A "Wellness Check," Hardening Sprints, a Cataversary, and Premiums!

So, It's been a crazy month - How Crazy Was It?

SO danged crazy I just realized it has been close to a month since I have posted a public update about the Peace Island project!

FIRST OFF, HOW ARE YA'LL DOING, THESE DAYS?

I know I am addressing a worldwide audience here - some of you are reading this from places that are still under quarantine lockdown, and others where life has pretty much continued without any change at all for the past four months. (I confess that the latter sound like alien worlds to me, at this point- but I digress...)

Fortunately, thanks to your continuing support, the Peace Island project has continued without a hitch, throughout.  We have also been able to provide freelance work and employment for a number of people during this time, allowing them to provide for themselves and their families without putting themselves at increased risk of infection.  We are especially proud of this.

But don't get me wrong - we've not been immune from the same stir-craziness that just about everyone else has gone through.  I believe most of April passed without knowing what day of the week it was.  Whole weeks of activity went by, leaving us with few memories of how they were filled - thank goodness we keep exhaustive records!  

Here in Maine, we've been under a "Stay-At-Home" order for the past two months.  While I am certain we've had a few of those small "Open the State" protests in Augusta, Mainers tend to be more civically-minded. 

To tell the truth, the hardest thing for me over the past four months, has been seeing the arrival of spring, without being able to catch a ferry out to the Islands of Casco Bay.

While there are a goodly number of people from out-of-state that are still insisting on their day trips to the Islands, I cannot afford to join them.  After all - the governing bodies of these islands have made it clear that while they cannot expressly prevent people from visiting their communities, they would really, really, REALLY prefer that people stay away.

As I am generally known on two of those islands, it would not help my reputation within those communities if I continued my visits, in defiance of their stated wishes.

Thankfully, Maine will start to slowly open up, on the first of June - this coming Monday - but I'm not ditching my facemask, anytime soon!

I regret to say that this month, there has been very little new visual content created.  This is because we continue working through what is called a "Hardening Sprint."

This is a phase where all the developers take a step back, and take a break from adding new content.  In its stead, more focus is put on ensuring that all the current content works as smoothly and efficiently as possible.  This has become doubly important, as we continue to struggle with a number of issues that are preventing us from releasing the 0.86 alpha for the Mac.

As always, the process of porting Peace Island to the Mac has already led to substantial improvements on the PC side, as well.  Today, we reduced the time required to load the game world from 9.5 seconds, all the way down to 1.5 seconds!  Refinements to the spawned vegetation is also leading to improved performance, with some areas in the game world breaking 50 FPS for the first time!

I have a feeling our coder isn't going to be able to relax until we are able to break 60...

We are STILL bringing in Mac experts to assist us with the elimination of the remaining obstacles that have delayed the new Mac Alpha.

SO, ON MAY 22ND, 2018, THIS GUY ENTERED OUR LIVES...

And HOLY CRAP, we had no idea what we were in for.  Ya see, I was put in a bad situation:  Laura had work training that day, and had sent me alone to the shelter on KITTEN DAY.

I was thrust into a room where I was confronted with a wall of spacious two-level cages, each of which contained three 2-month-old kittens.  In case you didn't know, two months is pretty much "peak adorable" for kittens, and I was there without Laura's tempered counsel.

We had both wanted a female tortie we had seen on the shelter's site, but she had been adopted, ten seconds before I arrived.  Left to my own devices, I was captivated by this blur of fluff and energy that was relentlessly tussling with the two tabbies that were his roommates.

Looking back, I'm pretty sure that both of those tiny grey tabbies heaved a great sigh of relief after this guy came home with me, because we soon learned that we had adopted a "special" cat:

From the day he arrived at our house, he had no problem in viciously attacking fully-grown cats 15-30 times his size.  Two days after we brought him home, he swiped me in the eye, which resulted in a nasty sinus infection.  For the first six months, you could not touch him, without him immediately attacking as if he was a wild animal (We think he might be part feral.)

It took a long time, a lot of training, and reinforcement by our elder cats, but he eventually became socialized and realized that endless frenzied violence wasn't the best way to make friends and influence people.

He also became a handsome devil, as well:

I also wanted to tell you that weekly mailings of premiums has resumed.  Postcard sets have gone out, and this coming Monday, the first shipment of prints is going out!  The unfortunate fact of the matter is that this current situation will be continuing for quite some time.  For us, the prospect of delaying these shipments indefinitely was unacceptable and impractical. 

Of course, all of our premiums have been sitting in their packaging long enough to ensure that the possibility of any contamination has been eliminated.  However, we ask that you take the proper precautions with the packaging.

See ya'll in two weeks, or as soon as we have the 0.86 Mac Alpha ready - whichever comes first!