Looking better than ever!
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 06:37:53 AM

The power of a strong foundation

This announcement has been months in the making. After reworking the engine entirely, new visuals are now available!

Back in October during the Kickstarter campaign, you may have noticed that procedural generation, terraforming and gameplay were shown separately. Here's why: most features had been prototyped, and although they were each working on their own, they were having a hard time working together. Now everything works smoothly at the same time. We're very happy to announce that we have successfully integrated the features shown in the Kickstarter into the reworked engine, as well as added new features, now with more potential for the future (the Codex for example).

Forest and plains procedural generator

These two biomes are proof of concept in the new build; now that they are working well, it will be a lot faster to improve upon, and develop new biomes. We will soon have feedback directly from you, so improvements on features and visuals can be implemented accordingly. 

Roads and water streams

As you can see in the video, roads and water can be hand drawn quite easily, and the environment will adapt to their placement. This feature is rather basic at present, but the hardest part of the job is done. Now we will turn our focus to building upon and beautifying the whole thing: the road material will be better looking, posts will appear at crossroads, gravel, rocks and grass will blend the road into the surrounding environment, etc. 

Growing Discord community

Our Discod channel just passed the 3K members mark and keeps on growing! As soon as the beta is released, we will open new channels for you to share your maps, tips and creations. Our VIP channel just had a private showing of the engine, so don't hesitate to join us there for more exclusive content in the future. 

Is the June release timeframe still valid?

This is a question that was asked of our tech team a few days ago, and the answer is still yes. The likeliness of delivering our first beta in June is around 70%, so very likely. We will remain open with you in case of any necessary future updates to this timeframe. 

Having an early build delivered to high tier backers by June is almost guarenteed . 

More will be coming soon, so stay tuned! 

The Menyr team

Busy February!
about 3 years ago – Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 09:56:57 AM

Dear backers,

It's time for our monthly update! We've had an exciting month at NOG and we have lots of news to share with you.

First of all, we recently published a dev blog post where we explained why we rebuilt our engine's foundations. We wanted to make our engine more flexible and more stable for our users, while allowing new features like the Codex that we also detail in the post. For de whole story, follow this link.

As discussed last month, we've created a survey on the VTT and world building scene. We'll be conducting interviews with a select few to gain more insight into how we can make our product even better. For those interested, head to this link.

Last but not least, we just attended the FIJ in Cannes (international game festival) where we had a booth and introduced Menyr to many people. It was great to also meet with editors, content creators, and influencers, and we had some really positive feedback on the project!

 ps: In addition to working on Menyr, the outsourcing team at NOG have also been working on several productions. We created the digital set for the latest Micode videos, (a French YouTuber with 1M+ followers) and designed the background for the TFT France championship. We're also currently working on lighting for EA and the upcoming Payday3!

Beta roadmap and features list
about 3 years ago – Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 06:53:18 AM

Greetings Adventurers,

It's been a journey since we started building Menyr, and we're proud to say that the engine redesign phase has come to a close. Our team has been working tirelessly to ensure that the code is of the highest quality, and we're excited to share the results of this effort with you.

The redesign has laid the foundation for some of the most exciting features in Menyr's future, including the Codex and Timeline that we've been highlighting in the linked document below. You'll also find a comprehensive timeline of the Beta features release schedule to give you a glimpse into what's to come.

Beta Roadmap & Features List

Due to the uncertain nature of the production pipeline, giving a precise release date was challenging. However, with the completion of the engine design, we are now proud to announce the Closed Beta release in June. Although the release may be a little later than anticipated, we are fully committed to delivering the high-quality experience you have come to expect from us. Our team is putting in all their efforts to ensure this release, and we're confident that it will be worth the wait.

Our website is undergoing a revamp, making it easier to access information about Menyr, including the detailed full feature list and FAQ. 

During the next couple months, we'll be conducting interviews with some of you! We're looking for the most experienced VTT power users to gain valuable insights and feedback. Your thoughts and opinions are important to us, and we're grateful for the opportunity to build Menyr with you. To those who would be interested to share your knowledge and influence the Menyr developement, head to Discord and wait for the call. 

We want to take this moment to thank you for your continued support. Your encouragement has been a source of motivation for us, and we can't wait to start building worlds in a few months. 

Stay tuned for more updates and don't hesitate to reach out to us on our Discord channel if you have any questions!

The Menyr and NOG Team

ps: as a reminder, we will be processing orders on BackerKit next Monday (February 6th). This is your final opportunity to make any changes to your order if you wish to get your hands on rewards from higher tiers, as it will not be possible to edit your order after we process payments.

