Hello Travelers!
It's an exciting time! BRINK Traveler successfully launched in September to some really great reviews and press. The app has also been named one of Quest's Best Apps of 2021 for Exploration!
We're eager to keep building on this strong start, and we're excited to release our Winter Update today as a FREE UPDATE. Our main focus of this update is to begin growing the experience with more spots to visit, adding language localization, allowing for greater settings customization based on user feedback, and readying the framework for more updates we have planned in 2022.
Here's a quick rundown of all the new things in the BRINK Traveler Winter Update (v1.1.0):
NEW SPOTS
- Corona Arch has been added to the Arches National Park location.
- Mesquite Flat Dunes has been added to the Death Valley South location.
- Glen Canyon is debuting as a brand new location.
LANGUAGE LOCALIZATION
- Text AND Audio Narration is available in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish!
- Asian languages COMING SOON with Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Traditional & Simplified).
- Full subtitles are now available throughout the entire experience.
LOCOMOTION & EXPERIENCE OPTIONS
We've totally redesigned and expanded the Settings Panel with lots of new options to customize the experience just how you'd like it - based on your valuable feedback!
Expanded Locomotion options:
- Terrain-follow is now on by default, so any joystick movement will keep you level with terrain.
- Snap, Step, and Smooth modes for movement & turning. Step mode is now default for comfort.
- Slow, Medium, and Fast speed settings for movement & turning.
- Head or Hand based joystick forward movement direction.
- Movement Acceleration can be Enabled / Disabled.
- Ability to 'crouch' at any time by pressing in the joystick button.
Experience Customization:
- Ability to skip the intro tutorial at any time by pressing in both joysticks for 5 seconds.
- Enable / Disable subtitles.
- Enable / Disable music.
- Enable / Disable walkable boundary overlay.
- Enable / Disable haptic feedback.
IMPROVEMENTS & BUG FIXES
There are some great visual and audio improvements including:
- Greatly improved Night Mode with realistic atmosphere and moon glow.
- Realistic dynamic Sun glare that reacts to the environment and objects.
- Very subtle cloud and stars movement.
- Better wind audio spatialization and presence.
We've also overhauled our location delivery system:
- The new system will enable Location downloads to be more efficient from this release onwards. Those updating from v1.0.0 will need to update each previously downloaded location at their full size, but any further updates after this release should be much smaller and faster to download due to the new system. (Apologies for those on slow internet connections - we feel your pain and will always have you in mind - this change was absolutely necessary for future growth of the app!)
- Points of Interest are now included with location downloads to make for easier offline usage.
And of course, squashing bugs:
- Fixed rare instances where users could get stuck in the tutorial if the app was prematurely exited before completion.
- Fixed rare instances where the watch would stop working if used within the first 5 seconds of traveling to a new location.
- Lots of small details polished throughout the experience.
And there you have it! We're eagerly continuing to build what we envision as the perfect VR & AR travel app. Lots more great things are in the works for 2022, like Multiplayer and more diverse International Locations. We cant wait to share more of the world with you all this year!
Join us on Discord or Reddit to submit ideas, feedback, bug reports, and request to join early access to new updates. Thanks for your continued support! Here's to continuing the journey!
Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/EEEUcMma3T
Join us on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/brinktraveler/
We're also hiring!: https://www.brinkxr.com/careers