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The program is called iNit, and it's an initiative tracker. It uses a d20 to roll init, so it will work for many RPGs. We're trying to get feedback from GMs, and I've been lucky enough to get feedback from Tycho(Jerry) from Penny Arcade already, but we're wanting more ideas to keep it a living project as we move forward. There's only two of us working on it, but we're trying to really implement smart things that make the DM's life easier. I had been using fantasy grounds a lot, and when I finally gathered up a local group to play, I found that using pen and paper was waaaay too unweildy; hence my desire to create the app.
Please, if you take a code and redeem it, post here so others know it's taken, but also please leave me some feedback with what you think.
Wife tried to use a code, could not find out how to use it (she's the one with the iphone) and ended up purchasing it. How were you supposed to use the codes? No one has said they used them?
Was this a marketing swing versus a call for help and support?
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It only surprised me up until around 1977, ... I had thought we were going to have a considerable audience of gamers and science fiction and fantasy fans. I thought easily with those we'd have 50,000 or more [buyers], but when people began to write me [with questions] about what fantasy books to read, and I saw the wide range of both younger and older people who were attracted to the game, I understood that it was reaching a deeper chord, something deep within us. E. Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 March 4, 2008)
I managed to redeem the code and download the app, but when I tried to sync it iTunes said that the app wasn't compatible with my iPod.
It's an iPod Touch 2nd generation.
Have you updated to 3.0 yet?
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It only surprised me up until around 1977, ... I had thought we were going to have a considerable audience of gamers and science fiction and fantasy fans. I thought easily with those we'd have 50,000 or more [buyers], but when people began to write me [with questions] about what fantasy books to read, and I saw the wide range of both younger and older people who were attracted to the game, I understood that it was reaching a deeper chord, something deep within us. E. Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 March 4, 2008)
Redeem is in the iTunes store page (if you can't find it, just search for Redeem in the iTunes store and it gives you a link) or if you're on the iphone, ipod itself, and have os 3.0+ installed, just click the more... button in iTunes and Redeem is the bottom choice.
Hjorimir, The program does allow for manual initiative and holding/delaying, simply change the bottom entry (init value) and it will reorder the list accordingly when you hit 'next turn'
Davethegame, I'd love a link
Hadrianthebuilder, I'm not sure we have room to output the 4 defenses on the main page, so drilling down might not be handy to get to them just to check them, but I'll see what I can do with that. There is an HP field specifically for tracking how much damage has been dealt to your monsters (just change it as they lose HP).. on our proposed upgrades, this may change to a starting HP/ current HP pair of fields to easily show on the main screen if the creature is bloodied, as well as it's current HP value.
As for entering init manually, simply set all the entry's 'Initiative value' to whatever you want them to be and hit 'next turn' and you're good to go.
MrFilthyIke: Definitely a call for help. I'm sorry that I couldn't respond fast enough to help you with the code, but hope you will still give feedback
I have not... Without getting into too much of a derailment, I was quite insulted when the first thing I saw after plugging my brand new iPod Touch into my computer was "Pay us $10 to upgrade to the newest version of our OS," and I refuse to buy it on principle.
If that is a requirement, you should probably make that more clear... There is no mention of it anywhere in the product's description; the only hint is that at the very bottom of the product's page it says it's tested on iPhone OS 3.0. Even there, it doesn't say anything about requiring it.
I looked it up on iTunes initially and it has 3.0 as a listed requirement...for what it is worth.
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It only surprised me up until around 1977, ... I had thought we were going to have a considerable audience of gamers and science fiction and fantasy fans. I thought easily with those we'd have 50,000 or more [buyers], but when people began to write me [with questions] about what fantasy books to read, and I saw the wide range of both younger and older people who were attracted to the game, I understood that it was reaching a deeper chord, something deep within us. E. Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 March 4, 2008)
I really need to avoid providing feedback when I'm tired...
I agree that showing the defenses in the initiative list is not feasible. But drilling down is fine
By "damage dealt" I mean that I should have fields for current HP, total HP and the bloodied value, but also a clear field that I can enter damage into. Once I've put a number into the "damage" field I click a button and it reduces the current hit points by that amount and resets the "damage" field.
And a new idea: if the Status FX field is not blank, then include the effect in the Alert message. Also, can you make a pull-down wuth common status effects, and an option for additional Status FX fields?
Now that I've gotten some sleep, I can see its trivial to manually enter an initiative
It also looks like I forgot to mention I am excited to see this app and I'm going to tell everyone I know about it.
Last edited by Hadrian the Builder; 9th July 2009 at 04:14 PM..
Asmor, I can definitely understand your reservations about plopping down the $10 for the upgrade; I had the exact same problem last year when I bought my iPod touch. I will say that the copy/paste features are pretty cost-valuable, but that's neither here nor there.
