Nymia 1.5

The most noticeable change in this version is the addition of remote item placement. This may end up being a temporary change, but I think it’s needed to spur engagement in the social aspect of the game. Players can now place items remotely, but not with precision. This is intentional for a couple reasons:

1. To have a chance of being collected, remote items need to be placed near other players. Exact player locations must be hidden to protect their privacy.
2. To ensure that remote items are placed in appropriate locations, i.e. not on private property, unsafe areas, etc. they will be placed using my own algorithm.

Player locations will only be revealed the city level, and no identifying information will be visible when placing a remote item. Once placed, items will appear within .5 km of the remote player’s last known location. Placers will have two options:

1. They can place an item near a randomly chosen player.
2. They can place an item near the same remote player they chose last time. This allows players to create quests or other challenges that might require more than one item.

The next big change is not yet fully realized, but I think it will be pretty cool when it gets integrated. I have added an “action” property to each item. Now when you create a challenge, you can require that the player use an action instead of a particular item. For example, if a player needs to cut a rope, they might choose to use a knife, a sword, or scissors. All would possess the “Cutting” action. Actions also have a power attribute. If a particularly thick rope needs to be cut, scissors might not work because scissors have a cutting power of 1, while a cutting power of 2 might be needed. A challenge creator may also decide that a particular item is needed rather than an action. If the rope is enchanted, perhaps only the Loxorac Sword is able to cut it. One problem I have not figured out yet is that of item crafting. A player who is able to craft items could theoretically craft any item with the action required to complete a challenge. There aren’t may players at Level 15 yet, though, so I have some time to think about this. Ideas for solutions are welcome.

Other changes:

• Gifts can now be sent using a player’s username as well as email.
• I have added a whole bunch of new NPCs to choose from.
• I am slowly replacing old cartoony graphics with better images.
• I have added and/or fixed the pages for crafting items, enemies, and NPCs.
• I have added the ability to designate a quest marker as occurring in the “Middle” of a quest. I previously had only “Start”, “End”, or “Both.” The addition of “Middle,” will allow me to create a better record of quest progress. I haven’t finished that yet, but having a “Middle” marker is a step in that direction.
• There is now a “Preferences” page. This allows players to choose options for notifications, sound, and even enemy spawns. The default setting is for enemies to randomly spawn after 5 minutes of activity. Ambitious players can now boost enemy spawns to every 2 minutes.
• Many little tweaks and bug fixes.

Lot’s more to do. Onward!

Major update coming soon

Ok, I’m not sure what counts as “major,” but I’m working on a bunch of changes all at once. Some are bug fixes, some are new features, and some are features that I half-assed until now. I’m hoping to have the update ready in a week or two. Of course making this many changes at once means a bunch of new bugs will undoubtedly creep in. I’m a one-man show, so there is no one to help me test except the players. I’m hoping to keep bugs to a minimum, but if past is prologue, bugs will be unavoidable. If you build it, they will come. Stay tuned…

Newest Updates

It’s been a while since I have posted! Here’s what I’ve been working on.

• I added about 80 new villains.
• I *think* I fixed an issue that was causing enemies and daily items to sometimes spawn twice.
• I added a feature that allows you to send a gift to another player. This is partly just a way to refer a friend to the game, but I also wanted to encourage more interaction between players. Gifts seemed like an easy way to start. The gift delivery system can also serve as in-game messaging between players. You have to know the other player’s email address, though. I may change that in the future.
• I did some work to improve the crafting of new items. This won’t effect most players yet because you have to have achieved a fairly high level to unlock crafting, but it works a lot better now.

Next up is the addition of remote item placement. I have already received a little pushback on this. The argument is that a location-based game should only allow local interactions. I agree in theory, but at this point in the game’s evolution, there are just not enough players. At its core, Nymia is intended to be a social game. For it to work correctly, there would need to be many players in your area. That’s just not happening yet. Placing items for other players is an important part of the game. There is no incentive to place an item if there is no one nearby to find it, so remote placement is designed to kick-start the placement of items. I really want to see what challenges players can come up with. If the game gains more players, I may roll back remote placement – either eliminating it entirely, making it an unlocked skill later in the game, etc. We’ll have to see how it evolves.

I’m also still pondering how to improve XP rewards for placing items. I have some ideas, but nothing final yet. Stay tuned.

An expensive typo

I don’t have time for a full post today, but if you tried to play Nymia last night and were assaulted by thousands of map markers generating around you, the issue is now fixed. There was a typo in my code, causing about 50,000 lanterns to generate in a short period of time, and leading to *hundreds of millions* of database reads. Ouch. This hobby suddenly got more expensive. Anyway, the daily challenge items are back up and running. Let me know if you run into any issues!

