Tools Year in Review

Last summer we had a very successful yearly Purple Sorcerer Tools Fundraiser. I can't tell everyone how much I appreciated not having to worry about hosting or app store publishing costs over the last 12 months: my health has impacted the family finances and your kind support truly helped! Thank you.

And despite the challenges, I'm pleased we managed to make some nice progress on the tools front in the last year:

• Launched the Sorcerer's Grimoire spellbook creation utility (the #1 requested item from last year's donor poll)
• Added Mercurial Magic to the upcoming Crawler's Companion update (A stand-alone web version of the MM generator will be arriving shortly.)
• Posted numerous updates to the Character and Tourney Generators. (The Tourney Generator will be receiving its own page so you will be able to easily select from the growing list of tourney style adventures out there.)

It's so gratifying to see sheets from the tools showing up almost every day in pics from DCC events around the world. The 0-Level party generator is quietly counting up every sheet, and at some point in the not too distant future the one-millionth serf will roll off the line, complete with a special Willy Wonka style golden character sheet. :)

Continuing Support

Finally, even though we raised enough last year that I'm not doing an official fund raiser for 2015, if you feel inclined to continue supporting the free tools, any and all donations will be warmly received! Every $350 raised covers an additional year of hosting/store costs, and there's always another development tool/gizmo/subscription to swallow up additional funds. Thanks again to everyone who continues to support Purple Sorcerer Games!

 

Sorcerer's Grimoire Updates

I've updated the Sorcerer's Grimoire with all of the missing spells I could detect, as well as fixed a bug where cover sheets weren't being added to non-random grimoires.

Check it out: we should be close to pulling the beta tag off the thing. ;)

Sorcerer's Grimoire

Crawler's Companion version 1.5 Android Beta

For Android users comfortable side-loading their apps and walking on the wild-side, the version 1.5 beta of the Crawler's Companion is now available.

Updates include:

• Mercurial Magic Generators
• Online user data access removed, replaced by a simple copy paste system
• Four new dice colors
• Numerous bug fixes and graphical glitches resolved

As with all betas, proceed with caution. It should be as stable as previous versions, but updates have been known to erase existing app data like favorite spells and spell caster settings. If this happens to you, let me know. :)

The beta APK can be downloaded on the crawler beta page.

The State of Things

In my pre-arthritis/neuropathy days I usually put in 25-30 hours or so a week working on Purple Sorcerer stuff, spread across the website, adventures, tools, and social media. And I enjoyed every minute of it. Unfortunately, a total of 25-30 hours of solid work in a week is now often a bit of a stretch. ;)

And though my capacity has diminished, my commitments have not. As a result, I've been researching task-management strategies to try and squeeze out as much productivity with the hours/strength I have. My initial evaluation of all outstanding tasks has made it abundantly clear that too many things are stacked up, making it particularly troublesome to deal with emotionally nasty things like the recent blog security problem that popped up out of nowhere. Things I can't effectively manage need to be set aside, so here's my high-altitude view of how things will be changing:

Adventures

No changes. I'm actually hoping that streamlining other areas will speed up my work here. I've got a nice stream of upcoming titles, and I love publishing new stuff!

Website

I currently have the Purple Sorcerer site, the blog, my Facebook page, my twitter account, a storefront, two store back ends, RPGNow, and my presence on Google+. I'm thinking there just might be something I can streamline in this mix. ;)

The insecure Wordpress blog on my site is gone, moved to Blogger. I'll let you know what else I decide to axe. :)

Web Tools

I don't see many changes here. The generators and Grimoire are easy to update, and I can even do lots of the work from my iPad. I'll probably be a bit slower about adding occupation lists and specialty character sheets, but I've already scheduled time to evaluate what the next tool will be once I'm caught up with all the planned updates for existing tools.

The Crawler's Companion

I've made no secret how deeply I loathe publishing to the Apple App Store: it literally gives me heart-burn, and updating the app in 3 different Android stores and on the web is no small endeavor. I've decided that the next update to the Crawler will be the last to add new features. Of course, the app already has more gizmos than I ever envisioned, and I will keep my eyes open and jump into the breach if a future iOS or Android update breaks the app. But as far as new features go, we're reaching the final stop.

Because the user party/encounter system used the old blog as its authentication system, I'm replacing it with a much simpler copy/paste method that doesn't require any outside data storage/access. Maintaining the database is just too big a cloud to have hanging over me at the moment, and the change will in part future-proof the app as a stand alone tool.

Can you do this...?

I'll continue to be happy to hear everyone's bug reports and ideas about what they'd like to see, but for the foreseeable future my plate is full and most new stuff/requests will have to wait until my current queue is empty.

Summing Up

I wish I had the verve I once had... I really do. I love communicating with everyone, and the interactions I've had wearing my Purple Sorcerer hat have truly eased the burden of this rotten health stretch. But I look forward to moving the crystal ball forward for years to come... only a bit slower and with a slightly more realistic scrying range. ;)

As always, thanks to everyone for your amazing support.

 

Crawler Data

I've made the difficult decision that the current method of accessing user party and encounter data will not be coming back. My health has limited my productive 'extra hours', and the worries of maintaining a database of 3rd party data that needs to be up 24/7 is a bit too much at this point. I'll be making updates to the Crawler and site to revert to a simple copy/paste method of letting folks streamline their encounters.

I'm bummed because building the current system required many, many hours, and I'm sad to see it go. But reality bites. :)

I'll provide more details about the new method as it develops.

As always, thanks to everyone for your support.

Crawler User Party/Encounter Data Not Available

Unfortunately, because of the Wordpress database issues I had last night, I've had to shut down all DB access on my server. Outside of the news, most folks won't notice a difference, save for the plucky few who are using the user party/encounter data in the Crawler's Companion. I'm so sorry such data is currently not available, and I'm not sure when that functionality will be restored. :(

Strange Goings-On

I was unable to sleep this evening, which sucks, but it did allow me to do some timely browsing: while visiting the Sorcerer Speaks I was greeted by a flurry of strange pop-ups in iOS when I clicked on the links in the right hand column: apparently good old Wordpress was hacked. (Despite having the newest version installed...)

So I've spent the last 3 hours basically rebuilding the blog up from scratch, which seems to have taken care of the problem. I'm finally off to bed, but if you notice any continuing strangeness, let me know!

I'm just not up to this sort of crap anymore. ;)