Sorry to hear you were ill, hope you are doing okay again. Don't forget to take things extra slow for a few days, even if you think you are fully recovered. The new stuff is gorgeous as ever, especially the new inn is fantastic with all those small details. Really itching to see the new version live in all its glory Thanks a lot for the Testflight invitation! I'm busy for the next few days rush-buying a new car (old one died on Thursday), but I'll give it a spin for sure whenever I find some downtime. Oh, and I don't use Facebook; so you won't see me there except as occasional visitor
You can now fly through clouds (they're no longer just a painted backdrop) and they interact with sunlight Morning sunshine light up the new BrightRidge in A Terrapin towers over the landscape amid the morning sun BrightRidge Inn at Noon and Morning
Wow! Your new areas look incredible! Plus the additional lighting effects and real clouds are really beautiful too! I really wish you could sign on with either Crescent Moon or maybe even Bethesda to make the ULTIMATE iOS RPG! I really think it would redefine mobile gaming.
I totally agree. This is the kind of thing Apple needs to highlight in their keynotes. Not free-to-play force-touch battlers. But this beautiful piece of art. Every time I see new updates or art, I get super excited to experience it myself.
Oh it's soooo good to see this protopop! You've made such beautiful environments in the original, I can't even imagine the new one. I go back to bright ridge, with headphones, when things seem to be getting too stressful. I know a non combat game isn't as popular, but I hope if you do add combat there's a way to turn it off for those of us who simply want to explore your beautiful worlds. Keep at good sir, I will be in line to buy!
Thanks! Im sure big game studios will come along with some open world games soon. For now i think i will focus on making the worlds as rich and "real" as possible. What i really loved about Skyrim was there was just this sense of...artistry. Like you could feel the love in it, something unique to that company. I also loved fable and shadow of the colossus for their atmospherics, and these are all things ive tried to put into BrightRidge Anyways i am super excited to share this part of the world. In my head it's kind of like a real place that im just revealing in digital form and i can say honestly that when i am making the inn, and hanging vines it's kind of easy in a way because it just feels like it comes very naturally - as opposed to some other things im not so good at
I shouldn't be long - im down to about 90 items to finish and am looking at delivering to apple in about 2 weeks. I think there is a place for everything and those MOBA etc are VERY polished and fine tuned. Apple is all about exceptional quality (i sound like a salesperson and i think that my world is a lot rougher around the edges, although that might be part of its charm. To be fair to myself i am one person working in my spare time with basically no budget but pocket change - if i could do this full time i think i could make a more polished project, something that has more of what i envision in the world. As it is now i have to be very disciplined to limit what im trying to do otherwise id go crazy, but it is so much fun to make this world and i really enjoy exploring it myself. Maybe when i can get a game to the level of polish id like it to be Apple might help feature it Ill keep working toward that goal.
Thank you Woodrith, i'm glad you enjoyed the original, and quite a few people have written me to say they go into BrightRidge to relax. I grew up with the impressive but claustrophobic hallways of first person shooters, mostly due to technical limitations of the time, but i was surprised that even today few companies are making wildernesses. I always wanted to go off the path into the woods, and that's a mantra in my design, i want you to really be able to go anywhere and just watch the river flow over the rocks. There is a ton of new detail in the HD version and i like to take my time flying around, finding a nice place to land, and just watching the scenery. You'll be happy to know you can turn off enemies anytime in the game. And although the quests are coming after this update, they are for the most part based on time of day and non violent. One quest involves becoming a butterfly so you can pollinate flowers in order to revive that area. Another involves going for a walk down a river path on a date, just spending time with your partner is the goal for that one (i learned that when i made Nimian Garden). I think and hope that it will be in these small moments that we find something we can connect with, just like we connect with the sun setting and rising are watching a flock of birds cross the sky. And all of this will be in the framework of deciding the fate of the environment, will the wilderness of BrightRidge thrive, and fall into an industrialized wasteland? (and whats the deal with the large tower at the center of the landscape? we'll find out
Fixing bugs and finishing up the "dull" parts. Here im deciding which art to use for the new splash screen. I think im going with the third one
iPad Air 2 Screenshots Busy optimimizing, bug squashing, and cleaning up. For fun these shots are playing with the light settings in the options. The shell like creature is a Baedle, and behind her are her children (just out of sight).
