Take your time, I know how stressful moving can be, especially suddenly. Hope that it was a good move for you, and not one that turned all your life and plans upside down. if you want to hear my advise: After settling in, get the update and the next one with the quests out of the door. So folks have something to play and talk about, keep the involvement on a good level. *Then* worry about the Wiki As always, your artwork is great. Only thing that doesn't really fit - in my opinion - is the classical greek statue head (makes me think Poseidon, not Zeus) with the Assasina name. As for the names: For me, the Latin does not really fit the "vibe" of Nimian Legends. Does not match up with the ... I don't know, Celtic? Gaelic? Something like that, definitely Fey-ish and otherworldly ... feeling of your world. Did you try using names based on Celtic/Gaelic? Nordic languages might work as well. "Grim Brude" sounds like made-up Old English (which was much closer to German than to today's modern English, afaik). "Bruder" is the German word for "brother". "Die grimmen Brueder" (the grim brothers) invokes images of a small community of Northsea Saxon-style skalds, traveling their harsh homeland alone, clad in thick furs in wintertime, frost-rimmed beards thawing slowly, when they sit down at the high table and prepare to recite their epic sagas of times long gone. Enough rambling, I recommend reading K.E. Wagner's Kane shortstory "Two Suns Setting", it conveys a lot of what I try to put in words here: http://bookzz.org/book/294303/09c0d9 .
Thanks Macatron - cool username BTW I'm really happy to hear that. I was just sitting with my brother - he's an actor - and we were talking about art and making a living, and i was telling him that after working on this world for the last several years i am seeing it come together - the IOS app linking with the website RPG and now this Omnipedia. It's weird because the drive to create art necessitates giving up some security and sacrifice - i mean, most things do, everyone works hard - but there is something there at the base of it that kind of compels me to do this. I have to admit that it is really enjoyable for me to create and share things. Im lucky i grew up in the age of internet when we are able to reach out across the planet and connect with so many different people. Since i launched BrightRidge Google translate has taken a top spot in my bookmarks because i am constantly translating reviews in Russian, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and more
Thanks Nullzone - what i love is you bring real world details to fantasy life - i read everything you said and it will definitely make a difference as I go forward. I like the German take and more on the words - i think i will expand the languages i take from. Right now it is heavily influenced by french (im from quebec and its a billingual province) and latin and part just my brain spitting out something. There's also a smattering of Bemba in some of the words (my dad's ancestors are Bembashona people from Africa and my mom's Irish scottish) The names kind of just come to me - most have a basis in a language called Niji which i created for the world. (wayyy back in 2009 http://web.archive.org/web/20090716200902/http://www.nimianlegends.com/) Thanks also for the good advice about focus. BrightRidge is definitely my priority - especially since i want to release the other 3 areas as soon as i "finish up" the first world mechanics.
Hey, thanks! I've had it for a LONG time now. It actually started off meaning something completely different initially, but now it translates perfectly to reflect my love of Macs! So happy to hear that your game is opening lots of new doors for you! Truthfully, though, I think it's tip of the iceberg.
French, yikes! Nah, just kidding I am a walking sponge for all kinds of odd - often (pseudo)historical - tidbits, and it's a real pleasure to give back a little to you, in return for the fantastic world you built for us to experience. If you are interested, I can see if I can dig up some Norse songs. While most of the stuff coming from Scandinavia seems to be some kind of Dark Metal these days, I'd be surprised if I can't find some takes on e.g. Snurlison's Edda. (My forte is more with old German songs, those were really popular when I was still young and Gothic) . Till then, for language , I can recommend e.g. the original "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" movie. Swedish sounds just the right tad of "old language strange" still. For visual inspiration for grim and gritty Norse-style fantasy, "Walhalla Rising" is incredible. @Macatron: your name is funny as hell. First thought was a Maccaroni Transformer
Just wanted to post that this app will never leave my device. It will be the first thing I download when I eventually upgrade phones. I know I haven't even scratched the surface as far as exploration in this game. I'm not even sure where I'm going or what I'm doing and IMO, that's a good thing. For me it's pretty much an escape when I'm somewhere I don't want to be or when I'm bored at home. I just like walking around and taking everything in. It is such a beautiful world and to think it was created by one (brilliant) person just amazes me. Keep up the great work and be proud of what you have accomplished so far. I look forward to every update! NOEN
Game Impressions I wish it would work on iPod Touch 5. Low FPS is one thing, but is crashes after only 1-5 seconds of being loaded! 5 gen. should be agile to take the FX! If it works with GOF2 HD and Revenant, this should work too! Any tips? (did reset and cleared backgrounds)
iOS8 Metal demo from Epic You want to see this, Robert (and everyone else, too, of course): Epic released an iOS8 demo, made with Metal and Unreal Engine 4. Shows some of the things that are possible with Metal, like thousands of butterflies and tiny sandgrains. Quoting from the Appstore: Stunning visuals (scratch that, it's only "okay-ish", Proto is better ). Solid 30fps; 1440x1080 resolution; 4x MSAA; 3,500 butterflies equal roughly 4,000 draw calls, with falling petals at 5,000 particles (not draw calls) Best do the following: 1) Do NOT upgrade to iOS8 yet. 2) Download the old Epic Citadel demo, here: https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/epic-citadel/id388888815?mt=8 3) Run Citadel. Remember that when it was released in August 2010, it was state of the art. Looks quite empty and lifeless, doesn't it? In one spot, you can see two lonely leaves flying around. Compare that to the thousands of butterflies in Zen Garden. 4) Upgrade to iOS8. 5) Download the new Zen Garden demo: https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/id915975445?mt=8 6) Run Citadel again. I imagine even that runs faster than before. I could turn around so fast now, I actually got a bit dizzy. 7) Run Zen Garden: I think the best part is in the back, where you can rake the sand: you can see tiny sand grains flying away from your rake path. And I think what you did looks a lot better than what Epic cranked out, so there
