GMTech Magazine » Magazine

Issue Fifteen : Out Now

GMTech — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:31:38 +0000

After taking an extended break over Christmas and the first few weeks of 2009 it feels great to finally release our first issue in several months, hopefully the first of many this year. Just taking a look at the front cover will allow you to see that we have been busy over the last few months and made some major changes including changing the page orientation from portrait to landscape – which we hope will allow us to take full advantage of the online view and get some fantastic content on the pages, for a list of other changes then take a look at page 2. This issue also sees Tim take charge as Assistant Editor and work along with several new and old members of the team to get some great content for you to get into including a letter from Mark Overmars, an interview with Cliff Harris, feature on Making A Clever Control System, review of Spirits of Metropolis and plenty of other fantastic content written by a fantastic team. Here is what you can find in Issue Fifteen…

FEATURES
Change Log
Team GMTech
Education Undercover
Boss Battles
Setting Realistic Goals
Using Data Structures
Making A Clever Control System
How YoYo Games Can Help Forgotten Games
A Letter From Mark Overmars [EXCLUSIVE]

GAMES & REVIEWS
Spirits of Metropolis [EXCLUSIVE]
Dungeon Chaos
Adrenaline
Assassin Blue
Rencara
Greentech
Competition 04 Round Up

EXTRAS
Interview With: Cliff Harris [EXCLUSIVE]
Development Of: Elements Of Escape
GM Classics – Sandbox Of God
Feedback
Worth A Look
Closing

Issue Fifteen [March 2009]

[Direct Link] – GameMakerTech.info
[Mirror One] – Box.net
[Mirror Two] – Savefile.com
[Mirror Three] – Scribd.com

Coming Up In Issue 15

GMTech — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:50:03 +0000

First of all I would like to start with an apology, I planned to post last Sunday on the 15th Feb however I didn’t really know what to write – how great. Today I have opted to give you a little insight about what you will be seeing in Issue 15 that is well into production and is due out shortly. There is no confirmed public release date although we are ahead of schedule considering we only just picked up work again after an extended break.

ISSUE 15 FEATURES;

A Letter From Mark Overmars [EXCLUSIVE]
How YoYo Games Can Help Forgotten Games
Interview With: Cliff Harris [EXCLUSIVE]
Boss Battles
Using Data Structures
Spirits of Metropolis [EXCLUSIVE REVIEW]
greenTech Review
Competition 04 Round Up
Development Of: Elements Of Escape
GM Classics – Sandbox Of God
PLUS MUCH MORE

For those of you that want to get emailed as soon as the issue is out, then you can join our mailing list. It is quick, easy and you won’t miss this fantastic new issue that is due out soon.

More updates will be posted next week, maybe even a screenshot of the front cover or something similar. It is going to be a fantastic issue that you won’t want to miss.

Mailing List Form

Changes For The Better

GMTech — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:59:31 +0000

Work is going good, after a few months off relaxing, we are back together trying to put together another fantastic issue for you all to read. Last week we mentioned some of the changes that were made to the forum and now we are going to guide you through a couple of the changes that were made to the magazine. We have selected a few things that we feel that you think you would be interested in and we have opted to leave a few for next week or even the release.

First off, we’ve changed the way we do reviews now. We used to guarantee a review if someone posted their game in the Review/Preview forum but this is no longer the case. The reasons for this is that a large back log was starting to appear due to issue delays and also because we wanted to give the reviewers more freedom. Reviewers can now review any game they want (though we will continue to aim to offer a wide range of games featured), from any website, by anyone. Hopefully this will increase the diversity and, as people generally prefer to review fun games, the possibly of higher quality games for you to play. You can still submit your game into the forum and there’s the possibility that a reviewer will want to review it, as has happened to Adrenaline.

Another thing, due to overwhelming public demand (ie. Phil Gamble said he liked the concept in a previous issue) we’ll be having another competition round up featuring short reviews of some games entered for YYG Comp 04.

