Game Mechanics Kit v1.0.1 *Update*

#1 Any future work coming for adding in a in game cut scene editor of some kind? Maybe placing markers to where you want to place the camera and how you want it to pan and such? I know TGEA already has something like that but it would be easier if it was in something like this kit, at least I think so.

Looks good but kinda priced a bit high for me right now. Is the kit geared towards us who are not coders? Is this kit going to pretty much do most of the basic work for us, such as drag and drop almost everything to set it up? Are we going to see a price drop in the near future or is the $95 an indie price? Just used to the $39.95 of most things around here, that's why I'm asking. Thanks

Will Zettler
will_zettler@dlsstudio.com
www.dlsstudio.com
Waskom, Tx
St Louis, MO

#2

Quote:Any future work coming for adding in a in game cut scene editor of some kind? Maybe placing markers to where you want to place the camera and how you want it to pan and such? I know TGEA already has something like that but it would be easier if it was in something like this kit, at least I think so.

I second that

#3 @Will Zettler
>Any future work coming for adding in a in game cut scene editor of some
> kind?
Yes, we are going to add CutScene game object in the future. This object will play animations on several shapes and move camera between waypoints simultaneously.

>Is the kit geared towards us who are not coders?
>Is this kit going to pretty much do most of the basic work for us,
>such as drag and drop almost everything to set it up?

It's game designer's tool at first place. Torque engine is a very big and complex solution. In fact it's a professional game development tool and it's hard to achieve result unless you are a skilled coder.
GMK is here to make things much easier for non-programmers. As you can see from the video a typical gameplay situation created without any coding at all. Visual scripting allows you to make actual programming only with a mouse. However you still need to understand the basics of Torque Script.


> Are we going to see a price drop in the near future or is the $95 an
> indie price? Just used to the $39.95 of most things around here,
> that's why I'm asking.

Will, thank you for the question! We've been thinking about the product's price for a while. Let me explain the logic behind our decision. GMK is a complex product. In fact it consists of several separate entities bound together: AI bot, game logic components (enhanced triggers, doors, explosive items, lockers, switches etc), event-reaction system and game mechanics editor. At first we intended to create a few stand-alone $30 products for each component. But eventually we have realized that a complex solution would be better, because users won't spend time merging and integrating different pieces of code. Instead with GMK users have a big number of development capabilities right from the start. They also can learn features of GMK from the samples included in the installation package.

#4 Hi Yuri,

A quick question, when I release my game I want to allow modders to mod the game using the same tools I do. I will ship with the Torque editors enabled in the same way the TGE demo does.

Your license says I cannot release the source files. No problem. But I can ship the game with the GMK installed and allow my players to mod the game using it, correct?

#5 @Gareth Fouche

> But I can ship the game with the GMK installed and allow my players to
> mod the game using it, correct?

Yes, absolutely. You can release GMK editor for moding with your game. I think it's great idea.

#6 So your site advertises, and I quote "Instant download!". Well, I just bought it and no instant download. The only thing on the confirmation page that even resembled a link was the "print receipt". I have checked my email and so far nothing with a download link. I totally support Indy development, but I hate it when things aren't as advertised. Instant download means exactly that. Getting a link when you check your email in the morning is not instant. I apologize if this sounds harsh but I just spent $95 on the promise of an instant download only to find out I have no instant download. If you cannot provide the advertised "Instant download!" then please take it off of your site and place a message on the confirmation page about what the next step will be. Right now I feel like someone has taken my money, even though I know that's not the case.

#7 @Ryan Mick

I'm sorry to have you waiting, but I've got a copy of your order with your download link from SwReg (our ecommerce provider) just 40 minutes earlier your post in GG.

So I've resent your link by email myself.
Please tell me if you still don't receive an email from SwReg - I'll ask them about it.

I don't know whether it was an SwReg problem. But it really is instant download. We used this service for years. Just when SwReg receives money for the order it sends a download link. It takes a couple of minutes with credit card or pay pal order.

Any way, if there'll be any problems please email me immediately logicking@logicking.com. I'll help you as fast as possible.

#8 Yuri, I received the email with the download link at 11:23. That's still about 30 minutes after I purchased the product and in no way would be considered an instant download. I would just suggest you remove the "Instant download!" text and let your customers know that they will receive an email with the download link when their purchase is completed. That way you don't have to worry about disappointing your customers with false expectations. I was expecting a "Download Now!" type link one the confirmation page. Instead I had nothing, not even a message that I would receive the link in an email. You jumped on this problem quickly and you have my thanks for that. I now have the kit downloaded and can't wait to play with it. I will let you know if I have any further problems.

#9 @Ryan Mick
> That's still about 30 minutes after I purchased the product and in no
> way would be considered an instant download.

