Beta Build 1.0 (4) now available BETA Info (Nov. 19, 2015): Beta build 1.0 (4) is now available. If you are interested in playing, we'd love your feedback. The best way to get your email added to the TestFlight list is to send an email to me at [email protected]. This is the fourth build of the public Beta release of Gnomium: PE for iOS. Changes in this build: - Extended tutorial into the game immediately following the normal tutorial.- - Fixed: Potential further potential causes for the grid to freeze or become unresponsive. - Reduced size of app by about half. - Buckets now properly return double ore collected. - Additional SFX.
Beta Build 1.0 (5) now available BETA Info (Nov. 25, 2015): Beta build 1.0 (5) is now available. If you are interested in playing, we'd love your feedback. The best way to get your email added to the TestFlight list is to send an email to me at [email protected]. This is the fifth build of the public Beta release of Gnomium: PE for iOS. Changes to this build: - Fixes for potential grid-locks. - Matching a gem to the chest resets the timer immediately. This prevents the game from ending prematurely. - The tile timer now works again. - The gift now appears again as usual. - New SFX - Re-arranging some UI elements to accommodate for gnome speech. - Resized the gnome selfie camera to take 2:1 aspect photos that will be shareable on Facebook or Twittter.(not enabled yet) - Reward the player for sharing their first gnome selfie. (not enabled yet) - IAP is wired up (though unavailable). - Restore purchases button added to settings. - Performance improvements. Things broken in this build: - Settings icon (gear) is not available post-game for taking the player back to the home screen if they want to. Things yet to add/fix: - Replace Unity spash screen with Retrodigio spash screen. - Gnome eye and mouth issues when transitioning between the game screen and other screens. - Limit the # of photos that can be taken per game as the app will crash if too many are taken. - Grammatical errors in the tutorial.
MadLibs! - Beta Build 1.0 (6) now available BETA Info (Dec. 3, 2015): Beta build 1.0 (6) is now available. If you are interested in playing, we'd love your feedback. The best way to get your email added to the TestFlight list is to send an email to me at [email protected]. This is the sixth build of the public Beta release of Gnomium: PE for iOS. Most of the changes in this version have to do with implementing proper IAP and sharing features. You should take advantage of using the 8x8 grid + infinite credits IAP now since the game is in sandbox mode (you will not be chareged for the IAP, but to my understanding, will be able to keep the IAP even after the game is launched). Originally I was going to integrate Facebook and Twitter directly into Gnomium, but have since decided to have the sharing mechanism use iOS's native sharing feature, i.e. you click 'share' to share a photo and it will bring up the default sharing dialog included in iOS. Thus, Gnomium does not need to gain permission to post to your social networks for you, but rather the exported gnome selfie is saved to your phone and then you are presented with the multiple options the OS has for sharing that image (i.e. save to images, messaging, email, facebook, twitter, etc..). By far the coolest 'new' feature that I decided to add last minute is the MadLib style generated phases to the gnome selfies at the end of each game. There are over 100 of these now with more to come. They are generated from random words (parts-of-speech) that were found during the game that was just finished. The game will take at least 1 gnome snapshot during the game, but up to 5 automatically. You can manually take up to 10 snapshots per game by tapping the area just under the grid where the little camera icon is. You can get some pretty hilarious shots this way. This is actually a feature that my daughter and I thought should be included when we started working on the project almost 2 years ago because the game so easily accommodates for this type of feature. When I saw Alphabear release with a similar feature and the positive impact it has had on social awareness and general good sense and humor of the game, I knew I needed to go ahead and make the last minute effort to add it to Gnomium. And what a difference! It's like I can't wait for the game to end just so that I can read and get a laugh at the phrases and associated gnome facial expressions captured by the game camera. I took some screenshots to show you what the feature looks like. Know issues I'm working on: * some phantom-chisel and phantom-hammer occasional 'stays tapped' issues. * the app crashes after a certain number of gnome selfie pictures have been taken during a game (somewhere around 20) * the sky color sometimes does not change back to blue after a special hat has been worn for 30 seconds.
