Nimian Legends : Vandgels is finished and i am beta testing the game. If you would like to help you can play the beta by clicking this link. Im mostly looking to see if the game fills the screen, works alright, any game breaking bugs etc. Beta Link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/FaozH0Yl
wow... just WOW!!! pal, this game is truly outstanding, much better than a lot of “premium” stuff out there... hats off to your work!
Couple of things noticed within the first five minutes; *She has terribly bowed legs. *Changing settings that had a slider bar in game caused all the screen to rotate. Made it very hard to see what difference was being made. *The bright white Home Bar on the big iPad Pro 3rd Gen is very noticeable. A game like this that is trying to immerse the player into this glorious world really needs that bar hidden. I believe it is an option that is available to developers to make the bar transparent or even invisible in their games. Please check it out.
Thank you Gwarmaxx. Ive been feeling really down about my game, i see all the things i couldnt do in it, no one knows about it etc..., and i mean it when i say what you just said really boosts me. It can be challenging making a game alone, and knowing that someone sees something in it increases my confidence and my energy.
This is very helpful. Im so grateful that people take the time to leave feedback because i dont have a team, and its easy for me to see things only through my own eyes. Thanks stubbieoz. Ive added everything to my list and will look at them. Yeah she is bow legged, especially when she walks. Im going to see if i can fix this, come to think of it, i think i can do an animation override just for her run cycle and walking that might help. I checked with apple and they recommend something called gesture protection - this dims the bar and requires two swipes up to dismiss the app (they recommend hiding the app for video apps only because it comes back whenevr you touch the screen, which in ages is always). Thanks for pushimg me to look into this. Ill try to add it to my next update. I am also very happy to hear it works on the new ipad pro. I made all the adjustments to have it fill the screen, but until now i wasnt sure if it would actually work.
I just uploaded a new build 134 that should fix these issues - thanks again. If you try it, could you let me know if the bar is less prominent, and it should also take 2 swipes to close it. If not thats cool too - you already helped immensely with your feedback
A screen shot of how the bar looks now. Much better! https://imgshare.io/images/2019/08/17/D9C53BC0-D240-4928-8086-07C0A80EDD99.png You would be amazed how many developers don’t worry about making the bar transparent. It is a real distraction in some games. Would have been so much better if it was an end user option in iOS settings. Oh well, thanks heaps for fixing it. Let me know if you need any thing specific to be tested on the 3rd Gen iPad Pro 12.9”. I broke the bank to get it and a game like Vandgels should give it a bit of a workout.
Wow thanks for the screenshot. Its cool to see it on a new iPad pro. I didnt even know it had a bar. We have you to thank for the improvement because i wouldnt have even known to do this. In the end it was just a checkmark in Unity to make it work but its kind of hidden away, and its not apparent what it does. It looks better on the iphone xs too because of this. Yeah it does sound like a beast of a machine - i guess if you get a chance try the quality settings and see if you can turn on depth of field + ambient occlusion, then i think in resolution put highest 4 and turn on the fps monitor, and see how fast the fps are? im curious because i have ipad pro 10.5 inch and its really fast, but it chugs once i use resolution 4, and or ambient occlusions and depth of field, which are really heavy effects. - if anything game breaking comes up please let me know, and email me once i release it anytime and ill give you a code for a free copy. And i do wonder if anyone has any feedback about the story. Everything is going pretty well and if it keeps up i think ill release it on the Apple app store sometime next week.
Settings as requested; In and around the Sacred Halls; Zoomed in avg 24fps Zoomed out avg 30fps Even at 24fps there was no graphical stuttering that I could see. Perhaps in other locations things would be different. One thing that is really bothering me with the controls is the movement joystick is way too sensitive. I appreciate the sensitive sliders for the look and tilt, but it seems like a major oversight not to have one for movement. Another little suggestion. At the start of the game you have a screen where you choose default and custom quality. The default quality icon is highlighted which instinctively makes the player want to tap it. I feel it would be much better if the player has made any customisations that the custom icon should then be highlighted. I can envisage a lot of people spending a good deal of time setting up all the options only to tap that default button by mistake. Perhaps even a warning if the player has made any custom changes and they tap on the default saying “are you sure you want to revert back to default settings”.