I agree with you. I don't know why it took so long, normally it takes just a couple of minutes.
However I've changed "Instant download!" text to "You will receive an email with a download link immediately after SWREG process your order."
Isn't brief at all, but more precise :)

>I will let you know if I have any further problems.

You are welcome. As I said before GMK is in active development so you can suggest features as well.

#10 Yuri, I dropped this into a clean install of TGEA 1.8.1 last night and compiled with out a problem. You did a great job and I can tell you put a lot of work into this. The only thing I can say is that the documentation is a little light. The kit comes with a lot of objects and there are a lot of settings you can apply to those objects. But your documentation only covers a couple of them. Also, have you contacted GG to see if they would put up a forum for GMK? That would be great to have a forum for this.

Keep up the good work.

#11 @Ryan Mick
>The only thing I can say is that the documentation is a little light

It's true. The next version of the Kit (coming in a week or two) will have designer's guide with specifications for all of the GMK's items: counter, damage and event triggers, 'openable', explosive and inventory items, AI bot description etc. Also in the kit will be a cut scene editor we've been asked for and a couple of useful object like keys to open locked doors, and timer.

> Also, have you contacted GG to see if they would put up a forum for
> GMK? That would be great to have a forum for this.

Nice idea! I'll speak to them.

#12

Quote:
* Simple AI bot, with easy configurable and controlled behavior.
* Interactive environment: destructible and explosive items, doors, switches, lockers etc.
* Various trigger objects.
* Visual effect objects.
* Inventory items.
* Auxiliary objects: counters, invisible walls etc.

Yuri:

I'm seriously thinking about buying this kit, but have a few tough questions so please bear with me and before I start hamming out the questions, please know I'm not trying to bash the product in any way but I do want honest answers to these questions, as they are tough questions about the kit. Ok with that out of the way, here we go...

What I quoted above is pretty much everything you can find in the resources section to GG, why would I pay you $95 for the kit if I can just use the free stuff here on the site? I don't honestly see paying for something I can get and use for free, is there a special reason I should fork out the hard earned money for this kit? I understand too it's lacking in the doc section... do you honestly expect me to know how to use your product from the go without proper docs? Yeah, I seen above in the last its coming, which is a plus.

What makes your kit so special? I want to make sure for the amount of money I'm investing into this that I will get a feel of worth from it. I like the product, more so the cut scene coming feature. How hard is it to install? I've compiled several C++ kits to the TGEA so I'm decently good with knowing where what goes and what does...

That should be about it for now. Hopefully I haven't made you mad or got you thinking I'm trying to slam the kit, I'm not. I just think I need to hear it from you about why I should buy your kit (other then it makes life easier, which I know). And why I shouldn't just use the resources for free here on the site... thanks for your answers in advance and I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Why I think I need it... its a self packaged kit of all the resources in to one product, more modern and feels like less of a hassle to install the same features I would have to work in one by one. Can't wait to hear back... oh and btw, are all the updates free or are you going to be charging for them such as L3DT has for the new 2.7? I honestly think if you are going to release a kit, at least make all the 1.x updates free, then charge for the new 2.x version. Charging for an update (such as PDK has) I don't feel is fair to the buyer of the pack to have to fork out extra money for an update to what you already bought to begin with... I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I don't mean to sound pushy or anything, that isn't my intent.

Thanks for your time.

Will

#13 @Will Zettler

Will, you have a good point. I would love to answer your questions!

>What I quoted above is pretty much everything you can find in the
>resources section to GG, why would I pay you $95 for the kit if I can
>just use the free stuff here on the site?

Of course there is a huge resources section on GG site. It’s arguable that this section has all the features GMK has, but my point is different. The main benefit of GMK is the “event-reaction” system that binds all of game objects together and visual scripting editor that makes creation of gameplay situations really easy.

Let me explain. For example there’s a good door resource available on GG site. I don’t know whether there’s a switch resource, but assume it is. How much time it will take for a Torque user to get a very simple combination of switch opens/closes door working? I think minimum a couple of hours at best, to merge resources and write a script code. It’s obvious, user must be good at Torque Script and all datablocks stuff. How much more time to get AI approach and attack you after the door is opened? What about starting music track and stopping it when AI dies?

With GMK it will take literally a few mouse clicks to achieve this result. No typing at all. No engine’s restart for recompiling scripts either. It is a tool for creating gameplay situations. Games like Doom, Half-Life etc are simply made of such situations. GMK’s “event-reaction” system encapsulates all level specific code into the mission file. Without this you’ll have to describe every trigger for every specific case as a separate datablock like original DefaultTrigger example does. It’s practically impossible for many real games, because it might be several hundreds of such triggers used by designers on game levels. GMK helps you to spend your time on actual design and not to messing with script code. You just need to have a minimal knowledge of Torque Script to understand code GMK generates.