A Look Back at 2022: How Far We’ve Come and What’s to Come
over 3 years ago – Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 04:16:44 AM

Hello everyone!

We hope  this post finds you well and in the holiday spirit! We have some  exciting updates to share with you about the progress of Menyr, but  first I wanted to reflect on what was accomplished this year. Almost  exactly a year ago, we were doing the first internal multiplayer test  (see the images below), and no one in the RPG community even knew about  us. Then a few months later, we revealed our project to the world, and  things got real. Support and excitement from the community were  absolutely amazing and culminated in the 1st most funded VTT project and  the 77th most funded video game of all time on Kickstarter. Now,  thousands of avid Game Masters and Players are discussing how they are  going to use Menyr to improve their immersive storytelling and  anticipation is building.

First of all, we are thrilled to announce that all concepts research for  the Kickstarter rewards are done (click [here] or the image below to download the  full PDF). We know that many of you have been eagerly awaiting this,  and we can’t wait for you to see the creative direction we have taken  with this. We are very proud of the design of all rewards, and also the  general artistic direction the game is taking. Some in-game versions of  the rewards are already being worked on by our art team and we’ll show  you some of the results as soon as we have them. A lot of you were  asking for visuals before deciding on upgrading their pledge on  BackerKit, so it is now possible. On a side note, we will charge orders  through BackerKit at the end of January for those who upgraded or  purchased a Late Pledge.

As we approach Q1 of 2023, we feel the need to slightly push the date  for the beta release and are looking at a couple of months at most. Due  to the Kickstarter success, we’ve been reviewing our scope and decided  to go with a more complex feature architecture that will ensure a better  and more versatile engine in the long term. Nothing is certain yet, but  we promised we would let you know the moment we feel a delay might come  so this is us delivering on this promise. If any delay happens, it will  delay the public release by about the same amount of time.

The  Beta will not include every feature planned for public release right at  launch and we asked you, the community, what was the most important  thing to develop first. Most answers took the same direction, and the  good news is, we agree with you: we will prioritize world-building over  VTT functions. We will reveal the chronological order of the features’  rollout for public release very soon.

In terms of production,  things are still going strong and we are making great progress on a deep  level. We are constantly amazed by our team’s dedication and hard work,  and we are confident that the final product will be worth the wait. The  definitive architecture of the engine is getting ready for a hard lock  in the first week of January 2023, and then we’ll get 100% into features  implementation.

Finally,  we wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a happy holiday season,  happiness, and health for you and your loved ones. Thank you for your  support and patience as we work towards bringing Menyr to life.

Until next time,

The Menyr Team

November update
over 3 years ago – Wed, Nov 09, 2022 at 11:05:25 PM

Hello everyone! 

We wanted to get back to you with some news on what's going on at NOG Studio. Since we last talked a few weeks ago, the team took some well deserved rest and is now hard at work. 

As promised, the Feature Request webpage is up and running, and the VIP Discord channel is live for Librarians and up. We are already using your feedback on both places to refine our roadmap and complete feature list that we will share with you later on. It makes it really clear that the engine will not be the same without your input so we hope you'll continue to get involved as we'll rely on you going forward. 

We just put out a little recap video (thank you Manu!) of the Octogône Convention where we did the final countdown for the Kickstarter campaign. For those who missed it or want to update their pledge, the Backer Kit Pledge manager and Late Backer shop will be coming this week!

In other news, we attended the Game Connection in Paris a few days ago. For context, it is on the professional side of the Paris Games Week, one of the biggest game convention in the world. We met a lot of important people that will work with us on Menyr in the future and help us push the boundaries of what we could do on our own. From editors to QA, content creators, localization, AI specialists and many more, it was an important convention for NOG and Menyr.  

We are welcoming a couple recruits, focusing on integrating them into the team as we speak. Our main task now is to clean the actual alpha version so that we can build the program as stable as possible while allowing great flexibility when we need to expand in the future. This is a rather "quiet" time where there is not much we can "show" while arguably the most important one as core decisions about the engine are being made and will affect Menyr for the years to come. 

Stay tuned for more, don't hesitate to join the Discord where most of the conversation is happening, and have a great day.

The Menyr Team 

ps: NOG can finally revealed the EA project we've been working on for the past 9+ months, Need for Speed : Unbound! Can't wait to play this one :) Check our freshly made Artstation for more NOG productions ;)