End of Preamble---
Now onto this week's assignment: Don't Starve or alternatively there is Don't Starve Together if you are interested in co-operative play!

Game Information:
Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, OS X, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Wii U, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Studio: Klei
Steam Description: Don’t Starve is an uncompromising wilderness survival game full of science and magic. Enter a strange and unexplored world full of strange creatures, dangers, and surprises. Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style.
Release Date: 23 April 2013
Steam Sales Estimate: 2,605,000
This calculation is done using the Box Leider Method:
Steam Reviews * A factor of roughly 50 = Sales to date
Despite the game coming out in 2013, it still has ~2,143 players in-game at the time of me writing this.
MetaCritic: 79
Related GDC talks by Klei:
Don't Starve: Creating Community Around an Antisocial Game
Be Spiky: A Decade of New Ideas
The things that intrigue me about this game and its development:
- How the crafting progression works and keeps the player engages
- How they get past the frustrations of Permadeath and having to start again after potentially many hours of gameplay
- It is ‘easily’ expandable and is/was a "living" game.
I really look forward to everyone's thoughts and insights into the game!

Here are some of our resource material icons

Here's the start of a twitter thread deploring the game Monopoly: Socialism by Hasbro https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164233656799506433 (thanks @mattbenic for sharing) which I think is worth a read to see how misunderstood (or subverted) topics can be implemented in games.

This event happens monthly, is free to attend, and anyone may speak at the meetup - just comment beneath to let us know! This is for anyone and everyone interested in making games of any shape, size or type. Come join us!
Test games! Talk games! Make games!
When: 18:30 until around 21:30, Last Wednesday of the month
Where: Bandwidth Barn - 68 Albert Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town, 7925
If you have a demo you want played, bring a station on which people can play it, and set it up before the meetup begins!
Agenda
- 6:30 - 7:00 - Meet and greet
- Rapid fire intros (10 min)
- Community News (5 min)
Talks - 2 x 20 min slots
-Quick wins for prototype audio? Discussion?
- Marketing your project yourself, now what. -Discussion?
Focused Feedback - 2 x 10 min slots
-Monks - Nick
- The next Team Lazer Beam thing
Open Demo Floor
The event page on Facebook
If you'd like to give a talk or show something to get feedback, please post below!

16 July
18:30
Goethe Institute, Rosebank
The MakeVR Meetup is back after a little hiatus!
The MakeVR Meetup is:
- Monthly (3rd Tuesday of each month)
- Free
- Focused on making stuff in VR/AR/MR/XR etc
- Anyone who's interested is welcome - beginners to experts
HARDWARE ON-SITE:
- Oculus Rift
- Oculus Quest
- Whatever else people bring
- BRING PROJECTS & PROTOTYPES. Bring whatever you're working on. Bring your enthusiasm to learn and share.
SEE YOU THERE!
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/321723358708911/

Hi Evan !
I don't know if you've heard of us, but some community level makers and myself decided to create a group and apply. I think that this would be the perfect way to end the history of Broforce, an ultimate update for the fans and by the fans. Of course, we're not asking for any pay of any sort. However, we cannot work in-house.
Our group is actually composed of Soup Calhoun, Pudding and myself, and others might be willing to join. Since you are asking for our creation, here you got them.
First of all, Soup would like to show these levels (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=901792999 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=699925580 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=581039507 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=581037274 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=394212339 ). He also wrote a guide on steam about level design tips and another about advanced triggers. He even modded the game to have a custom level editor.
Pudding made some very popular levels, such as Fog Fort (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=844083869 ) and Heavy Weapons (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=770461101 ). He also made some experimental campaigns and masters triggers very well.
I made a 190 levels long campaign that takes (almost) everything in the game. Clearly not the best I can do but it has some nice things. (https://steamcommunity.com/app/274190/discussions/0/1728701877502855323/ ).

My 3d Model of an Orc.
Next up I would like to do a chick Elf,
But we'll see if i still feel like that when I finally get down to it.

Used Blender 3D 2.80 to finalize it, and waw what a program now,
Did not know one can get all googoo gaagaa about a program for the second time ;)
Model is up for sale at Turbosquid
https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1352916

It looks like there will be a talk on game networking issues at the inaugural Developer User Group Cape Town meetup.
DevUG is a tech and vendor-neutral group that does meetups with all kinds of interesting topics around development. I've been to a couple of their Joburg meetups, definitely worth a look :)
When:
Monday, July 23, 2018
6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Where:
Entelect. Floor 3 Aurecon West, 1 Century City Drive Waterford Precinct · Cape Town
https://www.meetup.com/DeveloperUG/events/252283233/?rv=ea2_v2&_xtd=gatlbWFpbF9jbGlja9oAJGM3NmE5YWNkLWY3OGEtNDBiOC05MmFhLWI2MjkzNmJiMTgxNQ

