#I have some projects that I'll be starting after January due to an important date

[securi-tye-blankey]

So the sonas got a makeover! My fiance's sona, Arc is a Ryhnoc. He's witty, but doesn't show that too often as he's very shy. However, he will often attempt to make friends with others. Given the right environment he proves to be a very honest and reliable companion to those he considers close.

Though the Ryhnoc race isn't very fleshed out, I like to believe that the Rhynocs hold a lot of pride in the professions they choose. It's how I can justify they're jump from the Sorceress, to Grendor (canon?), to Ripto. Anyway, at some point a group of Rhynocs got sick of the cycle and branched off and advanced on their own. We have a little headcanon that the Rhynocs managed to advance themselves enough to travel to other planets and dimensions to find work after the events of "Year of the Dragon". But we haven't really figured out how Arc would meet Pockets yet. That's not too important at the moment.

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Pockets is a retcon of my Fenomenan sonas Blankey and Jack. Their personality is a mix of the two. Pockets can pass for your average social person, but in reality they really would prefer to keep the conversations short when talking with someone they're not familiar with. Brief interactions are their preference, but will hold the communication if it's absolutely required. To friends, this is the exact opposite. They love to communicate and Pockets is more likely to reach out. Funny noises and mild pranks are their bread and butter. They stand at 4'10".

The headcanon that I have on Fenomenans is that they are a species of slime folk who's culture is mainly based around the clown, mime, jester, joker, etc(yes, juggalos count) stereotypes. Be it the good, bad, and the ugly. (Utopias are hard to come up with) Depending on the culture, they will dress in the race(?) attire while either sticking to the traditional look or adding to it, depending on family groups.

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Fun past headcanon: The original headcanon was a bit more sad for the Fenomenans and the Norms. My idea for why there were no Fenomenans (at the time) was due to an event that caused Fenomenon to suffer distortions in space/time on parts of the planet. The "Nitro Fueled" track "Out of time" is the main inspiration. Originally, it was supposed to be wumpa fruit but, when out of time came out, I had changed it to be caused by a very bizarre purple fruit.~

Small Norm was affected by said event, leading the unintended creation of Big Norm and his hoarding/protecting of books. It's the final records of his species, and he's attempting to keep the culture alive through himself. However, through his interactions with Emperor Velo, he gained a strong distrust of outsiders and refuses to share what knowledge that is currently left. (I'll type a whole thing on it eventually.)

N. Fo was a bit of a foil to Small Norm in the story, being fascinated by the possibility of bettering the tech that caused the event to further advance other civilizations, but also doing it out of his own arrogance of wanting to achieve something to advance the galaxtic technologies and make a name for himself. (This is the brief outline btw)

I'm considering just making this it's own separate AU as I think the story I had was interesting, but a bit too much for the tone of the Crash Bandicoot series. I literally stopped with the comic because it was getting a bit too dark as I got too invested in these characters.

All this over rerolling in the shop to do story mode with Moe, just to discover the Norms... Just to never beat all of story mode with Moe.

[parasolparasol]

A redesign of Tumblr mobile

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Tumblr in any way. Any opinions I express in this post are my own. I’m just somebody who has been on Tumblr for many years and wanted to try my hand at redesigning it. I recognize that there may be potential flaws in the following post, and these faults are 100% my own and no one else’s. In an ideal world i’d have access to insider metrics, but in any case this isn’t meant to be collectively exhaustive in any way.)

Hello there! I picked up this redesign project in January and i’ve decided to publish this now, since I wasn’t sure how long it’d take me to do a full write up. I’ve talked to around 100 people over the course of these 2 months and i’ve ran multiple rounds of tests, and I felt bad about leaving everyone hanging. So, here are the results with brief explanations for now! I intend to type out the full process and design rationale at a later date. If you received a message about this within the last 2 months and answered me, thank you so much! 

