Hey guys...well, last week was the Game Developer's Conference and we met a bunch of cool people! By the way, the app most passed around was Flight Control so it was no surprise to us it jumped to number one! Kudos to them. Pocket God has been doing great and over a month in either the number one or number two spot which has meant GREAT sales and solidified the continued development and life of PG. The update-a-week is getting more and more difficult for a few reasons...
The game engine needs a bit of a tune-up. We have finally conquered file size issues but there's some run-time issues popping up (don't forget to restart your iPhone/iPod!), but before we can add anything significant we have to optimize the graphics engine to handle more features. Never fear, we are on it! Also, going forward we want to elevate PG with some major new features, including a stats system, and that will take a bit more development time than an average feature. Thirdly we are starting to integrate a beta of "Open Feint", a community chat/leader-board system., which is WAY cool, but we are unsure of how it will be received by everyone. As long as there is a wi-fi connection, people should be able to use it to chat with other Pocket God players. Also, our first release of this will include a kill-count board. Create an account and login (right in Pocket God), it will automatically start telling you how many islanders have bitten the big one. Very cool!
Anyway, we are still pushing weekly updates but trying to do it strategically in a way that doesn't interfere with our optimization to allow for bigger and better features. So if you can bear with us, we are trying to stay true to the streak we've had so far. There have been some amazing suggestions in this blog and the forums that I think we can use to accomplish this. The next few updates should reflect this. So if we haven't implemented one of the biggies (Tsunami? bigger world?), this is why.
"Something's Fishy" should be out by tomorrow. And we have just finished our latest "March of the Fire Ants"....which will be the first update with the new "Open Feint" chat and leader-board system. Be sure to let us know what you think of it.
P.S. I am behind on adding contest entries to Flickr! Tomorrow I will make it a priority!
looking forward to something fishy and definitely the fire ants!
ReplyDeletenot sure what to think of the open feint thing, guess I'll have to see it first.
but please bring back slide-the-weather! hurricanes are cool and all, but having to fiddle with the menu (beyond turning features on and off overall) is just not working. we need slide-the-weather back!
can't wait for the ants...
Awesome open feint is what ive been waiting for. Kill count=genius
ReplyDeletecant wait till it comes out. pocket god is my fav app/game, I have no wifi in my area so i gotta wait till collage to test out the new open feint thing is.
ReplyDeleteIn the future would it be possible to dress your own islanders and show them off to others via wifi? or maybe even have fights to win over new islands :)
YEA! That's definately the same problem I have with the weather, I liked to change it by myself and sliding the clouds in front of the sum. Additionally I would really apreciate a bigger islan or greater demands by the islanders (for food or so). Maybe they could use a boat to settle a second island but all in all a nice game :-)
ReplyDeleteYEA! That's definately the same problem I have with the weather, I liked to change it by myself and sliding the clouds in front of the sum. Additionally I would really apreciate a bigger islan or greater demands by the islanders (for food or so). Maybe they could use a boat to settle a second island but all in all a nice game :-)
ReplyDeleteHey Bolt Creative! I have an idea for a future update on pocket god. I think that when the time comes for the pygmies to move out of their small island to a gargantuan one that the giant island should have a different mechanic to it. Such as you have to lead the pygmies through a giant forest and not let them get eaten by cheetahs, and other island animals and obstacles. There could also be hidden items and such behind leaves and trees that you could put on your small island! Allllllso when you reach the center of the island there should be a giant pygmy temple! I think you know what to do from there. So please take my idea into consideration Bolt Creative! Fantastic job on pocket god keep it up!!!!!
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for Something Fishy!!!!
ReplyDeletePlease add tasks and point system before the open feint.
Can't wait for Fire Ants!!!!!!!!
You must be working very hard! This is great news about some of these updates! Maybe bring weather slide back also. But keep hurricane
ReplyDeleteevery hour of today iv been refreshing my applications list for updates, When do you think the update will be available?
ReplyDeletecant wait for something fishy & fire ants they sound awesome!!! I agree with the majority-bring back the option to change weather by sliding finger. Is the open feint going to be an online points system, cuz if so that would rule!!! With the updates i think they should start gettong bigger and making the pocket god expierence last longer, cuz at the moment i do get bored with pocket god after 10 mins. Not to say i dont love it, kuz i do, but it does get slightly repetitive.
