Update! New teaser trailer released. 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. Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel 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. original announcement below: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm creating another thread about this separate from the main Gnomium thread, since I am announcing (technically) a new game that will pre-release Gnomium. This is meant to be announced tomorrow at the Salt Lake Gaming Con, but wanted to let the loyal fans at TA find out first. I'd like to announce Gnomium: Pocket Edition. A lighter, 'airier' version of Gnomium's unique gameplay for mobile. Featuring the gnome and his flying mine cart, this endless action puzzler challenges the player to mine and collect ore, coins and precious jewels from a magical letter grid in the sky. Using various grid manipulation skills, the player carefully (or brutally) amasses his fortunes through sequences of orderly destruction. Unlike most word games, Gnomium's core mechanic focuses on re-arranging words rather than finding them. In fact, the most efficient way to play is by not thinking of words at all, but rather the filling in of empty spaces to create larger word combinations. Pitted against a dynamic timer, the player must create and destroy valuable word groups to collect ore and produce copper, silver and gold coins. Coins can be combined (match-3-style) to produce higher level coins and gems. Breaking worthless words may help reset the timer, but will also increase the chance for stone tiles to drop into the grid. It's a fast-paced action puzzler, where every decision effects the level of difficulty. Can you open the diamond treasure chest? Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Features: * Same innovative game mechanics used in Gnomium. * Randomly generated everything. No two games are the same. * Dynamically timed play mode (play longer with greater skill) * Free-To-Play with non-intrusive incentivised ads. Some in-app currency purchasing options. * GameCenter integration. * In-grid unlockable chests. * Gifting mechanism featuring unique boosts only available through gifts. * Pickaxes, chisels, exploding buckets and magical popping mushrooms. * Unlockable gem boosts. Receive special boosts when certain gems are in the grid. * The 'Gnome-Cam', used to take and share funny snapshots of the gnome during gameplay. * Will also be available for Android and probably other mobile platforms. * Multiple play-modes in the works. * Removable 'credit' system based on the one introduced in Threes-Free. Note: The development of Gnomium (the official game) continues. We wanted to get a version of the Gnomium universe into your hands and pockets as soon as possible. Hence the Pocket Edition. The purpose is to whet your appetite for things to come. TouchArcade Article:: http://toucharcade.com/2015/08/06/gnomium-pocket-edition-trailer/ Facebook Page:: http://www.facebook.com/gnomium Twitter Accounts: https://twitter.com/Retrodigio https://twitter.com/BicPentameter YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTnnQyik2CjiG3J7KOMQXkw
Soonish Hi guys! So, there are a few things I still need to get into the game to call it good. Implementing and testing some of the boosters, more SFX, settings dialog, integrating game center, balancing rewards and dynamic difficulty settings. I anticipate going into a short beta phase in a couple of weeks and then launching soon after that. I anticipate that this will be submitted to the app store a month from now if not sooner depending on beta feedback. Will definitely keep you updated on progress and announce when the beta is available.
TA Article Thanks again Carter for writing a great 'upcoming' article on Gnomium: Pocket Edition! Check it out: http://toucharcade.com/2015/08/06/gnomium-pocket-edition-trailer/ p.s. [I am so tired. Pulling all-nighters crunching before a conventions is not a good idea.]
Back from Vacay... vectorarchitekt, thanks for asking! Sorry for the lack of updates this past week. After a rush of development and setup for the Salt Lake Gaming Con last weekend, my wife and I took our 6 kids on a long needed vacation up to Yellowstone before school starts this next week, a place where Internet access is 'flakey' to put it nicely. Overall, the game convention went very well, I would guess that over 150 people played the game, many of them for extended periods who provided some very valuable feedback and wanting to get their hands on the game as soon as they can. The nice thing about Gnomium is that even though it is technically a word game, very young children can play it without a blink. Words drive the mechanics but can be completely ignored. There were several small children who played the game for a long time and cheered when they broke a gold word chain or popped an explosive mushroom. There was a lot of great feedback on the Gnome and his personality even though I have not yet added several of the expressive animations. Here is a photo of the booth: The good news is, I've given a lot of thought to the gifting mechanic used inside of the Pocket Edition and am going to incorporate various 'hats' as gifts in lieu of gifting straight gems. These special hats, like the other unique boosters in the gifting bonuses are temporary and apply a bonus effect to gameplay. In addition, each hat applies a special color schema while being worn. I'll write more on this once I've implemented and few and can show some screens. Lots to do in the next couple of weeks in order to get this into your hands soon.
