The Andys and I had a good Volity meeting last night. For the first time, the web client was in a state where it didn't shatter into dust the moment Zarf looked at it. This allowed us to do some fairly deep testing and location of edge cases, all of which I should be able to knock off pretty quickly, the next time I sit down for a WebGamut hacking session.
I now declare that the alpha release will happen sometime around the new year. The demo has to be flawless by then, but more importantly I've got a lot of documentation to create. When the demo is done, I shall do this with joy and vigor, so no worries there.
This beast will get off the ground. I've been living with Volity so long at this point - over four years now - that my relationship with it is like one with a person I've been sharing intimate quarters with. Sometimes everything is beautiful and we work together in concert and I couldn't be happier. Most of the time it's more mellow than that, a subtle appreciation. Once in a while we have an explosive fight that leaves us not speaking to each other for a while. But we always find reason to patch things up and get back together.
I'm sorry for calling you a beast, honey. You know what I meant. Here's to four more years together. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for this project.
Aside - I really like that Zarf has picked his Boodler soundscape-generator project back up. He started it at the beginning of this decade, put tons of work on it, enough to put up a webpage with some demo stuff to play with, then let it cool for a long time. This year he picked it back up again, recasting it as an open-source project, and it's been steaming forward since, with the help of various project contributors. An inspirational case!
That's a terrible thing to say to someone who is reading blogs... as procrastination from Boodler coding.
Good to hear. I'm looking forward to playing with this when it's out. You know, in what time I have left over after the kid is looked after.
There's still at least one loyal fan kicking around out there in internet land :)
Thanks, Austin. I don't think the number of people interested in Volity on a hacking level has ever diminished... it just hasn't grown terribly much in the last year, either. (Versus new players, which has maintained a steady burble, mostly because people love Fluxx.)
I really do think that the web client is going to make things explode, assuming we can bring it all the way to a beta. The alpha's job will be to reignite the interest of the game hackers again with a totally awesome demo, and even get them started down the road of creating games ahead of the beta.
For all my hype about it, though, the demo will be something only hackers will appreciate. To the average gamer it will instead look like the most baroque interface to a Tic Tac Toe game ever.