Alright, let’s get started. At the time of writing, Tumblr for iOS is currently on version 19.0. (Warning: this is a long post, there are badly compressed big gifs.)

Adding Tags

During interviews and in surveys (n=83, python and excel really came in clutch when sorting through the data haha), people often told me they avoided reblogging on mobile due to the large hassle of typing every tag out, opting to save them to drafts instead and add tags later. In terms of data, given that people hit reblog (82% of all users surveyed), 84% of these people also liked to add tags, so it was clear that facilitating the tagging system would be important. To help solve this, I designed a method for people to quickly add tags to post topics they often reblogged. As well as being accessible from pressing the tagging area on the posting screen, this can be accessed from the hold menu, to speed up the interaction even more. 

Another issue that commonly cropped up was the multitude of possible ways to tag a trigger warning. If somebody missed out a tagging method for a TW, they still ran the risk of seeing it on their dashboard. I added a toggle for tagging something as a trigger warning, which would suggest what others commonly added (and you can type your own). This saves people from having to tag “tw:xyz” “tw: xyz” “tw xyz” “cw xyz” etc. (you get the point!) and makes sure that “xyz” is unambiguously marked as a trigger warning. (Can internet strangers be trusted to tag sensitive content properly? Quick study here)

(Reblogging with the hold menu on the left. Posting on the right. If Tumblr displays them top to bottom instead of side by side (I'll let it slide, I know they're reworking the web post editor right now), the top post=left. the bottom post=right. If you’re viewing this on my blog page, please click on the gifs!)

A bonus: A ‘read more’ button has been added back to mobile. Scrolling through long posts gets tedious sometimes, and people like to talk about more personal thoughts under read mores, so i’ve made it easier to access the feature.

Liking Posts

89% percent of users reported that they liked to hold on to posts for future retrieval. With this in mind, I added in a feature to categorize likes, making searching through your likes for future retrieval easier. The ability to like quickly without sorting is retained, added to a hold menu like a quick reblog. After liking, users are also prompted to reblog (PSA: reblogging helps spread OC around! please reblog OC you like more!)

(Liking on tap on the left. Quick liking with the hold menu on the right.)

Your likes can be found and sorted under your blog. 

Recommended For You

Tumblr is fundamentally about exploring and sharing content about topics you love, so I tried to rearrange the navigation to make it easier for users to look at new content about the things they like. The tabs are now rearranged so that new content is easier to find from the homescreen. To ensure relevance, followed tags are now toggles, so the user can pick and choose exactly what they want to see in the recommended tab if they want to. A radar post has also been placed in this tab to increase exposure to featured content creators. (Does being on the radar help out OC posters? Quick study here)

Exploring, and search results

Now that stuff recommended for you has been moved next to the dashboard, the explore page now defaults to trending posts. The top/recent page for tags you followed are now located in the search bar menu. Upon clicking on a search term, you can sort through recent/top posts and post types separately. For example, if you felt like looking at some new fanart that day, all you would have to do is sort by recent photo posts instead of having to sift through every recent post, making it easier for new OC to be discovered.

[popcorn-kitten]

new hiveswap info and development timelines just dropped on the Kickstarter ✌️

Over the years, a lot of misinformation, as well as deliberate disinformation, has spread around about the history of Hiveswap. The purpose of this post is to clarify these matters for backers who've been wondering what the truth is.

The Kickstarter was planned by the What Pumpkin business development team in mid-2012. One member of the team was a crowdfunding specialist who led the planning process and managed the contracts with the developer. Prior to the Kickstarter opening for pledges, What Pumpkin worked out a plan for a flexible game concept that could be refined according to how much the campaign ultimately brought in. As Hussie was still working on Homestuck full time at this point, the plan was to hand over his game concept and story outline to a development company that could deliver the project.

The crowdfunding campaign finished out at a gross total of $2,485,506, as well as a gross total of $207,930 from PayPal pledges. But because of platform fees, as well as the costs of producing and shipping merchandise to backers of the campaign, the effective budget was significantly lower than the gross pledged total:

The above deductions from the gross total do not include taxes.

