Zen Bound 2

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by Frand, Jul 30, 2009.

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  1. camihq

    camihq Well-Known Member

    May 2, 2010
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    Finland
    who do this game,
    aint he / she
    from finland?

    if yes im proud of
    finland!! :D
     
  2. Drucifer

    Drucifer Well-Known Member

    Mar 16, 2010
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    Nice, I'll be following this one because we love the first. Can't wait to hear more details once it starts getting closer to being completed. :D
     
  3. sammysin

    sammysin Well-Known Member

    Feb 23, 2010
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    Government Official.
    Swansea, UK
    Bring on the ZB 2.
     
  4. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    #84 Frand, Jun 14, 2010
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2010
    One convenient improvement in ZB2 over ZB1 is that the support for all screen orientations has been brought in from the iPad version. The UI rotates dynamically during in-game to match portrait and landscape aspect ratios.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  5. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    As far as big announcements go, this is our most high-definition yet:
    Zen Bound 2 will be available on multiple platforms - iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PC and Mac.



    One thing we're happy with is how owners of Macbooks and Macbook Pros can use the multi-touch trackpad to control the game just like it was the iPhone screen. Also the surface of the Magic Mouse works like a touch control surface. (And using a Wacom pad as the game controller also rocks...)
     
  6. sammysin

    sammysin Well-Known Member

    Feb 23, 2010
    8,375
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    Swansea, UK
    Really nice to hear about the multiplatform announcement. Awesome.
     
  7. Drucifer

    Drucifer Well-Known Member

    Mar 16, 2010
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    I agree nice to hear the Mac and PC versions. I personally never play games on my computers but I will be getting the iPod Touch version for sure. :D
     
  8. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    If you have a monitor that swivels 90 degrees, you can play the game in an awesome portrait mode. The tree menus have never looked better :)
     
  9. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    It would have felt so wrong not to post these. What a difference a day makes! Anti-aliasing enabled on 3rd gen devices. (Engineering speke for "less jaggy pixels".)

    Let's go side-by-side with the ducky:

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    And some other random shots:

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Our visual goal is for Zen Bound 2 to be the most beautiful game on iPhone, bar none.
     
  10. sammysin

    sammysin Well-Known Member

    Feb 23, 2010
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    Swansea, UK
    Holy crap at the difference between the 2 shots of the duck. This is definitely going to be the best looking game.
     
  11. hhhh

    hhhh Well-Known Member

    Apr 7, 2010
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    Zen Bound was probably the most overrated game in the appstore's earlier days. I'll pass on this one unless it's cheap.
     
  12. sammysin

    sammysin Well-Known Member

    Feb 23, 2010
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    Government Official.
    Swansea, UK
    No and no.
     
  13. Drucifer

    Drucifer Well-Known Member

    Mar 16, 2010
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    Those pictures look fantastic.


    Not everyone has the same taste in games and I can see Zen Bound not appealing to everyone but it shouldn't be called over rated. The game has received thousands of ratings and still rates high for a reason.
     
  14. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    It would be great to get some further commentary on the above:

    - If you have played the game, how did you come to the decision of purchasing it? Did you look at the screenshots, read the description of the game and maybe some reviews on websites? Did you try the Lite version?

    - If you did look at the screenshots, read the description and some reviews, what kind of expectations did you have regarding meditatively wrapping rope around wooden objects that the game did not meet?

    It would be nice get serious answers to the above. We'd really like to be able to communicate clearly that this is not an action game despite the paint bombs that are now in Zen Bound 2, and avoid causing random disappointments.

    We can't take the blame for impulse purchases made without research, but if our communication about the game has been unclear about anything, this is certainly the thread for constructive feedback.

    Ultimately, we don't want to sell games to those who don't want them. We'd much rather reach customers who appreciate the experience and find value in it. Thankfully there have been a number of those, so we have been able to make this game and more :)
     
  15. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    Hey Frand I've often heard from developers that FSAA was too processor intensive to be worth bothering with in the past, but this was likely because of all the trickery required to get anti-aliasing working without hardware support. With iOS 4 adding FSAA on the GPU, what if any performance hit does the game experience with anti-aliasing on? Is it comparable?

    Do you think performance would be comparable for all games, or is Zen Bound 2 unique in that you're rotating fairly simple geometric objects around 3D space which allows you to devote more resources to graphical flare?
     
  16. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    Also, in the inevitable iPhone 4 version of Zen Bound 2, will you guys be running at the full 960x640 resolution for your 3D objects? I've heard some developers mention they're thinking about rendering their UI elements at what would be full resolution then rendering their 3D elements pixel doubled at 480x320 with even more lighting effects and antialiasing which might actually still look better even though it's a quarter of the pixels.

    Any thoughts?
     
  17. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    It's fantastic that iOS4 finally adds hardware AA support to iPhone and iPod touch devices. There is a performance cost (significant enough that we won't use the feature on older devices in Zen Bound 2), but ultimately it depends on the game itself if this can be used or not.

    Unlike the common view on Zen Bound, the objects aren't simple on the technical level. The base shape is simple, this is used by the rope collision physics. However, the visual polygonal geometry is not: it's actually a rather dense polygon mesh used to enable smooth paint spreading, the little bevels that catch the light in the corners of the object and a tactile unevenness on the surface which helps light reflect in a more natural manner.

    Also it must be kept in mind that there's potentially a mile of twine around the object (all dynamically generated geometry), which can easily double the poly count of the scene...

    I personally expect AA to be enabled in most upcoming iPhone games, the visual benefit is simply too great to ignore. Whether or not older games receive patches is up to the developers. Actually the visual benefit of AA makes most sense on the 3rd Gen devices... using it on the full-res Retina Display might just be a diminishing return compared to the performance cost.

    What remains to be seen is if game developers in general will stick to native resolution in their iPhone4 support or go with 480*320 with AA enabled for their 3D games. The latter should look darn good and allow the GPU on iPhone4 to work on nicer graphical effects or simply guarantee a smoother frame rate if the game so requires.

    We haven't yet decided how Zen Bound 2 will take advantage of the iPhone4 hardware. Being a studio on the back-end of nowhere brings the drawback of being nearly last in line to get new devices in stores (no iPads on sale here yet!). Once we have an iPhone4 in our hands, we'll determine how to make the best of its performance.

    Making Zen Bound 2 the most beautiful game on iDevices is our visual goal, after all ;)
     
  18. nikhsterboi

    nikhsterboi Well-Known Member

    Can't wait for submission! Been waiting for this one for awhile. Sorry if it's already been asked, but will Chillingo be publishing this one too?
     
  19. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    Thanks! It will be a while still, but we are slowly crawling to the finish line :)
    Zen Bound 2 will be self-published by Secret Exit.
     
  20. LN3000

    LN3000 Well-Known Member

    Nov 13, 2009
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    TARDIS
    This game is going to be AWESOME!! :D
    I love you, Secret Exit! :)

    Any news on the status of Cinnamon Beats?
     

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