We also have some nice exclusives lined up for you, such as a straight talking interview, a review of a game that recently went commercial and a letter from someone really close to Game Maker, but we’ll keep them a secret so as not to spoil the surprise.

So, the big question – When will the issue be out? For now, I’ll just say in the next few weeks, bearing in mind that we have only picked up work again in the last couple of weeks. However, when we have all the articles we want for issue 15 and have begun to start polishing up for release we will update you right away.

We sadly say goodbye to one of our writers RedChu. With increasing schoolwork and decreasing free time he decided that he could no longer contribute regularly so has resign from being a writer. We wish him well in whatever he does in the future.

For anyone interested in joining as a Writer then that would be great as it is an area where we are currently lacking and it means that members of the team have to work extremely hard to get things in. The more team members we have in that area, the easier it will be for everyone. You can apply by visiting the forums, here.

New Year, New Theme – New GMTech

GMTech — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:03:07 +0000

2009 has already began and the improvements on GMTech are following suit. A GM magazine releasing more than six issues, that was probably a shock to many people, however fourteen – that was something special. But we aren’t done yet, after over two years of making this magazine we have began to understand the wants and needs of you our readers and as always we launch this year with changes to the magazine in order to successful survive another year of this hard business.

GMTech Forum

The new forum look is upon us, we regularly look around and try to update the look and feel of the forum by setting up new themes and by installing new modifications. Following on from the winter theme we had for the last month, we opted to go for a theme that looked a lot like Microsoft Office and after asking the opinions of many members it was 50/50 on those who loved it and those who hated it. Well we hope that after seeing and using it for a few days that you will begin to like it more and appreciate how well it goes with the GMTech website and look of the GMTech issues. If not, then I will happily look around for another theme that will work better and keep you coming back.

Along with the new look we have also installed several modifications to allow for an even better feel to the forum, many of which were trialled on the winter theme and a few of which have just be installed along with the new theme. In the post area you will see a drop down menu for the colour, font face and font size, this allows you to select from several options to increase the appearance of your messages. You can now also write in the ‘Reason for edit’ box, if you are making an edit to your post and can change the ‘Message Icon’ a lot easier thanks to the new way it is laid out. The Advanced Visual Verification system has been upgraded to one that works, the previous would have went unnoticed by many of you, however a few members of the team were having troubles actually making posts and sending Private Messages – now that isn’t good. URL Popup and Increase/Decrease Postbox Size were two modifications added to allow you to make links to other websites/blogs etc a lot easier and increase the size of the postbox saving you from having to scroll down. Finally the latest modification that has been added is titled ‘OnOffAvatar’, quite simply it puts a green box around the posters avatar if they are online, and if they are offline it will display a gray ring. This way you can clearly see who is online and who is offline, not really needed – but it does add some colour to an otherwise ‘blue’ theme

Those are the changes to the forum and there are more to come over the next few months. We plan to change the website theme, however we are still struggling to find one that will top the current one.

This also marks the first of the GMTech’s weekly updates, so that is all until next week (or less if something really good happens).

Issue Fourteen : Out Now

GMTech — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:34:25 +0000

Its the issue that you have all been waiting for and now its finally here. Its been over two years since GMTech first entered the world of magazine making and we hope to be back again in a year time after releasing several more issues. Many of the people who were working on the first issue have now left, however GMTech has continued to grow and become even better than it was from the first release. For that, I say thank you to everyone who has been involved with GMTech over the last few years. I would also like to say a big thank you to gmjab, who was the editor of GMTech for some time. Its been a struggle to get this issue out, however only slightly later than we wanted to release here it is. This issue has 35 pages of great content for you to get your teeth into. Here is what you can find in Issue Fourteen…

NEWS
WHAT’S GOING ON
STAFF SAY

ARTICLES
GMTECH GIVEAWAY: GM7 PRO
WHAT MAKES A GAME ADDICTING
GAME DIFFICULTY
GETTING YOUR GAME BE SEEN
THE RIGHT HOST FOR YOU
HOW TO PIE THE PLAYERS
TWILIGHTPHANTASM – THE DARKER COMMUNITY
THE JARVIS PRINCIPLE