After determining the final budget for the game, What Pumpkin signed an agreement with the contracted game company (hereafter “GC”) to develop Hussie’s game concept. WP and GC entered into a development contract on November 30, 2012, shortly after the conclusion of the Homestuck Kickstarter. WP paid $788,000 to GC in late 2012 for development.

Because there was an understanding that delivering the complete game development documents would take some time, during which it would be difficult for GC to make meaningful progress on the Hiveswap game build, GC inquired about getting involved with other Homestuck-adjacent projects to do immediate work. WP let GC know about the Act 7 animation plans. With an assurance that this work could be done in parallel with a flexible timeline and would not impact the development cycle of Hiveswap itself, Hussie and What Pumpkin saw this as a good opportunity to establish a working relationship with this organization prior to the start of development and agreed to contract GC to do animation work for the Act 7 project. WP and GC agreed that this project would have a separate budget from the Hiveswap Kickstarter money, paid for from WP’s regular operating funds. As the existence of this animation itself would not be revealed until its release in 2016, this was not publicly announced at the time. GC and the lead animator on the project specifically requested not to be credited upon release of the animation.

Hussie initiated the “Megapause” on April 14, 2013 in order to devote his full attention to finalizing the Hiveswap development documents. What Pumpkin soon provided its story documents so that GC could formally begin core systems development. In July of 2013 WP and GC mutually agreed to push back GC’s deliverable dates without penalty. Hussie would share an update in 2013 detailing the state of predevelopment:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/708686

In 2013 following receipt of WP’s deliverables, GC enthusiastically assured WP that it was positioned to begin development. GC would deliver its first prototype in early 2014.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qSXwWKD5Km1yL-3Cj_W5IevW-IA978zJ/view?usp=sharing

This prototype, linked above, was sent to WP on 2/18/14. At this point, it was becoming a significant concern among backers that WP had yet to show proof that the game was being made, so WP was looking for any sort of tangible progress update from GC that was suitable to share with the public. But Hussie and WP found the quality of the prototype somewhat alarming, and decided that sharing any shots from the game would only cause embarrassment for GC. Nevertheless, WP was still willing to assume that this was a very early draft of something that would develop into a more promising product soon, and gave GC some more time to improve on it.

But the improvements didn’t come. No other advancements on the prototype were ever made. After waiting weeks with no update other than assurances that progress was carrying on smoothly, Hussie initiated the “Gigapause” both to take care of personal matters and later to get directly involved in the development of the game himself. He decided to move to southern California from the east coast in hopes that working directly with the GC could help them overcome whatever obstacles they were facing with Hiveswap’s development. GC responded positively to the prospect of Hussie’s involvement, but when he made the move and tried to coordinate a time to visit the GC offices and meet, GC insisted it was a bad time due to office renovations and a busy schedule. Here is a timeline with quotes from emails exchanged between Hussie and GC:

May 12, 2014 - from Hussie to GC

“Just letting you know I actually moved to the west coast recently. I'm only an hour or so away from LA now.

I could drive down and check out the office, see how things are going with the game and animation in person some time soon. Is there a time that would work for you guys? In a week or two maybe?”

May 15, 2014 - from GC to Hussie

“That's awesome about being on the west coast. It'd be great to have you come to the studio.

Dev has slowed a bit on our end, as we wanted to take a step back and really evaluate what was needed and the best way to achieve the features that have been coming online in the docs. We're continuing to break that all down so we can build and plan most effectively moving forward. We also wanted to find some simple formats for input from your writing team for dialogue content and are getting that squared away.

The best time to come by would actually be right after E3. Things are a bit nuts until then.”

May 18, 2014 - from Hussie to GC

“[Name redacted], sounds good. I'll set aside some time after E3 to make the drive down. As we approach the date, just let me know what works for you.”