Thanks! it's always great to hear your encouragement. Im very excited because in the last 2 weeks i feel like there was a great breakthrough, especially i how the new Inn turned out, and the optimizations have worked really well so the game is running great. I'm devoting as much time as possible over the next 2 weeks to get it finished. But im also really excited after this big update to finally add in the quests in the next one. There are quite a few from walking dates through the woods, to pollinating plants, to uncovering the unsettling history behind the libertesse statues... mostly non violent and all based in the history of nimia. I also want to expand the photo taking ability because although i wouldn't actually walk around in pitch black darkness (with sun off and dark shadows) it does make for some striking i game screenshots id like the idea of giving people creative tools too compose cool shots of the landscape.
That sounds positively awesome, as always Really looking forward to the quests. One idea before you go all-out with them, though: I mentioned a few times that my kid really likes to walk/fly/swim around and watch stuff. Would be great to have a kid-friendly version of BR: just the exploration part, without any quests, monsters, etc (even taking out the "dark souls" that are already in). Now, adding a "kid mode" switch would be one option. But sooner or later kids will figure where it is. And if you put behind e.g. entering a parentcode first, that's extra hassle. So, here's my idea: Make a "Brightridge: Dora the Explorer" version for kids, keep the price as 1$ as it is now. If you go that route, you'll want to contact sites likes Momswithapps about it. And branch off a new one with all the quests etc. in, keeping the current name. Raise price to 2$ (or more), most definitely worth it.
Yeah I really like this idea. Once BrightRudge is ready i'm going to try reskinning it with a toon/simple look and see what comes out of it
BrightRidge HD iPhone6 with BlowOut Light enabled. 70 items left to finish, these screenshots are me experimenting by turning up the ambient light, sunlight, dark shadows and atmospheric scattering to max. It makes kind of a blownout photobox look Aside for this, one of my favorite additions, which is too tricky to get a screenshot of but looks great, is that flocks of birds are now real birds. They soar, they land, they go about their business and you can fly through the sky with them as part of their flock if you like.
Nimian Legends BrightRidge HD New Interface Down to 37 items left. Somethings take longer than others, but need to be done. BrightRidge now has a new, more unified interface with all new UI and custom Icons. Sometimes its hard towork on these parts because it takes so long and you dont feel the impact right away in terms of gameplay. But then when i play it the polish is a big inspiration - i kind of see BrightRidge like a leaky boat and the more i clean up the corners the better it will float Anyways there are a TON of new options and i hope everyone will enjoy them and the new look.
BrightRidge Wildlife The remaining work on the game is to fix things that were broken when i upgraded from Unity 4 to 5. One of these was the animal life. It still worked, but i wanted to both optimize the performance and get them out of their "always patrolling the same place" behavior, which wasnt very flexible. Im really happy with the new system that allows the animals to roam anywhere in the land now, although they will still have their preferred habitats. Its also more flexible because now i can drop in new animals and the game takes care of bringing them to life ( this may mean a dracozid if there is enough memory space Also now when you use your light power, you can act like a "Pied Piper" and the animals will follow you. They can also treat anything as their parent meaning the can follow other creatures as well, have more babies, and create herds (potentially). the new system uses a lot less CPU power and is a lot more flexible. Here's some shots of them running together around BrightRidge (even inside the Inn which I think im going to make off bounds for animals) and a few landscape shots mixed in. PS if you look carefully at the photos on the balcony you might notice the pigeons that have landed on the railing. they fly around in flocks and land around BrightRidge on their favorite perches. The Gang's All here!
I see more new things like the pigeons in the screenshot, very nice! And that huge bug...thing is rather creepy. Fingers crossed and best of luck with that! Sounds like a module you should offer on the Unity Store. Would surprise me if noone else'd be interested in using it. That would be even more interesting if you had an actual flute to play on. Or bagpipes. Cue inspirational music: https://youtu.be/JXPDmK5eNvg?list=PLLxPc1DLhwiX72pCnavkA_2TiEQxFxJQ4&t=2982 Would be even more interesting if that only/better worked in the corresponding spiritform. E.g. if you want to run with the wolves, be one yourself.
Thanks! I actually wanted to have them playing a flute, but i buy my animations and I couldnt find a flute player I havent quite figured out what way to control them, so for now its the light power - but i think there's a more interesting way like you said. I know one of the quests involves turning into a derr form, then running with a wild deer until you gain it's trust and tame it. I might make taming the animals on an animal by animal basis and selected in your options like spiritview is.
