There are two versions of Garry’s Mod: the standard version that’s been in the same shape for a while now, and the beta. The beta, aka GMod 13, is a relatively recent arrival, built to allow Garry to overhaul the whole game without breaking the one everyone’s playing. It uncouples the development from the main fork, and that serves two purposes. Firstly, it gives Garry the opportunity to make big changes without constantly dealing with complaints that the game is broken, and secondly, it gives everyone a look at what’s being done to prepare for when the release arrives. The base game will be better, but other things will break.

I asked Garry to walk me through the most important future updates. > (more…)

According to Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman: “There’s so much stuff going on in GMod that it’s hard to pull out individual addons. I think the real great thing about GMod is that all these addons exist. It has a rich user contribution community. It keeps itself entertained.”

It really is impossible to cover everything that the GMod community has made. I tried and gave up, instead creating an inexhaustive list of amazing things that have tickled me over the years as an on-and-off GModder. So this list includes my choices with a couple of Garry’s mixed in. The upcoming GMod update might include modes that won’t function for much longer, but that’s okay. It’s about wonderful, ephemeral things, not a list of things you have to do right now. If there’s something I’ve missed you’re absolutely more than welcome to drop it in the comments. Just make sure it’s something that’s set your Face Poser to ‘stunned’. And remember: none of the below comes shipped with the game: it’s all community generated. > (more…)

“It was never meant to be a big deal. I was just fucking about!” says Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman. His innovative physics-based mod for Half-Life 2 turned out to be a remarkably big deal, not least by being a forerunner in iterative and community focused design, and a game that’s perennially in Steam’s top twenty game stats. It’s an exercise in giving gamers tools and no direction, one of the few games that makes just messing about a core goal. Its strength is a flexibility that makes it a platform for people to make things like comics, maps, weapons, even gamemodes. It might have grown by enabling sexually suggestive poses of Valve’s stoic game characters, but six years on there’s so more to GMod than just fucking about. Here’s how it got there. > (more…)

There’s a moment in this video of a new Gmod feature where I start to feel sorry for Breen. He looks at the camera, just as Garry starts to pluck at his very bones, with such sad resignation. His dignity gone, debased for our entertainment. (more…)

Unfortunately-named news site Gamepron is reporting that Mr Garry Newman, creator of Garry’s Mod, has gone and done something clever: he introduced an error to his game, an error which only affects pirates. It was a trap! Said pirates even turned up on the G-Mod forums to discuss why their game didn’t work. Reporting the error even revealed their Steam id. Hilarity ensued.

More of this sort of thing, Internet. (Even if it is basically pretty sinister.)

Last week we suggested to RPS contributor Brendan Caldwell that he investigate physics sandbox Garry’s Mod, which is a bit like encouraging a kitten to investigate a saucer of gin. We shouldn’t have. But with Garry’s Mod and its community continuing to evolve like some heavily irradiated practical joke, we needed someone to take a look. Below, Brendan presents his miserable (yet hilarious!) report.>
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In a list of inevitable, but glorious things, someone figuring out how to get Kinect working with Garry’s Mod appeared near the top. And Bit-Tech brings us wonderful news of its happening. The program allows the user to manipulate objects within Source, taking advantage of the engine’s physics. Which primarily involves kicking boxes. And better still, innovator John Boiles has made a truly brilliant video to prove it. It’s below. Watch this.

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