EXCLUSIVES
INTERVIEW WITH SANDY DUNCAN
INTERVIEW WITH RUSSELL CARROLL

GAMES & REVIEWS
MOOMOO
GRAPPLER

EXTRAS
INSIGHT INTO: S*CORPS
INSIGHT INTO: SENSELESS WAR
10 ESSENTIAL FREE RESOURCES FOR WEB DESIGN
G3D EFFECTS LIBRARY
FREE APPLICATIONS

Issue Fourteen [November 2008]

[Direct Link] – GameMakerTech.info
[Mirror One] – Box.net
[Mirror Two] – Savefile.com

RSS Feed

GMTech — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:38:06 +0000

Currently we have two RSS feeds that you can use. You have a choice of using the one that is for posts on the site, or the one that is for posts (announcements) on the forum.

I suggest that you all update your RSS feeds to http://gmtech.vlexo.net/feed/ or http://gamemakertech.info/feed/. Even though the same announcements will be posted on the forum and the website, the way the WordPress RSS feed is set up makes it more attractive to you. Also the website may contain some exclusive look at content, interviews with the team and other game creators. So it will be beneficial for you, to use the GMTech Website feed.

Forum Update

I am still in the process of retrieving the latest possible backups for the forum, mailing list and downloads section. However I hope that these pages will be online again in the next two weeks. The problem is that there is trouble contacting the main server provider, therefore they can’t pay the balance and thus the server won’t be turned on. Just keep checking the site, and you should be updated shortly.

Rating System Update

With YoYo Games announcing an update to their rating system, I can also reveal that we will also be changing our current system. We hope that the changes that we aim to make in a few issues time will lead to creators and gamers getting an even better understand of our thoughts towards their games. Also with some news that there are 23,000 completed games on the YYG site – lets hope they don’t all submit them to us at once as we are a little low on reviewers and writers. If you want to apply, make your way to the submit page and find out how. With the forum being offline you can use the contact form to send through your questions.

Post any comments you have

GMTech is Back

GMTech — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:36:46 +0000

That is right, GMTech is back online – better than ever. Following some more server troubles with our host that we were with for around eight months, we have returned to Vlexo.

New Website
Since I was unable to recover some parts of the old GMTech website, I have decide that it would be best to change things around. Not only have we returned to our old host, but we have also returned to WordPress (WP). Using WP will allow the website to be updated easier, and more often. You will also see several members of the GMTech team posting blogs here about games, you will get to see reviews, articles, and even some exclusives before there in the issue.

Members now have the option of posting any comments they have, something that was available on the old site – however wasn’t set up in the best way.

New Forum
Due to the fact that I was unable to recover some parts of the forum. I was able to recover some topics that were on the forum for a long time, by searching through several backups, but not all. So I apologise if your account has been deleted however if you were one of the luck people, then you should still be able to get access into your account.

Following the rebuild of the forum you would be glad to know that you will able to receive several privileges by registering on the forum, such as;

Chance to win several prizes in our prize draws
Exclusive look at content, before anyone else
Chance to submit your questions for exclusive interviews
Chance to play exclusive games

The forum is currently offline, until I fully sort everything out.

Issue Fourteen
As you probably guess this will be slightly delayed, following the forum being down for a few days. It was a real shame as this was on full production, but as there was no access to the forum it meant several bits of content from the team and other people were unable to get through fast enough. When it does get released, here is a taster or what will be in Issue 14;

Exclusive Insight Into: S*CORPS
Development: G3D 3D Effects Library
Development: Creating Humour in Games
Article: Making your game be seen on YYG
Article: The Development of Senseless War
Preview: Showdown Academy
Exclusive Interview: Sandy Duncan

Thank you for your patience. If you have any queries about specific articles or certain bits of content, then feel free to post. It is only by receiving your feedback that we can further improve.