TouchArcade Article: http://toucharcade.com/2015/05/19/gnomium-trailer/ Retrodigio LLC would like to announce the production of it's upcoming iOS game - Gnomium! There has been over a years worth of effort poured into this lovely game by myself (Chris Crabtree) and award-winning Tiny Thief™ artist Roland Vinh. Gnomium has been designed for all ages and features many unique game mechanics. Help your gnome amass a fortune in precious ores, coins and jewels on his quest to unveil the secrets of the rare element Gnomium. Discover various tools, magical items, hats and creatures that aid or hinder your progress along the way. This unique word action-puzzler pits the player against the clock to fill a mine-cart with precious ores by forming and breaking chains of words filled with copper, silver or gold. Meet the requirements of the mine-cart to collect your loot and move on to greater and more rewarding challenges. Unlock treasure chests, discover secret doors and collect and wear magically imbued hats that effect the game play. Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Features: * Innovative new game mechanics (I know, I know, everyone says that. But really!) * 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. * A variety of collectible game-changing hats. * In-grid unlockable chests, doors. * Several in-grid items, tools and creatures that influence game-play. * Buckets! * Designed to be expanded extensively (and believe me, there is a lot to come). * Will also be available for Android. Other platforms very likely. * Beta testing early Summer 2015. Official Facebook page: http://facebook.com/Gnomium Twitter Accounts: https://twitter.com/Retrodigio https://twitter.com/BicPentameter YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTnnQyik2CjiG3J7KOMQXkw TouchArcade Article: http://toucharcade.com/2015/05/19/gnomium-trailer/ PocketGamer Article: http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Android/Gnomium/news.asp?c=65459 We Indies live or die by comments, questions, feedback, well-wishes and I-wishes! This game is on fast track to beta. We'll keep you updated here with additional screenshots, videos and other news. Stay tuned!
This looks interesting! Love the graphics and sound effects. I'll be looking forward to your game's development. Good luck!
Thanks Locomoco! Sound design and animation are definitely cause for some good times away from coding itself. These kinds of projects definitely keep you on the edge (of sleep, or lack thereof). I think that having the right music is a BIG deal, and you've probably noticed this 'big deal' missing in the video. I've always considered composing the music myself (I do that too!) but am open to ideas others may have when watching the gameplay video (i.e. needs cheerful-bouncy or moody atmospheric?). Kind regards, Chris
Wow! Composing your own music too?! Wish I had that much talent! I have deep respect for you developers who put so much time and effort into your games. It's paying off because this game looks great. Judging from the art of the game, my vote is for cheerful bouncy music. I'll be looking forward to your game's release.
Thanks again Locomoco. I tend to agree with the cheerful bouncy, perhaps mario-ishy. I'll iterate until it's just right.
Hi Jellybeans12345, Good question. I anticipate releasing it sometime this summer. I'll know more once we get into beta and give people a chance to break everything The goal for beta is mid June. Thanks for asking!
Gnomium Demo at Utah Indie Games Night on May 20th If you live in the Utah, you might be interested to know that we'll be demoing Gnomium on Wednesday, May 20th at 7:00pm at UVU in the CS building room 404. Event details can be found from our FB page below. Thanks! https://www.facebook.com/events/1563822393869655/
10 Shades of Gnome. Working on the various emotions this Gnome can thrown down during gameplay. With the proper combo of eyes, mouths, head, body, arms and leg animations, this could be yield dozens of in-game reactions to player actions and progress.
cute gnomes... usually, I'm not into word games since my english vocab isn't good enough. However, the gameplay looks really unique and make me curious enough to try. Looking forward for this
Hi Copaeci, Thanks for the feedback! The funny thing is, it's a word game, but would better be stated as "It's a game that uses words." You can play the entire game without even thinking about a single word. In fact. Let me explain the game rules and mechanics (which I should've done initially): - There is a grid of random letter tiles. - You can manipulate the tiles by sliding rows or columns or tapping any two tiles to swap them. - The grid is a 'smart grid', it finds and forms the best words automatically whenever you make changes to the grid. - Words can flow horizontally left-to-right or vertically up-to-down, a word can bend down against the right border or right against the bottom border. - Wherever horizontal or vertical words cross, they connect and form a word-group. - Words and Word-groups are like puzzle pieces, they are affected by gravity and can be shifted horizontally or vertically (up) wherever there is room to move them within the grid. This is the 'word' mechanic or rules that are use by the grid engine to find and form word-groups. You really don't even have to think about this while playing, as your main action will be sliding and fitting word groups together in hopes of creating larger groups or 'ore-yielding' groups. It feels a lot more like playing Tetris than a word game. Letter tiles have an associated value assigned to them. Think Scrabble, where every letter has a weighted value according to frequency within the English language. Vowels have a value of 1, where the most infrequent letters (J, Q and X) have a value of 10, and everything else is somewhere in between. All words/word-groups are breakable (except for stone words/word-groups) by tapping on them. Only word-groups that meet or exceed a certain total value will yield an amount of ore. For example, a copper word group must contain letters who's total value exceed 20. A silver group exceeds 55 etc.. These ore-yielding groups also produce 1 or more coins when broken. These coins can then be matched (match-3 style) to form more valuable coins and gems. So, to make this short (um, this is short?), the game uses words, though you can attempt to make words yourself, you probably won't because you'll be playing with the puzzle mechanics built upon the word mechanics. Now when you watch the video again, this will make more sense. Kind regards, Chris
One thing..TouchArcade is awesome. Thanks for the killer article on our upcoming game! http://toucharcade.com/2015/05/19/gnomium-trailer/ We also look forward to you popping tiles like bubble wrap. We'll keep you all frequently updated on our progress in this forum. Stay tuned!
I am such a sucker for popping bubble wrap! I'm getting even more impatient for this game's release. Will definitely be counting down the days.
Thanks vectorarchiteckt, locomoco, Valentia and liteking! liteking, I'll create a new thread announcing when the beta has begun. You can also shoot me an email and I'll add you to a list of people to contact when the beta begins. retrodigio-at-gmail.com
I love word games! But I understand this is not a typical word game I'm used to play (currently enjoying Languinis and still my favorite Highrise Heroes). I'm also a fan of match-3 genre, tetris and basicly any other puzzle game out there I'll keep an eye on upcoming thread for a beta, I'd love to be a part of the team if possible, so I'll shoot an email your way just in case to remind myself. Good luck with the game. From what I've seen it's gonna be something truly unique. I especially love the crazy sounds. They complements the hectic gameplay perfectly!
Thanks macplash! Yes, this is really a mash-up of word, match-3, tetris, puzzle, craft etc.. which honestly, was never the intention, but the game just sort of evolved in a natural direction. The cool thing is that it doesn't feel awkward or forced, the mechanics all blend and build upon one another very nicely and allow for a consistent game progression. I like the SFX too! Though I still have so much to add and tweak. It really makes a difference in how the game feels.
Fan Art Just received our first Gnomium Fan Art from a fan named Katie. Thanks Katie! Also, we've had almost 700 views of our first gameplay video in the last 48 hours. Many thanks to TA for the publicity. Working hard on Gnomium. Recently fixed some tricky issues on mobile. Added the dynamic timer and timer animations, end-game dialogs and refactored much of the underlying UI systems. More video and screenshots coming soon.