Update!
We had a rad meetup with about 10 people, we talked about all kinds of VR AR and whatever R stuff, and what to do with the VR meetup moving forward:
1. We're moving to the 3rd Tuesday of each month, so we'll have two Tuesdays in a row of meetup goodness :)
2. 6pm.
3. We're going to talk about anti-aliasing in VR next meetup, there will be a talk + demo.
4. We're calling for everyone who has/wants to to do a brief 10 minute show and tell of what they've done in VR.
5. We tried out a couple of cool VR experiences, such as Kingspray and Beat Saber. BEAT SABER IS BAE. SO BAE.
6. We're gonna make regular threads here and events on fb like the mgsa meetups.
I'll start a new thread for the next meetup in due time. For now YAY!
BEAT SABER IS BAE:

@Elyaradine BallisticNG looks like it made fewer sales than Formala Fusion (about a quarter of the sales). And Formula Fusion is at about 7,000 sales after 9 months of sales. Formula Fusion doesn't look that expensive, so maybe those sales were enough?
Your point about PC players not having a good WipeOut game is true. And RedOut seems to be doing really well (at 112,000 owners). One of the big differences between RedOut and the previous two examples is online multiplayer.
Though, if 110,000 is the peak of this genre, and the peak without online multiplayer is at 7000, this means it is a bit of a low potential market (though less dismal than I first suggested).
But it does look like it'd be possible to compete with RedOut on an indie budget at least, assuming you can program online multiplayer, and if you cannot do online multiplayer then you're competing with BallisticNG, and 3000-7,000 sales can be fine for a small team.
Distance is an interesting indie racing game. Not a Wipe-Out game. It's a bit more about crashing and it's sold 130,000 (though still in Early Access, I recall it was started by a group of students).
The game GRIP, interestingly, looks like it's cloned the classic game RollCage and done quite well (at about 30,000 sales). It has online multiplayer, looks really polished, but has sold worse than RedOut (so maybe Wipe-Out is more fondly remembered than RollCage?)

Oh, Loish commented on it, yay!

And it got into ZBC top row. The top row feels like a sort of fake top row though, because I didn't post it myself, and my work was posted as part of a group of students (hence the shared thumbnail), but hey, still cool. XD

I was asked to apply to another game studio recently, and decided to update my reel, this time more as a full on generalist game developer, rather than as a tech artist. Sadly I didn't do very much in the way of game prototypes and stuff this past year, for lots and lots of reasons, but I have a feeling this year will be different! :)

Hey everyone.
I'm Taylor Payton. You can find my work at www.taypayart.com
I've been a freelance artist for 4 years - I've done work in books, games, and TV. I Love working with start-ups and helping to crystallize your vision while knocking out your asset list.
I'm available for freelance as well as remote full-time.
Rates are based on your unique budget for art on your project. The more capital you have for your endeavor, the more I'll be able to do for you.
Contact me at:
taylor@taypayart.com
skype: taylorpaytonart
Work phone: 952-564-1062
Samples:

Looking forward to working with you!

Oh rad! That's a cool jiggly thing!
That looks a lot like a plumbus btw

This event happens monthly, is free to attend and anyone may speak at the meetup - just comment in the thread below to let us know!
Test games! Talk games! Make games!
When: 18:30 until around 21:30, Tuesday 12 September
Where: Microsoft Campus Bryanston, 3012 William Nicol Drive, Bryanston, Johannesburg. Auditorium 3
Content
- 6:30 - 7:00 Grab food elsewhere + bonding time
- Community News (5 min)
==
- @kirsty_lee0 Low Poly 3d (15 min)
- @ProjectX - Event Driven Design with Unity (15 min)
===
- Demo Slot 1 (10 min)
- Demo Slot 2 (10 min)
===
- Playtest Pitchathon (if you're playtesting a game, we ask that you give a 30 second pitch to the room about what the game is, before we all break off and play things).
Bring your games and set them up inside the auditorium before and after the meetup!
Board game prototypes can and will be played so bring along your prototypes!
If you intend to attend, please indicate so on the Facebook event (Not mandatory, so don't worry if you don't have/use Facebook)
===
If you are interested in giving a talk or demo for a meetup, drop a reply in the thread with what you'd like to do or send me a PM :)

Yo!
I made a game for recent CGA Jam. https://sleepingsafari.itch.io/astropunk-history-repeats-itself
I am still very much a novice so excuse any strange bugs I might have missed (this is only the second game I've ever finished). Someone mentioned that their screen just goes black when launching. Have no idea what could cause that?
Feedback is encouraged, so please don't hesitate! Rip me apart if you have to, it's all about learning ;)
Theme used was "Gravity". More info can be found on itch page.

Pixel8 is a fun and addictive new arcade game that challenges players to react fast! Protect your heart from being pixel8ed by classic and new pixel monsters in this fast paced and highly addictive pixel based game. On your way to work, on the toilet, bored at work, bored at home, bored while listening to the wife/husband ramble - anytime is a pixel8 moment.
Good evening, MGSA!
Our latest released project is now available for Android! Give it a try and give us your feedback please, we're constantly working on improving it.
You can get it HERE.
Post your high score in the comment, aaand GO!

Here is a generic character I'm developing so that I can more easily test out ideas:)

This is his first attack.