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Bonfire

Bonfire is a content platform for rapid creation of interactive experiences. Creators can be designers, developers, artists, marketers, and storytellers. Creators have the power to create with drag-and-drop simplicity and an embedded code editor allows for customizations of advanced experiences.

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Release Date:

30 Sep, 2024

Developer:

Dimension X, Inc.

Publisher:

Dimension X, Inc.

	Interface	Full Audio	Subtitles
English	✔	✔

Early Access Software

Get involved with this software as it develops.

Note: This Early Access software is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to use this software in its current state, then you should wait to see if it progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Hello Creators!

Welcome to Bonfire Early Access!
We are thrilled to welcome you to the Early Access phase of Bonfire. This journey marks a significant milestone for our development team, and we couldn't be more excited to have you with us.

Below, you'll find all the essential details about Early Access and how you can contribute to shaping Bonfire's future.

Thank you for your interest!

Our vision for Bonfire is, in a word, ambitious.
At its core, Bonfire is meant to be a foundational shift in how games are made, and, as such, there's a lot we are still exploring and figuring out to ensure we are hitting as many of the types of stories people may want to tell as we can.
Building and involving a community of creators in the development process is crucial to achieving our goals. Early Access allows us to gather valuable feedback, identify and fix issues, and refine gameplay mechanics based on your experiences and suggestions.

During Early Access, you can look forward to:

Core Gameplay Features: Enjoy the main mechanics and systems that form the foundation of Bonfire, and let your imagination run loose as you build and play your own stories.
Regular Updates: We will release frequent updates to introduce new content, features, and improvements.
Active Community Engagement: Your feedback is vital! Share your thoughts, report bugs, and participate in discussions on our forums and social media channels.

How You Can Help

Your participation is invaluable to us. Here are a few ways you can help improve Bonfire:

Provide Feedback: Let us know what you love, what you think could be better, and any ideas for new features.
Report Bugs: If you encounter bugs or issues, please report them through [Bug Reporting Method/Link].
Join the Community: Connect with other players, share your experiences, and stay updated on the latest news through our Discord ().

Thank You!

We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you for supporting Bonfire during Early Access. Your feedback and enthusiasm drive us to make this platform the best it can be. Together, we can create something truly special.

Happy Creating!
The Dimension X Team”

Approximately how long will this software be in Early Access?

“Approximately 90 days.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“Our ambitions for Bonfire are massive, and our future features list echoes that.
One of the main reasons we are launching with Early Access is that we want to use community feedback to help inform which features we should roll out next and which we should probably hold off on.
Some features that we already know will be highly requested but will likely NOT be out during Early Access are:

Multiplayer
Mobile Players (iOS, iPadOS, and Android)
Mobile Builder (iPadOS)
VR Builder
Standalone VR Players (Quest, Pico, etc.)
Unreal-based Players for those craving higher-level graphics (and have the hardware to support it)
and a whole lot more...

”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Today, Bonfire can support content focusing on third-person or first-person player controls and not requiring driving or flying vehicles or other game mechanics that involve changing player input behavior.
This is a known limitation that we are actively resolving and will roll out at a later date.

Bonfire is a platform in which players are encouraged to import their own creations and is VERY mod-friendly thanks to its Spark-based foundations and the Ember runtime scripting language.

Sparks are a new kind of file that allows for code and visuals to live together, separate from any app binary, with nearly limitless potential in what you can do; as such, we are purposefully limiting Multiplayer support and certain other features until we have the data required to ensure our mitigation plans for misuse will work as intended.

Nearly all of our current stable enough-for-release features are included in Early Access, and more will roll out as we refine our roadmap.
We expect bugs and have planned to react to reports with quick updates as required.
We do not expect any hard crashes and will react to any reports with priority.

For a complete list of features and capabilities, refer to our "About This" section.”

Will this software be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We plan to maintain a free tier even after our full launch. As time progresses, we plan to open up additional paid tiers that provide additional services we believe will be well worth the expense. While the prices themselves are still not determined (we need more data to analyze our-side costs properly), we expect to tie the tiers to things like:

expanding your dedicated storage on our infrastructure
ability to monetize your Books, Chapters, Maps, and/or Sparks
access controls for your content
more to come...

”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We are actively supporting, engaging, and ideating with the community using the Discord community server.”