E3 was June 10-12, 2014. GC did not invite Hussie to visit at this time.

Hussie and WP representatives were in LA over July 4th weekend, 2014. When they inquired about visiting the offices again they were still not welcome. A GC representative insisted that they meet at a restaurant instead. Yet GC continued to telegraph that they were receptive to the idea of inviting Hussie to the office well into the summer:

Aug 18, 2014 - from GC to Hussie

“We'd love to set up a new time for Andrew to come to the studio as well as a skype chat to meet the other team members.”

Despite apparent enthusiasm about meeting with Andrew in their email correspondence, GC continued the pattern of refusing to meet at the office or supply any signs of progress on the prototype.

Over that summer, GC delivered several pieces of concept art that WP had been requesting since January. Hussie did his best to present this publicly as a positive development as WP felt it would be counterproductive to the project and harmful to GC to publicly detail the development troubles at the time.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/883860

There was no indication from GC that the Act 7 animation project was in any way in conflict with Hiveswap development. GC was enthusiastic about taking on this project, and bidded against other animators for the contract. They saw it as a useful tie-in to concept art work on Hiveswap, as GC leadership conveyed in an email to WP in early 2013:

WP also does not have any reason to believe that the Act 7 project in practice created a conflict that was not disclosed by GC to WP. Act 7 was a 2D animation project, and Hiveswap at the time was a 3D game, so it did not pull GC’s programmers or 3D artists away from work on Hiveswap. GC never mentioned the development needs of a separate project at all to WP, or cited any such reason as distracting from work on Hiveswap; GC instead repeatedly provided WP with various assurances that everything was still fine with Hiveswap.

Had GC communicated that they had scheduling conflicts or some other impediment preventing them from developing Hiveswap, WP would have terminated the contract even sooner.

WP moved to terminate the agreement with GC late summer of 2014, and Hussie pivoted towards establishing a new independent game studio while consulting with a designer who had stepped up into a leadership position during the GC development period. That individual lived in NYC, which is why that location was chosen to establish the new studio rapidly. They helped build the studio through a local network of professional contacts. While this “What Pumpkin NYC” studio shared a name with What Pumpkin, it’s important to note that all of WP NYC’s studio staff save for the aforementioned individual were hired without any prior affiliation with WP and thus had no association with the GC contract. WP documented this development on Kickstarter on October 30th, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/1035099

At this point, negotiations were very amicable; both parties agreed the project simply wasn’t turning out to be a good fit for GC, and were both ready to move on. There were no signs given at all that WP was about to have trouble recovering the remaining funds.

WP is legally permitted to discuss details of the resolution of the dispute only under very specific circumstances. WP may make additional disclosures outside of this post to individual backers in accordance with legal obligations.

Following resolution of the GC contract, in Spring 2015 the WP NYC studio was running at full capacity on Hiveswap. The main problem was the fact that WP management was blindsided by the revelation that much less money would be coming back than expected. The WP NYC project manager had designed the schedule based on the good faith presumption that most of the development funds would be recouped. When it was finally revealed the return was far short of what was expected, and the repayment plan could in no way keep up with the schedule as currently drafted, it threw the project into a period of chaos as plans were quickly redrawn. The length of Act 1 was slashed, and other modifications were made to try to fit the rest of Act 1 into the newly shortened runway. But in the end, the revisions still weren't enough to save the game as it existed, and the studio needed to be closed in order to reserve what funds remained to finish the project in some form.

This may have come across as a sudden or spontaneous decision. Part of this is because the WP NYC senior staff and WP ownership were doing everything in their power to save the project, including injecting WP regular operating funds into the project, until it was determined that going any further would be disastrous for the future of Hiveswap. Another is that WP was legally unable to give any detailed disclosures about the financial troubles, even to many of the WP NYC staff.