Just had some time to browse around in Brightridge. I have the impression that the view distance is larger, and that more objects draw faster, making everything feel smoother. Also, I think the movement animation cycle sped up, both for your human and your bird form. Especially the human sometimes felt like an old black & white movie being played too fast, giving his movement a slapstick-like quality.
Oh, and a statue does not have a location marker with its info/name. I wanted to upload a screenshot, but that failed repeatedly. I'll try again tomorrow from my computer. In the meantime, here are directions: From the starting point, go to the chasm and turn right. Change into Bird, and follow the chasm to the right, towards Stag Habitat and the Spiraltower you can see in the distance. When you are above the Stag Habitat lake, the statue should show up on a mountain peak in front of you, closer by than the Tower. And something is off with the statue, too: It is about the same size as the tower, but you need to be a lot closer to actually see it. Then it suddenly pops up full-size. And if you are in the right spot and turn left/right it appears and disappears depending on your viewing angle. While the Tower you can see from easily half a map away. And when you turn around, you can see the Libertesse statue (the woman with the raised sword) just as easily, no matter that it is a huge distance away. I think you should be able to see The Nameless (if you don't have a name for it yet, how about that? It's one of the few where no records or oral history of its name were passed down through the ages) from about the same distance away as Libertesse, aka "from very far" . Robert, mind taking a look at it when you have time? Low priority, of course as it's nothing game-breaking.
Oh, and one more thing I just noticed Apple has an advertised category "awesome stuff for iOS 8" on the top of the Appstore now. If I were you, I'd upgrade to Metal asap (too bad you didn't already ) and contact Apple right away if they can include you once you are done. Seriously, Brightridge blows that Epic demo out of the water without breaking a sweat.
Thank you Noen I love that you like the exploration part - it's the area i want to focus on the most. I'm trying to get the next update out this week and i think you'll like the jumping - it really connects you with the world and lets you explore in new ways, plus the new camera can be adjusted any way you like so you can see the scenery differently. Last night my friend was over playing Remember Me - a really beautiful game from Dontnod Remember Me and she was saying how it would be cool to have a game where you went to India and just walked around and explored the city. Thats the same reason I play Grand Theft Auto - im not into killing and shooting , i prefer just exploring the world (and i hope they let you go inside buildings next time). I have to admit a lot of people seem really mad that BrightRidge doesnt have a ton of violence. The 'exploration' aspect for many people is a negative thing. So im really happy when I hear that people like you enjoy just exploring. i think its an important part of the evolution of gaming - nit that exploration is inherently better than shooters or other genres, but just that exploration as a game mechanic deserves in my opinion more encouragement and exploration (no pun intended ) Here's an example of the new camera customizations - you can zoom way out and run round, jump, swim etc
I hear your frustration and I do want to reassure you that i will keep working to optimize for A5, but i also want to be honest that support for A5 devices can only go so far. I hope that's not enough to completely turn you off the game. Aside from closing all other apps and restarting the device I don't think there's much that can be done, although it was mentioned on the forum that there are memory cleaning apps for jailbroken devices that might help. I really wish it ran on iPod touch cleanly also, but with 512mb of ram it just can't hold all the textures in memory at once. Ive reduced them to 1/8th the size (id try 1/16th if they had the option) - but i would have to reduce the texture sizes in the "main" version of the game as well. Im not rich and i understand it is not a throwaway decision to buy new devices - they are expensive - but i hope that if and when you do upgrade to a new device that you'll check out BrightRidge on it. if/when you get a new apple device you'll be able to try the improved resolution and textures. I also have android support coming so if you can get your hands on a new android device you can play it there too. Anyways thanks for writing - I'm sure a lot of other people have the same questions and sharing all of these details and asking questions helps everyone, including me, out
Oh wow thanks for this - it looks really good. I have to wait because i dont want to update to IOS8 yet due to the fact that i have to test BrightRidge on IOS 7, but i will try IOS 8 on my iPad shortky and test out the game. I totally remember Epic Citadel - that was so cool and a big inspiration for me. What was also really interesting is how they handle the device compatibility in their app description: "** This is not compatible with iPhone 5 or iPad 4th Generation **" Even with this plain, simple language I noticed that reviews mention the device not working on iPhone 5 etc. Apple really needs to address this issue. Developers need to be able to restrict downloads to devices that work, instead of leaving it to the developers to get the angry feedback so that it appears the IOS ecosystem isn't fragmented. I can tell you from experience that it is.