Nymia 1.2.7

The biggest change in this version is the addition of differentiated map markers representing the location types: Trading Posts, Enemies, NPCs, and Items. Each of those four has a different color, and include icons showing what category of item is found at that location. All enemies are protecting items. Some NPCs will give you an item, but not all of them.

A potential problem: Adding the differentiated map markers is resulting in a warning when testing the app in debug mode. Everything seems to work fine, but the warning concerns me. It refers to a memory issue. I have no experience with memory problems, so I’m crossing my fingers for no crashes. I don’t want to have to go down that rabbit hole. 🙂

Fixed a bug that was congratulating players too early for completing a quest.

Fixed a bug that was preventing enemies from spawning.

Fixed a bug that was freezing accounts after placing a first trading post.

Fixed a couple other minor bugs.

Next up: alerts for when an enemy spawns nearby and the ability to place items in far-off lands.

Nymia 1.2.6

Latest updates:

• I have scaled down the initial items that generate around a new user. Instead of 71 items covering a radius of 5km, there are now 50 items covering a radius of 2km. It seems that 5km was a bit far and users were not getting out to the quest items. I’m hoping 2k gives a better distribution.
• The leaderboard is gone for now
• There is now a page about your current area. There is more to come on this, but if you are interested in keeping the area you named intact, the page will give you a sense of how to do that.
• Items protected by an enemy now just show the enemy on the map and the level required to collect the item. You will need to fight the enemy to find out what they are protecting.
• Daily challenge items are live. Every day, a low-value item is generated near your location. You should receive a notification telling you what it is. If you collect 5 in any given week, you receive a reward.
• If you have the app open for 5 minutes, an enemy now spawns near your location. Each enemy will drop an item when defeated. Enemy strength should be comparable to your own. Some will be easier to beat than others, but none should be impossible if you have the right weapons. Combat still needs some work, but this may help get the ball rolling.

That’s all for now. Upcoming: custom markers, enemy alerts, remote item placement.

Upcoming Changes

Here’s a preview of upcoming changes (or just a to-do list for me if no one else reads this):

Update 1:

• I’m going to remove the leaderboard for now. I need to find a way to make it more dynamic. Right now the same people are always at the top.
• I’m going to customize map markers so that they are not all uniform. Each item type / trading post / NPC will have its own marker type.
• I’m also going to add a page with more information about the area you are currently in, including how well protected the area is from incursion. Lemme explain: when you create a new area, by default the area is a hexagon with a 5km radius. If a trading post is placed nearby, however, a new area can be created that may steal away some of your land. Placing trading posts strategically within your area can protect against this kind of incursion. Area control is not a big issue in the game right now, but I hope that as more players join, you will want to retain control of the area you have named.
• The biggest change in the next update will be the addition of daily/weekly challenges. Every day, a specific item will be generated near the player’s last known location. If the player collects 5 out of 7 of these items during the week, they will get a prize.

Update 2

• When a player is active (criteria TBD), I will generate an enemy nearby to fight. The enemy will drop a small reward if defeated. I’m hoping this will make the game more active, especially if you are not in an area that has a lot to do.

Update 3

• I’m going to allow users to place an item near a random player across the globe. An appropriate location will be chosen by the game, but the placer will be able to add a password, notes, etc. One thing missing from Nymia right now is a community of players. A lot of the fun I have in mind is dependent on having enough players. At this time it is unlikely you will find other players in your area, so playing across the globe might be a good way to get a start on the social side of the game.
• I’m also going to restructure the incentives for placing items. Right now, your reward for placing an item is zero if it is claimed within 24 hours (essentially you are just giving the item to another player), moderate if it is claimed between 2-5 days, and high if it is claimed between 6-30 days. The idea was that challenging placements would take longer to collect and that challenging placements were more fun to find. I never loved this system, but it was the best I had at the time. For this update, I’m going to try a different system and see if I can improve on the idea.

Update 4

• I’m going to add a feature to the “challenge items.” Side note – I may need some terminology changes because now I have two features that use the word “challenge.” Right now, there are certain items you can only access if you have another item equipped. Example: in the tutorial, you free a trapped turtle using a knife. You wouldn’t be able to do so with scissors, a sword, or even a different knife. In this update, I will give each item properties that can then be used to accomplish tasks. For example: scissors, knife, sword will all share a “cutting” property. You will be able to use any item that cuts to meet the challenge. There will also be an associated strength to the property. So scissors may have a cutting strength of 2 while a sword has a cutting strength of 7. I’m still working out the details, but I’m excited to try it.

I may get sidetracked along the way, but this is my general plan for the next few updates. Wish me luck!

