December Progress Report, and more JOLLY COOPERATION. eom

Lo, Patrons and Public! Just wanted to give you a quick update on what's been going down this December! LK's designer has redesigned the atlas screen, and most of the wiki screen. I've implemented 95% of the new design in the atlas screen, and it's looking incredible! LegendKeeper's look has improved significantly since the announcement back in October--I can't wait for the big reveal. 

Content

The exclusive map I commissioned for LegendKeeper is complete! It is a beautiful fantasy-themed regional map that weighs in at 10,000 x 7,000 pixels and 7 zoom levels. This map will be used in LegendKeeper promo materials, but more importantly, when the app is out, it will be included as a demo map for everyone to use. I wanted to show off how beautiful LegendKeeper worlds can be, and this map definitely delivers! 

Additionally, The Griffon's Saddlebag and I are gonna collab! LegendKeeper will have a content module featuring some of his beautiful and fun homebrew items for 5e. With the demo map, image assets from 2+ professional artists, maps from 2-Minute Tabletop and Milby's Maps, and items from The Griffon's Saddlebag, LegendKeeper is looking to have a ton of awesome content to get your world-building or campaigning started off right! (In case you're wondering, you can always hide content modules you don't want to see.)

Code

Coding-wise, there's still the two big pieces left: The secret feature, and the onboarding / registration flow. I will be honest and say that I've been pretty mentally exhausted this December! I'm a lead application developer by day, solo LegendKeeper dev by night, and it's been kicking my butt! The past couple weeks, I've given my code-brain a rest by focusing on more managerial, organizational tasks, and as such the technical development has slowed down a bit. Regardless, these other tasks, such as commissioning and implementing new designs, drafting the EULA and Privacy Policy, and reaching out to collaborators, are still critical to making LegendKeeper the slick world-building app it's meant to be.

Legal Stuff

Speaking of End User License Agreement, I thought it might be a good idea to address some legal stuff!  In the end, I will have a lawyer help me draft a solid EULA, but in the meantime I wanted to discuss expectations:

LegendKeeper should be an empowering tool that supercharges your creativity and stays out of your way. As such, it's of utmost importance to me that you, the eventual Licensee of the software, retain all intellectual rights to your original content you enter into the LegendKeeper system. You can find examples of this kind of license all over the place, especially in writing apps. The gist is, by using LegendKeeper you'll be granting me a non-exclusive license to store your data in a database, encrypt it, back it up, transfer it to you over the interwebs, and display it back to you as pixels on your screen, but other than that, the actual property rights still 100% belong to you. 

Things get a little more complicated when I introduce sharing features and such, but the intent remains the same: Any original content you share, unless you explicitly decide otherwise, belongs to you, and you are licensing the viewing and/or edit rights of that content to your friends and other humans of your choosing on the internet. I also thought it would be cool to allow you to tag your content with well-known licenses, such as Creative Commons or The Open Gaming License, but that's a topic for much, much later. 

Privacy Policy

As far as privacy goes, I am opposed to, and disinterested in, sharing or selling any of your data with anyone else. In fact, the less data you share with me the better; hopefully all it takes is your email address and that will be that. I also have no interest in serving ads on the site; it will be a last, last, last resort, and even then, if I ever do have to serve ads, I want it to be from  sponsors I have a personal relationship with, rather than some random-ass banner ad garbage. I get the feeling I won't ever have to serve ads, though. 

I'm sorry the updates have gotten less visual! LK is entering a phase of product maturity, and I'm trying to balance teasing cool updates and saving stuff for the Big Reveal. I don't want to spoil too much, but I also don't want to bore you all. I will say, LegendKeeper is in the process of getting a huge, exhaustive makeover and I think saving that for one big drop is the way to go. I know waiting for development sucks, but I think the first releasable product is really going to wow you.

I will be traveling pretty much all of next week; I do some work with a non-profit organization and they have their annual meeting in the first week of January. I will be less available, but I still love receiving messages and comments, so don't be afraid to reach out!

Bye!

Braden