> I understand too it's lacking in the doc section... do you honestly
> expect me to know how to use your product from the go without proper
> docs?

We have docs. They don't cover each and every aspect of GMK’s features at the moment. And we’re working on it. But example is worth a thousand of words. That’s why we’ve created “Orcs Rule” game. By examining it from the GMK’s editor you can learn GMK’s principles very fast. And again we’ll add documentation on missing subjects within a week or two.


> What makes your kit so special? I want to make sure for the amount of
> money I'm investing
> into this that I will get a feel of worth from it.

Let me tell you a history behind GMK creation. Logicking.com is small team of full-time game developers. For last two years we were developing an action/RPG “Beltion: Beyond Ritual” (I've attached a video at the bottom of the post). As a gameplay and AI programmer I worked on several other projects. I communicated with game designers all the time. I’ve learned a lot about stuff these guys use to create a real fun experience in the game. So principles behind GMK come from several years of gameplay programming and tools creation.

Torque is a very good engine. But in my belief it lacks game mechanics flexibility. And you have to be a good coder to create a gameplay different from the Tribes 2. GMK is here to change things.

>How hard is it to install? I've compiled several C++ kits to the TGEA
> so I'm decently good with knowing where what goes and what does...

We don’t receive any complains about installation yet. To make merging even easier we’ve wrote a CodePatch utility. It almost automates installation process. Anyway if you expect problems you can reach me by email.

> oh and btw, are all the updates free or are you going to be charging
> for them such as L3DT has for the new 2.7? I honestly think if you
> are going to release a kit, at least make all the 1.x updates free,
> then charge for the new 2.x version.

All 1.x updates are free. I can’t say anything about GMK 2.x because I really know nothing at the moment. One thing is for sure, there’s a lot of features we’re planning to add to GMK 1.x and registered users will get it for free.

> Thanks for your time.

My pleasure! You have very good questions. I would love to add some of them in upcoming F.A.Q. for GMK if you don’t mind.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
GMK is a successor to the tools that were used in the "Beltion: Beyond Ritual" game.

#14 Nice game there Yuri!

#15 @Yuri:

Sure, add all you want to your FAQ, that's cool. Thank you so much for answering. I'm def. sold on this kit, sounds like a must have to me. I'm going to the site now to buy it... thanks again for all your answers, I hope I didn't come across rude or like I wanted to bash the product, I didn't. How you answered the questions is just what we need more of, upfront and honest answers to the questions. Will let you know what I think but i think I'm going to be giving it a high rating :-) type to you soon.

Will

#16 Review of GMK:

I was a bit on the "I don't think this will really improve my life" kinda side when I first seen this kit, but after using the demo and getting the kit for $95 bucks, which is a cheap price after you see what it can really do, I'm sold.

First off, customer support can't get much better then Yuri. Yuri even thanked me personally for ordering and offered support if I needed it, that was just a email away. That's service to me. A fast email to fix whatever problem you might have is a1 in my book.

The product puts ease at a mouse click away. All you basically do is drag and drop everything, with some minor number placement to tell the editor sizes or locations or whatever it requires... there's not much to entering info into the editor where and when it's needed. I think these guys have made a great simple editor that anyone can use. If you have experience with TGE(a) editors, then this shouldn't be as painful as I thought it was going to be. It's actually easier then what I thought.

Once your up and running, you can pretty much place any item... trig, object, ai or whatever right there where you want it. The tests I ran made it easy to get a small test level up and running within minutes, not hours. If you use this kit, you can expect to save time as well as headaches with resource code that does the same thing. Sure, you could get the same code for free but you don't get a helpful editor to help place things, you would have to use the standard TGE(a) editor. And trust me when i say, the GMK editor is streamlined and easy to use, and well worth the $95 asking price.

Is it really worth $95? if your looking to cut down your time on adding stuff to your game level, then yes. If your looking to save time, the money is an investment. If you can't afford the money for this package right now, go the longer route and import the code yourself from the free GG resources there, but to me, the editor alone is well worth the price of this kit as it does a lot to make your job so easy.

Drop items around the level and see it all in real time. Test your levels on the fly. I figure with this kit, I will be able to cut down on level design by half as much as I did without this kit in my collection. It's a **MUST HAVE** for any serious game maker using TGE 162, tgea 1.8. They even allow you to keep the editor in your game when you ship it to allow editing of levels and modding of your game which was a plus to me.

Game Mechanics Kit for Torque 3D engine is a 10 out of 10 in my eyes. Great work on the kit and looking forward to your next release!

Will

PS: just for the record, I was not asked nor paid to give this review (good or bad) to the product. This review is free from bias and completely my own thoughts about the package.

#17 And yes Yuri, you may use this review in your ad's or on your side if you like... not a prob man.

Will