Youre really good at this kind of feedback - thank you. Great idea for the quality. Ill make it default to custom. One cheat is that i dont actually record when the user changes the quality. I just show the selector the second time the user starts a fresh gae, and usually theyve made a change to it. It can still work though because if they didnt make any changes, clicking custom will just load the default anyways. I also like your “are you sure you want to revert back to default settings” text - i find it hard to write that stuff. For the move joystick, theres a setting in Options>camera>follow player. i THINK the "camera follows payer" options in here is what you want - if you get a chance could you try it? Anyways i am realizing it s in the wrong place - it should be in controls - and its horribly named. I'll move the button into controls beside the sliders and call it MOVE SENSITIVITY or something similar. I think i can get these changes made tonight, I think the game is already so much better in just a couple of days with your feedback, and im also glad your suggestions are straightforward to implement - they increase teh quality and experience by polishing small things without me having to rebuild a ton of the gae which is exactly the kind of help im looking for. Oh and if i dint mention it, remind me after launch - a free code for the game is yours anytime (brightridge too if you dont have it)
Thanks for your kind words. I have beta tested a number of games in the past, both in iOS though mainly on Windows, and try to keep my suggestions more to a players real life experience rather than the technical stuff that I leave to those much more capable than me. Thanks for the kind offer of a code, that is much appreciated. I already have Brightridge HD so that’s fine, thanks. Now on to the problem with the movement control. I tried the options as you suggested but both the options in “camera/follows player” selection are not changing the characters actual movement speed. They are... as suggested by their title.... dealing with how the camera is moving around the character. The more I play around with the game the more I think the problem I am having is the fact that even a very slight movement on the joystick makes the character turn around in the other direction very quickly and then move. It just doesn’t feel fluid to me, but more like I would expect a character to move using a D-Pad. Hence why I was suggesting some sort of slider for the joysticks sensitivity. It may be too much of a coding problem for you and it could well be just my personal experience and I just need to get used to the joystick more. I’ll let you know of any more little.... annoyances... I come across.
amazing work robert. i have some oot news that i want to share with you here. maybe it can support you in some ways. so aside from doing the gameplay video on youtube channel, i also have a gadget review channel here in my country and to test the power of the smartphone that i reviewing, i use some of the graphics demanding games and one of the game is nimian legends. since then many of my viewer ask me about the game i use and lastly some of other reviewers also follows my reference and use your game too as a benchmark. i'm sorry this is a little bit oot but i hope you know that your games is a the new benchmark for gaming test benchmark on smartphone instead of the mainstream pubg, fortnite and other mmo. well at least for me, on my gadget channel i'll keep using your game for the gaming benchmark.
I see what you mean - like maybe a selectable turning speed for the player themselves - thanks for this. I think thats a more involved code change but i see what youre saying. My next game (codename Project Wilderless), has the controller rebuilt from the ground up, and i made a note to add more customization options like this from the get go. ive been working on it and i can probably port something simlar back to vandgels once its tested In my experience everyone has a different way to control things, so the more options the better, and the more i know about how players play, like with your feedback, the more i know what kind of options to put in. When its just me sometimes i dont even consider certain things, so i appreciate it, and yes please let me know anything that comes to mind.
Wow thanks - that sound very cool. A few people have mentioned to me over the years about turning my game into a graphics benchmark. Its not something i really understand, but if the game is something that you can use that way thats really cool. I actually came across this article a while back https://www.cnet.com/news/best-phone-for-gaming-in-2019-razer-2-vs-asus-rog-xiaomi-black-shark-nubia-red-magic-mars/#comments and insanely they used Nimian Legends as an example to benchmark new gaming phones alongside other games i really admire. If you need any free codes for anything please dont hesitate to ask, and thanks for your encouragement. You were so instrumental in getting people to learn about BrightRidge in the first place, i dont think the game would have reached as many people without your help, i mean even this forum thread was created by you BTW im working on an artbook to go with the games for free. I hope i can get ore people to know about them.
The artbook drafts look gorgeous! If you offer that as hardcover (think coffee table artbook), I'd drop a lot of money on it. Maybe print-on-demand could be an option for you?
Thank you Its a pdf download but i called a local print shop in case i wanted to print some up. Thanks to you now i know what to google - print on demand - i think it would be nice to have a few printed copies because its looking pretty good in the pdf. It also gave me a good excuse to finally use Adobe InDesign
thats amazing. see i thought im the only one that think about using your game as a benchmark, well turns out im not the only one . that artbook looks amazing, i can only imagine to see it in person. please please send me the pdf and ill turn it into a print artbook here. oh one more, i hope you dont mind if i post some gameplay of vandgels on my channel. is it a final version yet or should i wait?
Thanks! I'll definitely send a copy of the art book as soon as its ready And yes please feel free to share any video of the game. The latest beta build 137 seems ready to go - im just waiting until tomorrow, and if there's no big bugs reported im going to submit it to the App store this weekend, but you can share video anytime. Sharing video of my game on YouTube is i think one of the biggest reasons - aside from support from TouchArcade - that people have played my games at all.