I don't think we compiled under 2.x, so 3.0 is definitely a requirement. The good news is that if you claimed the code, it will be there waiting should you ever decide to upgrade (which I would recommend at some point from a personal level, I think it's great imho). If it makes you feel any better, I paid the $10 when I bought mine, and then I paid $100 for 3.0 (to become a dev is $100, but I get 3.0 with it WHOO LOL).
Hadrian: I had a completely different layout designed in my head when I started the project, but my main coder and I found that the iPhone design layout is a bit more limited than we had imagined. So we can do some things, but it requires a lot of drilling down. One thing that I've got on our current upgrade list is similar to what you're saying. I think we're going to add a field called 'Starting HP' and leave the current 'HP' field. You'll drill down and change the current HP field when the monster takes damage, and it will compare the value. If it's half or less on the main screen, it will turn the HP display red (showing it's bloodied).
I get where you're going; I'll see if we can't work a damage calculator routine in.
The reason I was talking about the initial design I had envisioned was because in it, I had imagined listing status fx, editing the HP right on the status display without having to drill down and more. Putting the contents of the status fx field in the alert display is a good idea. I'm not sure if we're limited to text length in there, but we can find out
Just fyi for those following the thread; we DO intend on making savable/loadable encounters so you can preload rooms in advance, just have to drop your players in and go. To that end, I'm going to try to make it so you can designate one of those saves as your PC list, and be able to drop them at the touch of a button into any encounter. This is all a bit out, cuz there is only two of us, but we are working on it
We have a pretty healthy changelog already, but the feedback is giving us some really good ideas. Jerry/Tycho probably gave us our most interesting idea, and we're slaving away at implementing that now. Don't want to spoil the surprise just yet
But we're attempting to really make this an evolving/living app, because there is a lot of need for it for us poor GMs who don't want to use pen and paper for pnp games LOL!
GAH. Apparently in fixing one bug, we made another. I'll have to update my forums. Heads up, thanks to another board member, there is apparently a bug when two entries are on the same initiative, it simply cycles through those two entries and never moves on. You will have to adjust your inits manually to get rid of this error. This moves to the top of the changelog for 1.2.
I know we're two mac guys, but I know my coder does PC programming, as well. I'm thinking that we're gonna really try and nail this first, and perhaps when we're at 2.0 we'll look to porting it other places; but to be honest, especially if Tycho says something nice about us on PA, we're going to probably devote all our time to the iphone version since that's where the most demand will be. But I will definitely talk it over. If it's simple and he's game, no problem. So watch this space and I'll let you know.
Okay, I've downloaded and played around with the application. While I appreciate the effort, I won't be using iNit in it's current form. Here is what I'd like to see:
1) I don't want to have to have HPs on the tracker as I find them distracting and I'd never track HPs on the iTouch (I can track them on paper much, much faster and I always need to scribble down notes about conditions anyway).
2) I want an easy way to delay or ready an action...without having to drill down and reset the character's initiative number. I guess I envisioned may two buttons per character labeld [d] and [R] that I could toggle and just tap again when they character reinserts.
3) I would absolutely need the app to keep entries (PCs and a list of NPCs that I preloaded) ready to go so that when I hit 'New Encounter' I don't have to enter everything again. Maybe create a way to designate entries as PCs (and thus always included in an encounter) and a sub-screen of a list of NPCs that I have pre-loaded that I could add to the encounter with a single click. Obviously, if I could pre-load full encounter sets as well, that'd be even better.
We currently use 3x5 cards (turning the card when a character is on a Ready and pulling the card out when the character is on Delay). This is very, very fast at the table. I'd want iNit to be simply faster and easier. As it stands now, it would feel like a distraction to the game as I noodle around with my iTouch instead of paying attention to the players.
Hope that helps and I'll keep looking for updates.
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It only surprised me up until around 1977, ... I had thought we were going to have a considerable audience of gamers and science fiction and fantasy fans. I thought easily with those we'd have 50,000 or more [buyers], but when people began to write me [with questions] about what fantasy books to read, and I saw the wide range of both younger and older people who were attracted to the game, I understood that it was reaching a deeper chord, something deep within us. E. Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 March 4, 2008)
Last edited by Hjorimir; 9th July 2009 at 06:13 PM..
Just fyi for those following the thread; we DO intend on making savable/loadable encounters so you can preload rooms in advance, just have to drop your players in and go. To that end, I'm going to try to make it so you can designate one of those saves as your PC list, and be able to drop them at the touch of a button into any encounter.
Oh man...I didn't even think of that one! I love it!
What's it been like to develop iphone apps and get them on the iTunes store? How many hours have the two of you put in so far to get the app where it is now? Are you both experienced programmers?
(to become a dev is $100, but I get 3.0 with it WHOO LOL).
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