Cool, you're trying it on IOS 8? Thats funny about the slapstick. A few people have mentioned the animation being jerky and im thinking now that it might be because i use Bone Quality 1 (the number of bones in an animation) but i could set it up to 4. I basically have BrightRidge running on all the lowest settings, but in version 1.2 you can customize a lot of quality settings, and i will look into adding the option to use more bones in the settings panel (EDIT i just added it to my to do list ) and we'll see if that makes a difference. One thing im struggling with before this update launches is that if you, say, turn on Max grass, high res, far grass and reflections you can crash the game on the iPhone5S even. So i am trying to decide a way, either restrict very high settings (like remove dense grass option altogether), or restrict them in combination, so if you turn on dense grass you cant turn on far grass and vice versa. Of course if i do that the if you have a newer device in the future (iphone 6?) that CAN support both you're locked out of it. At this point im thinking about offering preset quality options (faster, more beautiful etc) and then a separate custom screen with a warning that it could crash the game but lets you "overclock" quality however you want) Example of the "Sunny" atmospheric scattering turned on in v1.2. It creates subtle simluation of particles hanging in the air and diffusing the sunlight
Thanks for this. Ive fixed it so the statue has a "far" instead of "medum" culling, just like Libertesse. It's a pretty interestingly placed statue and quite large, and it should have some beauty treatment. Henceforth it shall be known as The Nameless....
Thanks for the tip I like to see what's hot and new in the app gaming world. One problem is that I'm stuck Using Unity 4.2 because they introduced a regression with unity 4.3 and higher - IOS terrain trees no longer work without dropping the framerate to like 4fps. Ive been on the Unity forums for about a year begging for them to fix this. I'm worried that it might even keep me from releasing this update, but I'll cross one bridge at a time. So unfortunately i have to wait until (if ever) its fixed to bring BrightRidge to metal. If Unity doesnt fix it i might not be able to continue making these games. I'm at their mercy. Anyways i will keep everyone posted and hopefully Unity will fix terrain trees and then I can work on a Metal export
Whoa, lots of stuff to reply to First of all, for IlightningI: I mentioned the memory cleanup apps a while back. No, you do NOT, I repeat NOT, need a jailbreak for the one I use. It's called Battery Doctor, is free and available for all devices. Cannot find the Appstore link right away @Protopop: Thanks so much for including me in the new Nameless description, I'm sitting here with a huge happy grin on my face The thing with the Unity bug is ugly, sorry to hear that. Hope they get this fixed soon. No indication that the framerate drop is fixed with Metal, I assume? If you want to test at some point, without upgrading your own device, you can always send me a build via Testflight. Yes, running on iOS8. Normally I wait a while with the upgrades, until the first kinks are sorted out. But here I really wanted to see what Epic's techdemo looks like, and compare it to Brightridge. Good news: You win, even without Metal "Slapstick" movement: I definitely did not have that on iOS7, so Apple must have changed something in 8. And it only affects the player models as far as I can tell (I'll check the animals later tonight). Water etc. all looks normal. It's as if a movie runs at normal speed, and only one actor is at 1.5x speed. Not jerky or anything, more like it's on fast forward while the rest plays at normal speed still. Need to doublecheck, but I think the speed went back to normal at some point. Just not sure if this is time-related or location-related. Graphics Quality settings: I remember that one game detected your device, and restricted/opened settings depending on that. Just need to recall which one it was exactly. If you include "quality overclocking" just make sure that either the settings do not save (suboptimal), or only get applied after you hit the Start button. Then you can include a "reset to default" button on the start screen, to prevent getting stuck in a crash loop.