Damn Chris... Thanks so much for all the updates. Cool sign at your booth. Looking forward to buying and playing Gnomium.
Thanks Vectorarchiteckt and Wicked9146. Yes, life is very busy for this Dad. Gnomium is also a typical Indie project, being done outside of a normal Full-time day job, mainly a nighttime and weekend project. My day-job is also very fulfilling, but of course the dream would be to open an independent studio and just create awesome stuff all day with a team. We'll see. I've had a few emails asking about the differences between the standard Gnomium and the pocket edition. The best comparison I can make right now is between Dots and Two Dots. Dots was a fun, casual, timed puzzle that you could play again and again, trying to better your score, earn boosts, rinse repeat. The mechanics are fun, replay-able and offer very satisfying feedback. You can enter and exit gameplay quickly and you always know what to expect. Two Dots took the award-winning mechanics of Dots and turned it into a series of levels and challenges, wherein the player could progress over time, earning and unlocking levels, items and abilities. Gnomium PE will be similar, in a playable context, to Dots. You will be able to jump into a new game quickly, have a definitive goal (unlock as many chests as you can), earn gold, spend gold on boosters to improve gameplay, improve your score, beat your friends etc.. Gnomium will be much more of a progressive game with many levels, items, creatures, challenges and crafting. It will be progressive in nature, but replayable at any level, easily extensible with new levels, items, creatures and craft-ables. It will use the same mechanics and build upon those used in Gnomium PE. If you have played Gnomium PE, it will be very easy to play Gnomium when it is released.
Dev Update Buried in stuff lately with kids school starting and work deadlines. Still putting in hours on this late at night with the idea of getting it into your hands soon. Have re-vamped the 'boosting' system entirely to use 'items' instead as this reflects the same loot/bonus system used in the other Gnomium. The idea being, you find, buy or craft an item that sits in the grid and either performs a function (such as a Magic Wand, or Silver Pickax or Bucket O'Gold) or adds a passive effect to the gameplay such as a particular charm (Copper Mushroom) or special tile (Lucky Tile). I'm looking at 24 of these special items now (including hats) and adding proper animations, sfx and balances. Earning in-game-gold allows you to buy from a set of 12 items that will drop into the grid at the beginning of the next game and last for the duration of the game. The other 12 items are only available during gameplay through the 'gifting' mechanic, i.e. a gift drops in the grid on occasion, opening the gift gives the player the option to view a 15 second ad for one of 6 random items or 6 random hats. These last 12 items have a more powerful effect, but have a shorter duration.
Utah's Indie Game Scene Nice article published today about the Utah indie games scene in the Salt Lake City Tribune. Gnomium is mentioned about half way down. I know most of these great people, working hard on indie games. Wow what a life. http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment/2868322-155/upping-utahs-indie-gaming-scene?fullpage=1 In continue to plug away at the Pocket Edition, really polishing and balancing, especially with animations, SFX and overall game balance. Gnomium PE will feature a single play mode on release (with others following in updates). I've made a change to the initial play mode which was originally a 'dynamically-timed' mode, i.e. a 15 second game timer would reset every time you either broke a group of words or matched a set of coins/gems. The initial play mode is now more strategic. The timer being replaced with a fixed # of tiles (500). The opening of each chest rewarding the player with 500 additional tiles. The challenge increasing naturally as the requirements to open each new chest become greater. Any time-pressure come naturally from the short lifetime of copper and silver coins. A timer does appear once all of the player's tiles have been exhausted during the game, however the added benefit of being able to take a little more time to build up more valuable word groups feels very satisfying. Labor Day weekend will give me some great extra time to get a lot done.
