STGBuilder 1.0 alpha testing branch has opened.

[DrBlowhole20]

Fellow SHMUPers. After 11 or 12 years since STGBuilder's appearance on the internet (i recall the first game ever made on the engine was made in 2007), SB is proud to announce that the official alpha testing branch has begun for the program's long-awaited 1.0 stable release, which is planned to release around the end of the year (or perhaps even early 2019). STGBuilder was used to be popular among Japanese hobbyists, and with it, it came to birth of several SHMUP gems such as Revolgear II, Kirisame Blade, Graze Counter, Infinos Gaiden, etc.

Many years flew since the japanese fanbase of the program maintained intact and peaceful, and one day, in May 10 2018, i was the only one who managed to come in contact with the creator on his Twitter about the possibility of an English support for the program, who at first used to be not certain with the possibility. We started to make a fanmade english patch, which came out very rough considering we established a group of non-Japanese users who were eager to translate the program. It took a month for us to release the patch, but it felt incomplete and poorly translated in the end, but one day, i saw SB had begun working on the 1.0 release of the program, complete with a official English translation, and i was interested to be involved with the testing of the project.

Since yesterday when this thread was posted, alpha testing for the program has begun, and contact with him can be only made through Twitter via DM if you are interested to test with him. You will feel so very happy that your wait is almost over to get to use STGBuilder, one of the engines that western people wished to use it. Be aware that this alpha testing is done privately and invites are accepted via Twitter DM as of now. If you're interested, here's his twitter account. https://twitter.com/StgBuilder Make sure to use basic english, unless you want to use Google Translate to speak with him in Japanese.

I'm glad this is finally happening. I'll have to actually cancel my STGBuilder fanmade english patch from now on in favor of this alpha testing.

[DrBlowhole20]

And there's actually more to this news, but since a bunch of them kept appearing ever since i've posted this here, i'll considering leaving a link to my unofficial STGBuilder discord server, so that you can check the latest news regarding to this alpha testing. https://discord.gg/fzXuKNZ

[DJ Incompetent]

When you say cancel, do you mean stop new development or are you actively removing all links to your old patch?

I wanted to tinker one weekend to determine if I wanted to move my game from GameMaker 8.1 GMOSSE to this STGBuilder or GMS GMOSSE

[MrJBRPG]

When you say cancel, do you mean stop new development or are you actively removing all links to your old patch?

I wanted to tinker one weekend to determine if I wanted to move my game from GameMaker 8.1 GMOSSE to this STGBuilder or GMS GMOSSE

DrBlowhole has already ceased fan translation and and will more likely remove links to the old patch whenn STG Builder is more developed.

By the way, for your project, you are better off upgrading to GMS GMOSSE since GMS is more universal and stable.

[DJ Incompetent]

Thank you. I will take your advice.

[freshtop]

Keep us posted. I am thinking on working on a shmup with a friend and I could use a program of this sort.

[DrBlowhole20]

Been a long time since i posted this, and however i was literally lazy to bring in more news regarding the program. For those who haven't entered in the discord server linked here, i've decided to post more news regarding the alpha of STGBuilder. Some may be glad, some may be probably disappointed (just for one thing).

According to the talks i have done with SB, the creator of this program from Twitter, we're not going to expect the software to go full for free, unlike the previous free builds which were quite beta-ish and made in the old Delphi engine. For the first time in its course of development, STGBuilder will head to Steam for the full stable version. Yes, considering for several years there has been few releases of games made with this software on Steam and aswell with the advent of EXA Arcadia support within this software.
But, before the Steam version will be released, a beta test will follow after the alpha test phase, and will be released for free around the internet. Like alpha tests, beta tests do not have few bugs and aren't stable, but are free to demonstrate users with the program. After the beta testing, the program will be released on Steam, complete with planned pricing of two editions:
-Standard (20$), which will have the usual features included from all the builds, including the pre-alpha builds, fully optimized, bug-ridden and remade for the new engine.
-Professional (50$), which includes the base program but with some extras like the ability to provide Steam Achievements and RCA File Encryption for keeping your game files protected from datamining.
For people who care about protecting the game assets' from datamining and have Steam integration, i suggest the Professional, but newbies should start with Standard, which is a cheap choice but will only leave you with no protection from datamining.

Since when i posted this, the alpha test is doing well, as so far has reimplemented few more features that were previously unincluded. So far, there's like tens of features to reimplement before the beta test will likely release by the end of the year, so that's all for the information i'd give you. Some of you might not be happy that STGBuilder is going paid in the future, but patience is a virtue. For such a great software that has been useful to many Japanese, it has grown well enough to have features that are worth money.

[donluca]

The whole point is asking yourself what you'll be doing with the new STGBuilder.

If it's just to mess around, 20$ is not that big deal. Actually I'd say it's pretty cheap, especially if the final product will be well refined and with lots of customization.

If you're using this to make and sell games, what the hell, even if you make a complete shitty game you'd still make at least 50$ with it if you know a little what you're doing.

I think it's perfectly reasonable, imho.

[DrBlowhole20]

The whole point is asking yourself what you'll be doing with the new STGBuilder.

If it's just to mess around, 20$ is not that big deal. Actually I'd say it's pretty cheap, especially is the final product will be well refined and with lots of customization.

If you're using this to make and sell games, what the hell, even if you make a complete shitty game you'd still make at least 50$ with it if you know a little what you're doing.

I think it's perfectly reasonable, imho.

I am not really much into making commercial games due to my lack of original skill, and even considering i'm able to manage a bank account, i'm kind of afraid to get into selling so i pretty much prefer 20$.

[MathU]

Will there be a Steam-free release?

[mamboFoxtrot]

I don't have much of any personal experience with the engine, but from what I've seen of it, I imagine its more deserving of its price tag than, say, the RPG Maker engines.

I feel fine enough using other engines, but I might pick this up to dink around with anyways.

[DrBlowhole20]

Will there be a Steam-free release?

I don't know, but i highly doubt if SB will make it available on sites like GOG.com, Humble Bundle, etc. I might ask him one day.

[schleichfahrt]

He doesn't need to dabble with gog etc, DLsite would be OK (well known and easy accessible for japanese devs).
Having a dev tool steam-only is a super bad thing for a long list of reasons.

[Shepardus]

itch.io would also be an appropriate place to release a game dev tool.