ReplyDeleteOne guys idea about the note in a bottle as an easter egg to the game sounded cool, maybe you could do a series of them and make it a bit of a game to find them.
Just some ideas lol, keep up the great work bolt creative!!! :D
PLEASE DO NOT ADD FEINT SYSTEM AS THE PURPOSE OF THEM GAME IS TO HAVE FUN ON THE ISLAND AND NOT GET COMPETIVE. IT WILL ONLY MAKE THE GAME SLOWER AND MAKE UPDATES LESS FREQUENT. BEFORE CONSIDERING FEINT ADD MORE UPDATES AND CONCENTRATE ON THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THE GAME
ReplyDeleteKu...thanks for weighing in! Dave is still testing Feint, but if it slows the game down...we will have to really rethink things. It is an experiment you can participate in, or not though. I appreciate your feedback. We hope people will let us know. I think in the release we are going to put he caveat that we may not keep it if it isn't well received. We felt compelled to try it because of the heavy community involvement. We thought Feint would compliment it for that reason. Hopefully this doesn't upset anyone, but the more popular PG has gotten, the more difficult it has been to please everyone! Frankly, I am more worried about fine-tuning the graphics engine so we can add better features!
ReplyDeletei agree with ku....don't add it. it will be to competitive and it will be too much of a game. also make it so you can change the clouds with swiping your finger PLEASE. make the toggle the ability to swipe...not a toggle of on or off. please please please!!!! please reply, you haven't replied to one of my comments in a while!!!
ReplyDeleteEASTER EGGS!!!
i agree that you should bring back the slide weather!
ReplyDeleteand you should also bring back dropping the shark on the pygmie's heads.
i liked doing that and now i can't. :(
good jobbbb y'all <3333333 MUAHHHH
u cant do that? weird cause i still can...thy aiming better
ReplyDeleteyou still cant drop the shark on its head...also you have the power to opt out of the open fient and it keeps the game going remember that and Ellen Degeneres??
ReplyDeleteHey Dave,
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you know, but I left a PM on your touch arcade account.
Any reply would be greatly appreciated!
A quik idea... If u end up doing the open fient, could islands imteract? Mabey war between the islands, but the almighty god (me hahahahahah)
ReplyDeleteWould try to finish off the others with lightning amd such...
I think it would be awesome to have a feature to make the pygmies fight against you. For example if you pick up a pygmie, other pygmies will throw you coconuts to make you stop doing that. Theres a video on youtube called "animation vs. animator" something like that.
ReplyDeleteThank you Simon Witton! Im glad someone else liked my note in the bottle idea. The idea is
ReplyDelete"After playing the game for like 10 minutes a bottle will float by in front of the island. You could pick it up and drop it on the pygmy's head like the cocoanut. The bottle would break and their would be a note in it like a message in a bottle. You could make the note say whatever you want it to. I think that this would be a great easter egg to add to the game. You shouldn't say anything about this in the update, so that people will have to figure this out on their own.
I thought of some ideas of what the note should say. You should make the note-
Tell you what the next update is
Give you a hint to another hidden easter egg that we have to find (I think this idea is the best)
Or do anthing else that you would like it to do.
By the way, the fishing update sounds awesome! I hope it comes out soon.
hi,
ReplyDeleteI think that the kill count bord is very cool,
it would be nice if it was like this:
Kill with
10 shark
40 vulcano
20 wind
40 lighting bold
such as this would be very nice and cool let the update come very fast now!!!!!
hey, i'm still waiting in exitement... here in norway the clock is almost eleven pm... i've been in and out in the appstore all day and i really wanna know when it is released
ReplyDeletewhen is this update coming its been 9 days why is this happning i cant believe this what site has the updates date
ReplyDeletei would like for an update date ive been on my computer and i pod all the time to see when i would love a update date and i have many good ideasd for other updates new ones not old ones every one keeps saying if you want to hear them email me at dman4421@comcast.net
ReplyDeleteI cant get the app to open for 1 sec then it just crashes on me. Does anyone have any idea why that might be? Thanks
ReplyDeleteNever mind i found it!!
ReplyDeleteHint: something to do with a picture on this page....