Beta Build 1.0 (7) now available BETA Info (Dec. 5, 2015): Beta build 1.0 (7) is now available. If you are interested in playing, we'd love your feedback. The best way to get your email added to the TestFlight list is to send an email to me at [email protected]. This is the seventh build of the public Beta release of Gnomium: PE for iOS. This build contains mostly bug fixes and improvements to the new adlib (can I say MadLib?) feature. * App no longer crashes if too many pics are taken during a game or when generating greater numbers of pics as the end of a game. * The phrases, hashtag and score now attempt to intelligently re-arrange themselves so as to not obscure the Gnome. * Random Instagram filters are applied to photos. * The credit's window now closes properly after making the Infinite Credits IAP. * Fixes to grammar in many of the adlibs. Fixes to come: * (just realized) sharing a photo shares the 'next' photo. This will be an easy fix. * app size * some probability adjustments for gems. A big thanks to all of you who are all testing this. Your feedback has been awesome. My goal is to submit this to the app store this weekend sans any big issues. Never wear your high heels to the shooting range. Yum. Indeed.
Hi slewis, You can access it from the home screen by tapping the 'x Credit [+]' button in the upper right of the screen, or when you run out of credits you have the option to watch an ad for more credit or purchase the IAP. Which of course, is free for now. -Chris
Thanks, Retrodigio. I think I must have already activated this as I have not run out of credits and I don't even see the Credit button. By the way, will the more sophisticated version of Gnomium have some sort of progression? While I really like this Pocket version (and I am enjoying seeing the improvements in each subsequent update), I think it will lack longevity. Some sort of leveling up system makes a big difference for me.
slewis7, Yes, you've probably already activated it. If you're grid is 8x8 instead of 7x7, you have activated it. Yes, Gnomium: Rocky Woodlands, (the name of the full version) will feature a progressive level system.
New Teaser Trailer Yes! New teaser trailer. This is the same trailer that will be included as the App Preview in the App Store when the game is released this month. Oh, and good news! The game will (pending some unknown disaster) be released this month, yes. Unless they take forever to approve it, and the whole 'Christmas lockdown' thing happens. I'm just waiting for the latest build to stop 'processing' in iTunes Connect (why does it take so long?) so that I can submit the build to Apple! Woohoo! Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Release Candidate 1.01 (2) now available Release Candidate Info (Dec. 8, 2015): Build 1.01 (2) is now available. If you are interested in playing, we'd love your feedback. The best way to get your email added to the TestFlight list is to send an email to me at [email protected]. This is the eighth build of the public Beta release of Gnomium: PE for iOS. This is the build that has just been submitted to Apple with the goal of availability before Christmas (Hurrah!). * I've gone ahead and added leaderboards! (albeit, just 1 for now, but hey!). I'll add some more boards soon, time-based boards such as fastest time to open for each chest. Right now we just have global highest score. One player emailed me today to say that he scored over 50K in a game, now we'll let the leaderboards speak for it. * There is now a 50/25/25 percent probability breakdown for getting the gem that you need within a specific tier. In other words, if you have a Garnet chest, you will have a 50% chance of getting a Garnet from 3 gold rather than the 33% previously. The idea is to counter some frustration with purely random changes and allow for quicker progress through the chests. * Fixed a bug wherein the tile-count max was displaying as 0 for the first game.
Release Update So, this past week has been a fun one for sure. In anticipation of releasing this week, Gnomium: Pocket Edition was submitted to the app store last Weekend (9 days ago). The idea was to release this week on Wednesday, before feature Thursdays as most game devs do. The Gnomium binary however, was rejected on Saturday because of an iTunes File Sharing feature that was enabled, probably left over from early dabblings with in-game snapshot sharing and using the native iOS sharing feature. This has since been resolved with a new build and re-submitted yesterday, however the expedited request was denied today so there will be no US release before Christmas because of this. It seems that we are looking to early January then, although in the meantime I'll most likely release to an English-speaking non-US market (like Canada or New Zealand) as soon as the app is approved which will likely be this weekend. I'll post with more information when it becomes available. Have a happy star wars holiday everyone.
Gnomium: PE 'soft launched' in Canada and New Zealand Great news! Apple approved my submission of Gnomium: Pocket Edition this evening (Sunday 20th) and I've just made the game available in the Canadian and New Zealand App Stores, a 'soft launch' before a worldwide release in January. Launching a game during the holidays can be a crazy prospect, but it gives me some time to test the waters in a few smaller markets, gather feedback, perform some analytics, fix bugs and prepare more fully for the broader launch. https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/gnomium-pocket-edition-action/id1005211381?ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/gnomium-pocket-edition-action/id1005211381?ls=1&mt=8 Again, many thanks to those of you who helped refine the game through beta testing. It's been great getting to know you and share this experience with you. Have a wonderful holiday! I'll post more here when I have an official worldwide release date in January.