1.2.0

A bunch of bug fixes and three major changes:

1. I added a tutorial. A comment I have received several times is that some players aren’t sure what to do. I’m hoping the tutorial will provide a better intro to the game.
2. I reconceptualized “locations” as “trading posts.” I think the idea of trading posts is more intuitive and can still work with my original concept for locations (i.e. that they define territorial borders and signify noteworthy real-world places). Trading Posts now cost also cost more to place. The cost is 10 times the number of Trading Posts already placed. This should force placers to be more strategic about their placements. I have also introduced the idea of Trading Post “prestige,” which is its initial cost plus the number of days it has existed, divided by 10. Prestige will be a factor in how much XP a player earns when visiting. It may be used for other game play mechanisms down the line, but that’s it for now.
3. I have reorganized the leveling requirements and bonuses. The main reason was to give players more to do while the game gains traction. You should now be able to get to level 11 without any other players in your area. I want people to recruit friends, but I needed more runway to allow that to happen.

Nymia 1.1.1

I just finished making some big changes based on feedback from early players. There is still a lot more feedback to address, but I think these changes will help people get started.

1. Previously, trading posts only became active when three players had visited. Now trading posts will be active as soon as a player names a location. This lets players earn money and purchase items immediately. Initially, the offerings at trading posts will be pretty meager. Each time a player visits the location, another item is added (once per day per player) and the longer a location has existed, the more valuable the items you will find there.
2. Previously, automatically-generated items were only placed in parks. Now items will also be placed along residential streets and paths. I did not want to endanger users by making them walk into the street, but I have addressed that by only using residential streets (which are theoretically safer) and….
3. I have doubled the detection radius for claiming items and visiting locations. This should allow you to claim an item from across a street and should help with the frustrations of imprecise GPS.
4. The first time you log in, 5 items will now appear within 200m of your location. The closest one could be right outside your door. People were pointing out that they had to walk too far to figure out what the game was about. This should make those first steps a lot easier.
5. I have added a button called “Explore.” This pulls up a menu that includes training, quests, geography, and leaderboard.
6. Geography is a new function that allows you explore the wider world of Nymia. The main map page only shows you what is in your immediate area. Geography will allow you to see map markers and areas all over the world.
7. The leaderboard shows the top player in several different categories. There is still a long way to go to encourage competition in Nymia, but this is a first step in that direction.

To come soon:

1. I’m still refining the distribution of starting items. I now have more flexibility due to using streets as well as parks. I don’t want all the items to be *too* close to players because a) exploring is supposed to be part of the fun and b) I want to build the game community. I have a lot of work to to on building the community, but providing a bubble of items around each player is not going to help. That said, I’m working on finding a balance between those considerations and giving new players enough to do. (It’s also a little tricky because real-world geography varies so much. I need an algorithm that works for everyone.)
2. I’m going to ditch the “training” and “orientation” sequences in favor of a more detailed “tutorial.” Another bit of feedback I have received is that players don’t understand what the game is about and/or don’t know what to do first, second, etc. I’m working on a step by step tutorial to get players started.

Releasing more widely

Having received some good feedback from early testers, I am ready to release Nymia more widely. The biggest problem for testers in this round was related to connectivity and lagging. I have made some improvements in this regard and the map should load a lot more reliably now. We are still at the mercy of GPS and data speeds, but I’m hoping the improvements will enhance playability. I received a lot of feedback with design ideas: some game-based, and some graphics-based. Graphics are not my strength, so those will have to wait. I will have to think about the game ideas. Part of the current design is that the game gets layered in as you level up, but that can leave new players wondering what to do. I need to find ways to get new players hooked in faster.

Right now, there is a training stage with four very simple tasks to complete. This stage is to acquaint players with the basic elements of the game. Once you have completed training, you unlock three starting quests. The quests are more difficult, but are hopefully fun to complete and reveal more of the game’s potential. I’m hoping that the quests will inspire players to level up and get deeper into the game. Maybe making the quests visible from the start would entice players better… I’ll think about that. Another thought: right now, when you open up the game, you should see a group of about 78 markers in your area. You need to tap on each to see what’s there. If players don’t tap around enough, they may not find the items they are interested in finding. I played with custom markers for each item type, but I have dropped that for the moment to deal with more immediate concerns. Currently, there is a slider element that is unlocked at Level 13. The slider filters the map markers by item value. It might be worth making this available at a lower level, or to implement other filters for finding monsters, weapons, etc. I’ll think about that, too.

Once I advertise Nymia to a wider group (this week hopefully), I’ll undoubtedly have a new round of bugs to fix, but after that, here’s what’s on deck:

1. Notifications when another player collects an item you placed or visits a place you named.
2. A leaderboard that shows the top players in your area and around the world.
3. Some way to show players where else in the world Nymia is being played. I can’t show all markers at once because that’s too much data, but eventually I hope to employ marker clustering for a smooth zoom out experience. The first step might be an additional map view showing just the general areas where players are located.

Please comment if you have any ideas or feedback!