It should also be noted that originally the NYC studio was not going to be permanently closed, but only frozen for a reassessment of the project. But during this freeze period, there were some dramatic events. One staff member behaved in a destructive and threatening manner. For the protection of those involved, details shouldn't be disclosed. But these events made navigating the post-freeze issues impossible. Communication between ownership, management and staff broke down because of these events, and the freeze turned into full closure. This version of the project was then abandoned for many reasons, including these events.

Some misinformation claims that at the time the WP NYC studio was shuttered, its iterations of Act 1 and 2 were complete. This is wrong. Act 1 was very far from a shippable state and absolutely no work on Act 2 had been completed besides some concept and 3D art. Here you can see a video documenting one of many major bugs with critical path progression in the final build produced by WP NYC, where it becomes impossible to re-focus on the Simon Says toy if Joey fails and then exits out of the puzzle:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M2mmkMx8Wkwp1VU_5IpMKDvngmUFS0IG/view?usp=sharing

At the point the WP NYC studio was frozen it was still difficult to finish a full run of the critical path without the debug tool, and the UI was far from complete. With that build, Act 1 ended the moment Joey passed through the portal on Earth. The current version of Act 1, where Joey makes it to Alternia and meets Xefros, is more indicative of the original length of the NYC version of Act 1. Not only did it need to be slashed from what the original script proposed, the NYC version of Act 1 still wasn't that close to resembling a shippable product after those changes were made.

Because of the amount of time and resources already devoted to this project, WP was initially very reluctant to lay anyone off or scrap the work being done. It was for this reason that the studio stayed open for months after the contract with GC was resolved; WP made every effort to deliver a game with that team, but at the time WP NYC was shuttered, the funds just weren't there to keep the studio running at its current burn rate and schedule slips. The game was never going to reach delivery with the funds available. The studio urgently needed to be frozen for a full reassessment, and then it was closed after the freeze due to the reasons stated above. This was the only course of action that could have saved the project.

To WP's knowledge every artist whose work was used in the final release of Act 1 was included in the credits. The final version of Act 1 was in large part built off concept art and storyboards drawn during the WP NYC era, and many of the artists who made them continued to work on the team that produced the final version of Act 1; the roadmap for the completion of Act 1 was specifically planned because WP had determined that the existing 2D concepts could easily be refined into a final product that would both be visually appealing and more economic to produce. Unfortunately due to the transition to 2D WP no longer had a place for the 3D artists or the original 3D engine, and all of those assets were dropped. They were not used as a basis for the finished assets in Act 1, and visual similarities to WP NYC 3D assets are due to the fact that final Act 1 assets are in large part refinements of the original concept art. Any artist whose work was used incidentally was included in Additional Contributions.

Both the GC and NYC phases of Hiveswap were setbacks to the overall fulfillment of the project, but not insurmountable. WP reorganized the budget to establish a new version of the studio, and Act 1 was released two years after the closure of NYC.

As an addendum, WP has identified the primary source of a disclosure to a well-circulated document of the Hiveswap development process. WP has been aware of a pattern of false claims this former employee has made since the end of their employment at the beginning of 2014. As this individual was not present during the end of the development contract with GC, nor the WP NYC development period, all of the information they have shared is based on speculation and conjecture.

At this time, WP does not wish to invite more controversy into the lives of anyone previously involved with this project, and considers these matters to have been resolved long ago. The goal for years has been to turn the page on flawed attempts by earlier studios, and simply move forward and bring Hiveswap to completion without sparking the chaos, disruption, and threats to personal safety that would have resulted from disclosing many of the details stated above. Doing so would only make it more difficult for the staff to rebuild the project during these periods immediately following the termination of the GC agreement and closure of the NYC studio. Since preservation of the project was the primary responsibility to the backers, making destructive disclosures that put the project at risk along the way would have been at odds with that responsibility. This policy also served to protect individuals from personal or professional harm, including those who were responsible for serious setbacks with the project. Please respect the privacy of any persons affiliated with GC and WP NYC.