If you’ve played the Nimian Legends games at any point over the past five years or so, then you may be happy to know that the maker of those, Robert Kabwe aka Protopop Games, has a new title in the works, and it looks like the best one to date. It’s called Wilderless and, like Nimian Legends, it’s designed to be a huge open world that you can virtually explore and get lost in, but with an even bigger scope than either of the previous games.
As you can read in our forums, Protopop is tackling Wilderless in a different way from the previous Nimian Legends games. It’s being completely rebuilt from scratch and also being built in phases, where the game will release with specific functionality and then get polished up through updates before releasing the next phase with new content and features. This means that initially Wilderless will be “a wilderness landscape photography sim" where your main goal is to run around the beautiful landscapes and take pictures, but will evolve from there with future phases.
This tactic will hopefully mitigate issues with software and hardware advancements that caused problems during the long development cycle of the previous games. Protopop has a lot of ideas of where the game can go from that initial phase, but is hoping that “this new approach will help me make the world I have been trying to make." Currently that plan includes ten different phases spread across a two year development cycle. Even in these early days of development, Wilderless is looking really good as you can see in the screens in this post.
If you wanted even more eye candy, you can find it over on the Protopop YouTube channel where the developer has been posting short clips from Wilderless over the past month or so. Though a release date isn’t set in stone, Protopop hopes to get the first phase of Wilderless out in early 2020 which, based on the progress he’s made in the past couple of months, seems pretty feasible. Where the game goes from there will largely depend on how well it does and what the players want to see.
For those who followed along with the original Nimian Legends: Brightridge release way back in 2014, through its HD re-release a couple of years later, right up to the release of the sequel Nimian Legends: Vandgels just this past August, you already know that Protopop is one of the most accommodating developers around and is always keen to add new features and changes based on feedback so that all players can have a wonderful experience getting lost in the worlds he builds. The passion is palpable, and I can’t wait to check out Wilderless when the first phase launches next year.
such a great dev.
Awwww - thank you:) that’s a very nice thing to say.
Amazing developer and person! I can’t wait to support his next endeavor. His creations are absolutely stunning, and this is probably my most anticipated release of 2020 so far! I highly recommend the two BrightRidge apps. Check them out if you haven’t yet. Thank you, TA, for highlighting this.
I’m so happy you enjoyed the other games and for the protomotion too:) I have to admit I’m super excited about how wilderless is coming along. I think by focusing and releasing it in phases I’m able to find the development and also really polish each part. And of course there is a mini surprise about the whole game world that I can’t wait to share .
I hope the physics are a little less insane and cartoony than the last games. A lightning fast 20 ft vertical jump and loosey goosey sprint-movement are totally distracting from enjoying the scenery.
:) you’re not the only person who wants crazy about the big jump - it is a bit moon gravity-ish. I think I included that because I wanted players to have a lot of freedom. It’s the same reason I put in flying. Wilderless has a pretty high jump by default, but you can choose a more standard jump in the options, and I’ve worked hard to improve the arc of the jumps in general. It has a brand new camera system, control system, and animations and if you have an iOS device I’m having alpha tests soon. The first launch phase I am focusing on making the controls and animations feel as good as possible so I’d love you hear any feedback. Just send me an email to Robert at protopop dot com and i will add your email to the test list and you will get an invite as soon as it’s ready:)
Jared thank you for another surprise shout out. I can’t tell you how exciting it is when you notice my games. I’ve really thought long about Wilderless and how I can make a better game and I don’t ever do any marketing or anything like that because I am so focused on making them:) this kind of exposure is a real boost. I’ll keep posting news on the TouchArcade forums and I have to say I feel so lucky to be able to work on open worlds - they are passion projects and they take a lot of sacrifice in that I give up some work to produce these even though some work would pay more, but I really just feel it is so important to me to create and share these worlds, and give some people some pleasure and surprise and a place to go when they feel down. And for me it is so fulfilling to keep reading and learning and trying to improve every day :)