Screenshot Sunday: Puzzles + Sandbox Mode, done!

Hi all!  I'm pretty excited (and relieved) to announce that The Wisdom and/or Madness of the Crowds is very close to finished!  I expect it to be out on April 20th, Friday.  It's a week later than I'd initially thought, but that's coz 1) I just suck at time estimates, and 2) I decided to go the extra mile and add a "sandbox mode", seen in the GIF above!  (can't see image? try this link)

So, here's what's done:

• All network puzzles!  (I ran into some complications a few weeks ago – I did a playtest, and it went really badly.  Or rather, I should say it went well, because it forced me to realize how poorly designed my initial puzzles were.  So I re-designed and re-arranged them all, and in later playtests, they were all successful)
• Sandbox Mode!  As you can see above, it's pretty much done (except for a few interface tweaks)
• Hand-drawn art!  You can't see it very well in the GIF above, but the art was actually hand-drawn on paper with felt-tip marker, then scanned in.  It adds a lot of nice, subtle textures that I can't (or can't be bothered to) do digitally.
• The "Slideshow Style" Presentation!  I'm reusing the same format I did in The Evolution of Trust, where simulations and text were arranged in the form of an interactive slideshow.  The biggest difference is that in Trust, you mainly did things by pressing buttons; here, you do things by drawing and erasing.

What's left to do:

• Write all the words.  I have a rough first draft/outline to go along with the simulations, but now I need to actually flesh it out into compelling prose, or whatever.  (I also want to try something different with this explorable, and make copious use of optional footnotes, for the extra-curious reader.  That means more writing, though)
• Sounds.  Need some good ol' sound effects, especially sounds for the pencil, as you draw and erase networks.  As for background music, maybe I'll go with another soft, soothing soundtrack from Free Music Archive?
• Final round of playtesting and polishing.  Just in case!

Also, sorry I still haven't gotten around to finishing the blog post about DynamicLand!  I'll do that after Crowds is out.  I've been mostly focused on this explorable + learning about statistics/biology/cognitive science for future possible explorables.  Or maybe that's an excuse, and I'm just bad at time management.  Or both.  Not really mutually exclusive hypotheses, here.

Anyway, hope you liked this lil' "process" update, a peek behind the curtain – I'm excited to share Crowds with you in less than 2 weeks!

<3,
~ Nicky Case