First Week of Boundless

Hiya all,

Today is Monday the 15th, which marks exactly a week since my previous blogpost, and the deployment of BoundlessSagas to the internet. On the one hand, a lot has happened in the meantime, although you could also argue progress is not as rapid as it was for the first week. So allow me to break it down and get into everything Boundless for this week:

What has been done since the previous update?

• Mobile visual patches and fixes
• Tags upgrade for the Vault and Blog
• Boundless Saga kickoff (!)
• Behind the screens storywriting

Mobile Patches and Fixes

So first of all, something that might not be as exciting, but I feel like its quite a good step that has been taken: the mobile fixes. Previously, the site looked like an absolute mess on mobile, the nav bar was way too large, nothing scaled for the smaller screen size, and article rendering was horrible. I invested a little time in making sure these elements properly scale with size. This made the mobile experience at least usable.
In the end, I don't think the mobile experience is clean as can be, but for now I added these to a list for later ;) At least, it's already much and much better than it used to be out of the box.

Tags Upgrade

This is a feature that started low on the list, but as I saw the storypost grids grow on the vault page, I realised it might be something not too difficult that could be pushed forward. The Vault page currently has a search bar, where stories can be searched on name, length, and thematic tags. Additionally, the tags can be filtered through the tag overview below.
I also decided to push the tag system to the blog page, but I didn't yet see the value in searches and filters based on tags, so this is left out for now. However, depending on the eventual size of the blog page, we might switch to those too.

Boundless Saga

Yes! This is some news I am excited about. The Boundless Saga has started!
I spend some time workshopping a storyline for our first chapter, which is titled: "Into the Wasteland", and I think episode 1 is the perfect kickoff for it. If you haven't checked it out yet, make sure to do so.

It might not be the most action packed episode, but I am actually really happy with the way it turned out. I think it gives quite a comprehensive overview of the world and setting, without overloading too much information. But that's me speaking of course haha, I've been familiar with this world for a long time.

As for the upcoming schedule, I haven't made a final decision yet as to when the next episodes will drop, though, I am going to try and stick to a bi-weekly upload schedule for the Bounless Saga episode, planning the next episode drop for Friday 26/09. Be there or be square is all I can say..

Create Your Own Story

Onto the exciting bulletpoint no. 2 then. I started work on the Create Your Own Story page, and I think it's going to be phenomenal when it's done. However, as a cost to that awesome final experience, it might take me a little more time than anticipated to fully get it done.

Some storylines have been implemented already, but lots of the content, as well as the filler and the stories in between are yet to be made. I sketched out a couple of endings I think I like, and in the process realised how greatly suitable these types of stories are for hiding easter eggs or fun little stories. You better be on the lookout for those when it drops.

My estimation is that I will take another maybe 3 weeks to get this adventure fully setup. It also made me think of the rotation schedule for the Create Your Own Story, which I realised will be a lot of work to replace often. For now, I'll see about making new adventures a few times a year, but I cannot give anything concrete about that as of yet.
Here's what I can tell ya though: The first adventure will be a spooky one, raising all hairs on your neck through ominous settings. And you better make the right calls, or else, the night will claim its victims..

The Near Future of Boundless (a roadmap)

Below I'll go on a little bit of a ramble about what the plans are for the future. However, I do feel inclined to say that this should all be taken with a grain of salt, there are no hard deadlines, only guidelines and plans, all packed into a schedule of ordinary life that is ever getting busier.
That being said, let's dive in.

Week 38 - 2025: This week will be packed with more personal things that need tending. I have got a new job scheduled for a few days, but I'll also be attending a festival. Additionally, I have a writing assignment for a magazine which I should probably get to, so I'm guessing there won't be too much time left to make huge progress for the website. I will say though, that I'm gonna try and take all the time I can get, since these might still be the more relaxed weeks lol.

Week 39 - 2025: I'll aim for finishing up episode 2 of The Boundless Saga. Next to that, I'm going to have to see how much time I will have for the rest. I should get decent progress on the Create Your Own Story, and hopefully venture ever more into the realm of finishing it. Additionally, I was thinking of tending to (at least the technical side of) The Newsletter Saga, which shouldn't be a lot of work, but it does need doing. I have also got the storyline to think of, and the episodes to write out, but I think it will be a fun project to pick up around this time.

Week 40/41 - 2025: I have got my "Release 0.5" planned for around this time. This basically means I'm gonna be done with all the tabs and have a stable product that is pretty much all I wanted to build. Mainly the writing is a big project that needs doing for this milestone, which kind of stretches the time it takes (I noticed programming goes actually so much quicker than writing. Wasn't quite expecting that).

Week 42/43 - 2025: In these weeks I wanna try and expand the technical part of the website. I wanna implement an account system, which comes paired with databases, authentication, and possibly already authorisation for certain role-based actions (I could build myself a frontend to write these things on the website rather than VSCode maybe haha). This should be a huge step towards my plan for "Release 1.0: Accounts".

What will follow after these weeks, no clue, I will try and keep up my release schedules, and fit in whatever works next to it. I do know that my personal whiteboard goes way beyond "Release 1.0", but I feel like I shouldn't pull back the curtain too much here, so that's all you're getting for now.

Alright, that's it for me. Felt like a little bit of an update should be in place, so here we are. Cya in the next one!