Alpha

So after a little time, I'm pleased to announce that much progress have been made on this project. The graphics engine has had a number of improvements, as had the Orchestrator which now has the (unfinished) audio engine integrated into it. Also the entire Interface layer has been added, which contains a large array of pre-made interface objects (buttons, slides, dials, graphs, etc), connection nodes and the concept of "Units". Atop all of this, the very top layer has begun too, resulting in the very first "published" version of the app; 0.0.1 Alpha.

"No Reptiles" is a song by Everything Everything, which strikes a certain chord for me, emotionally.

There's not a lot to do on it - due to the lack of units - but the ones that are there work great! I've put in the Amplifier and Audio File Player, so one can play music files and change the playback rate (which honestly I really enjoy. Its like breathing new life into your music collection

Windows

I've also done a lot of work on the Windows version of the program - thanks to my friend who lent me an old laptop which I can develop on - getting it running nicely. I've also created an installer for it, so no longer do you have to download and extract zip files, running the executables in the right directory with the resource files placed correctly next to it. Now, all you have to do is follow the little installer's instructions and everything is done for you.

I'm using the wonderful NSIS for the windows installer. Its a neat little program, the products of which I instantly recognised as being the same installers I've used in the past for other programs.

Website

I've also also put together a proper website for the program; alchemy.metasophiea.com. Here, one can easily access the latest installers for both Windows and Mac, along with a link to the older browser version.

My thinking is that I'll keep the browser version around as a kind of demo, much like Minecraft Classic, which too can be used it the browser. I'd like to sell the program in future, so I think this browser-based version would be a nice, easily accessible introductory demo for anyone who wanted to find out what Alchemy was about.

Icon

You might have noticed a certain four colours on that website. I've been playing around with icons and logos for the program - as a result of making bundled versions for windows and mac. Finding the right look isn't easy and frankly, I still don't think I've gotten it right yet. Let me show you some of the ideas I came up with:

"I started out with two ideas, this one I thought was pretty neat as it conveyed that mystical feeling I wanted, and had the overall triangle shape. It seems somewhat aggressive to me however.

"The second of the ideas, this seemed much softer and friendly. I ran with this idea, and developed a full MacOs app icon.

"MacOS icons don't really translate to Windows however, so I began to experiment with other forms with the same core symbol.

"Quite a departure from what came before, I had discovered that although the looping triangle looked good up close, it was not striking enough when placed next to other icons. It also didn't hold up well to being reduced in size, so I decided to start again.

While on a bus home one day, the idea for a four-colour triangle popped into my head, and I immediately had the feeling that this would be the right icon.

"Striking, yet not aggressive. Four friendly colours in that iconic triangle shape.

The Windows icon is simply the triangle, while the MacOS icon is the same triangle atop a plane white rounded-square with some simple shadowing. What's more, those four colours are also the colours of the four connection types. I didn't even do that on purpose, I just noticed it a few days after making the first versions. This icon also seems to work well at small scale. Further to this, you can play with it in some pretty cool ways, extending the colours out of the triangle.

From Here

As I wrote earlier, I'm calling this the first published version. Future posts here will mainly be about new versions and what changes have been made. This has seemed a little fuzzy for me up to now, and its felt like a number of different projects clumped together, and I didn't really know how to reduce that to version numbers... frankly, a lot of the sections of the codebase are set to version number "0.0.0" and I don't think I'll actually ever be changing them.

So I'm going to lay it out now; we're in the Alpha phase, so version numbers will always be "0.0.something". I'll increment that last number whenever I publish a new version of the program, meaning that those new versions may contain any number of changes and improvements.

We'll enter Beta when the desktop version has all the features that the website one has, at which point we will have version "0.1.0". I'll have to figure out a convention for incrementing those numbers when I get there.

Until Next Time

I think its going pretty well actually. I was pretty proud to have gotten the windows version working and the installer was the icing for me. I have a gentle projection that I'll reach the Beta version by summer time, though I still have to finish off the audio engine (which involves some heavy math) I've no idea of how to monetize this, though I'd really like to quit my job and work on it full time. Maybe I'll look for some investor funding.. maybe when I reach Beta..