Dev Update First, I've recently updated the Gnomium Thread with some news on progress for the original game (now called Gnomium: Rocky Woodlands). Gnomium Update Here is a quick burn down of the development progress for Gnomium: Pocket Edition. Continuing where I left off in the last update, namely polish, balance and the implementation of hats. The hats are really fun, temporary as they are, they cause the entire look of the game to change when being worn and have a temporary benefit. Think of how getting the 'star' in Super Mario Bros makes you temporarily invincible. Hats can have a similar effect. For example: The Shamrock Hat: Enables the green color schema, replaces clouds with floating animated shamrocks and adds a half-dozen lucky tiles to the grid. Lucky tiles yield in-game gold when broken, the amount of gold depending on the value of the word group they belonged to. So it's basically you chance to try and win a bunch of in-game gold for 30 seconds. The Miner's Hat: Enables the brown color schema, replaces clouds with boulders, small diamonds, pickaxes and chisels (looks like you're underground). All ore-yielding words that are broken during the 30 second duration yield 100% ore (4x the normal amount). This causes the Gnome to get knocked around a ton and fly out of the cart almost the whole time (very funny stuff). There is also a King's crown, Knight's helm, Wizards hat, Mushroom hat and Snail shell hat, each with their own unique color schemas and bonuses. Most recently I've been working on the Gnome's expressions/moods. Roland did a great job of delivering various sets of eyes and mouths that can be used in combination to express certain gnome moods or reactions during gameplay. They're funny and fantastic and add a ton of personality to game. I am working on the logic for tying moods to in-game events. Here is an enum defining the list of the moods I have identified so far with combinations of certain eyes and mouths: public enum GnomeMood { None, Any, // Content Moods Content, // Normal Eyes, Happy Mouth HalfContent, // Normal Eyes, Happy half-open Mouth SmugContent, // Content Eyes, Happy Mouth SmugHalfContent, // Content Eyes, Happy half-open Mouth CuriousUp, // Looking up Eyes, Happy Mouth CuriousDown, // Looking down Eyes, Happy Mouth CuriousLeft, // Looking left Eyes, Happy Mouth CuriousRight, // Looking right Eyes, Happy Mouth HalfCuriousUp, // Looking up Eyes, Happy half-open mouth HalfCuriousDown, // Looking down Eyes, happy half-open mouth HalfCuriousLeft, // Looking left Eyes, happy half-open mouth HalfCuriousRight, // Looking right Eyes, happy half-open mouth ContentWhistle1, // Normal Eyes, Whistle 1 ContentWhistle2, // Normal Eyes, Whistle 2 SmugWhistle1, // Content Eyes, Whistle 1 SmugWhistle2, // Content Eyes, Whistle 2 CuriousWhistle1, // Curious Eyes, Whistle 1 CuriousWhistle2, // Curious Eyes, Whistle 2 // Happy moods Happy, // Happy eyes, Happy mouth Chuckle, // Happy eyes, Happu half-open mouth Laugh1, // Happy eyes, Happy open mouth Laugh2, // Content eyes, Happy open mouth Laugh3, // Curious eyes, Happy open mouth Elated, // Big eyes, happy Mouth Eccstatic, // Big eyes, happy open mouth Yay, // Normal eyes, happy open mouth YayUp, // Looking up eyes, happy open mouth YayDown, // Looking down eyes, happy open mouth YayLeft, // Looking left eyes, happy open mouth YayRight, // Looking right eyes, happy open mouth HappyWhistle1, // Happy eyes, Whistle 1 HappyWhistle2, // Happy eyes, Whistle 2 // Sad moods Unhappy, // Normal eyes, Unhappy mouth UnhappyUp, // Looking up eyes, Unhappy mouth UnhappyDown, // Looking down eyes, Unhappy mouth UnhappyLeft, // Looking left eyes, Unhappy mouth UnhappyRight, // Looking righrt eyes, Unhappy mouth VergeOfCrying1, // Content eyes, Unhappy mouth VergeOfCrying2, // Curious eyes, Unhappy mouth ShockedVergeOfCrying, // Big eyes, Unhappy mouth HalfShockedVergeOfCrying, // Big eyes, Unhappy Open mouth ShockedUnhappy, // Big eyes, Angry mouth Sad, // Sad eyes, Sad mouth Cry, // Sad eyes, Angry mouth Disappionted, // Sad eyes, Normal mouth Disappionted2, // Sad eyes, Unhappy open mouth SurprisedSad, // Sad eyes, surprised mouth Devastated, // Sad eyes, terror mouth LetDown1, // Sad eyes, whistle 