Use Bonfire

Free To Play

Free

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Report bugs and leave feedback for this software on the discussion boards

About This Software

Welcome to Bonfire!
Bonfire is the ultimate platform for rapidly creating cross-platform interactive experiences.
Designed specifically with storytellers and content creators in mind, Bonfire significantly reduces the time it takes to turn your ideas into reality.
In Bonfire, an experience is known as a Book, which consists of bite-sized “levels” or “scenes” called Chapters. Chapters consist of background geometry known as Maps, with interactive elements known as Sparks. Sparks are the foundational building block of Bonfire and can be anything from a button on a panel to a tree, a Non-Player Character, a sword, a chair… you name it. If it's something you should be able to interact with, it's a Spark.
Books, Chapters, Maps, and Sparks all live as separate files on your computer, allowing for immense reusability and quick customization.

Spark’ify Your Creations

Bonfire comes packed with assets to start your journey, but we don’t expect things to end there. You can quickly import your creations using the built-in Spark Utility or the supplemental Sparkifier app. Pair custom artwork with one of our many Spark Templates to bring them to life with animations, logic, and more.

Don’t see a template that fits what you’re after?
Custom Spark Templates can be made using the Sparkifier App and our Ember scripting language.

Let Players Choose

Bonfire's intuitive Chapter Tree enables you to craft intricate branching narratives effortlessly in a "choose-your-adventure" style experience.
Go as linear or non-linear as desired, with complete control over what triggers a player to jump from one chapter to the next.

Easily Customize

Traits allow you to modify the exposed properties of a Spark with ease.
When you make your Sparks, you, as the Spark Author, control what Traits are shown and what they do.
From paint color to run speed and almost anything else you can think of, you can make a Trait for that, allowing Book authors to customize it per Spark Instance.

No Coding Required

Behaviors are broken into two simple categories: Causes and Effects.
Causes are things that Players can do to Sparks (like attack or interact), while Effects are things that Sparks can do in reaction to a Cause.
Create complex interactives by stringing Causes and Effects together in endless combinations.
NOTE: There are also Modifiers: Bonfire-native nodes that allow for changing Chapters, executing Ember scripts, debug tools, and more.

Built-In Scripting

Ember is our runtime scripting language that allows veteran and new coders alike to write code and keep it bound to nodes in the Behavior tree.
This lets you have the flexibility of coding without having to compile and without having to ensure everyone else on your team knows how to code as well.
Today, it has a rather limited set of features, but we will be expanding its capabilities with each update.

One-Click Share

Whether you want to play-test your creations or share them with your friends, Bonfire allows you to quickly distribute your content to players across a wide range of devices (currently, only desktop and PC VR, but mobile and standalone VR support will be released soon).
Within the Share menu, choose Debug for testing without sharing or Release to share with the world.
By default, all shared books are publically accessible to all. In later releases, higher license tiers will roll out, allowing you to privatize your creations, monetize them, and more.

Sparks

Sparks are the heart of Bonfire. These versatile elements combine visuals and modifiable behaviors, serving as characters, triggers, scorekeepers, and state machines to monitor actions and consequences. As the fundamental building blocks of your interactive experiences, Sparks makes the creation process simple and efficient.

Dive into Bonfire and start bringing your stories to life with unparalleled ease and creativity.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

First and foremost, we are a content creation platform.
To that end, while we do not actively integrate any Gen-AI tools into our product today, we do not restrict the use of AI-generated content as long as it is properly licensed and does not violate our content rules.

Nobody will ever be forced to use AI tools if they don't want to. We are not an AI company. We aim to ensure we fulfill our mission of making content creation easier for players from all skill levels and specialties.

We expect and encourage our players to bring in their own content that they've created, either manually or via tools such as Gen-AI, and do not restrict said content as long as it has all been properly licensed and abides by our content rules.

That said, we only use AI-generated content for marketing materials, and it will not be included in any assets we bundle with the product at launch. All player-useable assets bundled with the product at launch are properly licensed third-party or first-party assets made by humans.

System Requirements

Minimum:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10
Processor: 4-core 2.5GHz+
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA 1080TI or better
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 10 GB available space
Sound Card: Integrated
Additional Notes: Min Spec required will vary greatly on assets imported by user. Please adjust accordingly. (If expecting to use heavy 3D models, for example, expect more RAM required, processing, etc.)

Recommended:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 11
Processor: 8-Core 4.0GHz+
Memory: 32 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA 3060 or better
DirectX: Version 12
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 50 GB available space
Sound Card: Integrated
Additional Notes: Recommended Spec will vary greatly on assets imported by user. Please adjust accordingly. (If expecting to use heavy 3D models, for example, expect more RAM required, processing, etc.)

Bonfire™, Spark™, Dimension X™, and DimX™ are trademark protected. All content on this page are protected by international copyright laws. Unauthorized use, reproduction, distribution, or modification of any content without prior written permission from Dimension X is strictly prohibited.