1 LetDown2, // Sad eyes, whistle 2 // Mad moods Terse1, // Suspicious eyes, Normal mouth Terse2, // Suspicious eyes, Unhappy open mouth Upset1, // Angry eyes, Normal mouth Upset2, // Angry eyes, Unhappy open mouth Angry, // Angry eyes, Unhappy mouth HalfAngry, // Suspicious eyes, Unhappy mouth Mad, // Angry eyes, Angry mouth HalfMad, // Suspicious eyes, Angry mouth Hootin, // Suspicious eyes, Surprised mouth Hollerin, // Angry eyes, Surprised mouth Explosive, // Angry eyes, Terror mouth Surly, // Angry eyes, Happy half-open mouth MadContent, // Angry eyes, Happy mouth Maniacal, // Angry eyes, Happy open mouth TickedOff1, // Angry eyes, Whistle1 TickedOff2, // Angry eyes, Whistle2 HalfTickedOff1, // Suspicious eyes, Whistle1 HalfTickedOff2, // Suspicious eyes, Whistle1 Doh, // Suspicious eyes, Surprised mouth // Surprised moods Dumbfounded, // Normal eyes, Unhappy open mouth DumbfoundedUp, // Looking Up eyes, Unhappy open mouth DumbfoundedDown, // Looking Down eyes, Unhappy open mouth DumbfoundedLeft, // Looking Left eyes, Unhappy open mouth DumbfoundedRight, // Looking Right eyes, Unhappy open mouth SuperDumbfounded, // Big eyes, Unhappy open mouth Shocked, // Normal eyes, Angry mouth ShockedUp, // Looking Up eyes, Angry mouth ShockedDown, // Looking Down eyes, Angry mouth ShockedRight, // Looking Right eyes, Angry mouth ShockedLeft, // Looking Left eyes, Angry mouth SuperShocked, // Big eyes, Angry mouth Surprised, // Normal eyes, Surprised mouth SurprisedUp, // Looking Up eyes, Surprised mouth SurprisedDown, // Looking Down eyes, Surprised mouth SurprisedLeft, // Looking Left eyes, Surprised mouth SurprisedRight, // Looking Right eyes, Surprised mouth SuperSurprised, // Big eyes, Surprised mouth Terrorized, // Normal eyes, Terror mouth TerrorizedUp, // Looking Up eyes, Terror mouth TerrorizedDown, // Looking Down eyes, Terror mouth TerrorizedLeft, // Looking Left eyes, Terror mouth TerrorizedRight, // Looking Right eyes, Terror mouth SuperTerrorized, // Big eyes, Terror mouth TakenBack, // Suspicious eyes, Surprised mouth Agast, // Content eyes, Surprised mouth Agast2, // Curious eyes, Surprised mouth Afraid, // Content eyes, Terror mouth Afraid2, // Curious eyes, Terror mouth // Sleepy/Bored moods Chill, // Bored eyes, Normal mouth Satisfied, // Bored eyes, Happy mouth SleepySpeak, // Bored eyees, Happy open mouth OutOfIt, // Bored eyees, Happy half-open mouth Complain, // Bored eyes, Angry mouth Bored, // Bored eyes, unhappy mouth Yawn, // Bored eyes, surprise mouth BigYawn, // Bored eyes, Terror mouth VergeOfSleep, // Bored eyes, Unhappy open mouth ChillWhistle1, // Bored eyes, Whistle1 ChillWhistle2, // Bored eyes, Whistle2 // Asleep moods Asleep, // Sleeping eyes, Normal mouth AsleepHappy, // Sleeping eyes, Happy mouth AsleepContent, // Sleeping eyes, Happy half-open mouth AsleepSad, // Sleeping eyes, Unhappy mouth SleepTalk, // Sleeping eyes, Happy open mouth DeepSleep, // Sleeping eyes, Unhappy open mouth Snore, // Sleeping eyes, Surprised mouth SnoreWhistle1, // Sleeping eyes, Whistle1 SnoreWhistle2, // Sleeping eyes, Whistle2 // Curious moods Curious, // Curious eyes, Happy mouth Curious2, // Curious eyes, Happy half-open mouth ReluctantlyCurious, // Curious eyes, Unhappy open mouth // suspicious moods Suspicious, // Suspicious eyes, Normal mouth Suspicious2, // Suspicious eyes, Happy half-open mouth Mischevious, // Suspicious eyes, Happy Mouth Bold, // Suspicious eyes, Happy open mouth } Here are a few screenshot from the latest build showing off the Gnome wearing various hats, their background effects and some new gnome expressions Surrounded by stars. Angry wizard Fly by Knight. Ore-surfing underground. Just weird. Luck o' the Irish. Thanks for reading, you are all awesome.
Artful Weekend. On top of all this Gnomium dev, life throws many other fun events at me this time of year. This last weekend was the annual Chalk the Block event at a local outdoor venue. My oldest daughter and I started a tradition of picking a favorite Calvin and Hobbs artwork to reproduce in one of 300 8'x10' parking spots allotted to registered artists. Here is what we produced this year in a little over 15 hours. Thought I'd share it here for any Calvin and Hobbs fans.
