v0.8.0 Released

Super Practica v0.8.0 is now playable on the Play page! This is the long-awaited “Player-Facing Demo”.

My priority for this release has been to make it “presentable” so that it isn’t a “janky mess”. Though it’s still rough to play, this demo demonstrates the reproduction of practical knowledge by a set of generalized methods with very wide applicability. It should be possible for anyone who can count and use a computer to make it to the end of this demo, without teaching or instruction, only by playing. And it should be possible to reuse the same mechanics to produce the same effect for other topics.

This release includes less content than I originally wanted for a player-facing demo. There’s only the set of “Grid Counting” levels, and I notice design flaws in them, but I have to release something already.

The important part is that what you can see in this demo is only the tip of the iceberg of the project. I have completed very much of the theoretical and design work necessary to extend the coverage of Super Practica to the rest of arithmetic and beyond. I have also prioritized the oomphability of the codebase over the oomphiness of its output, which is to say that new content should be relatively easy to make.

That’s a big deal! I’ve seen promising games that collapse under their own weight as they grow beyond their demos. That’s a symptom of putting too little time into the core of the codebase and too much time into making content, which really ought to be disposable in the early phase of development. To build a large game effectively, you should focus on building the system for building the game, rather than on building the game itself. This is what I have done and I look forward to seeing this system not explode in the near future!

Fundraiser Announcement #

On the subject of not exploding, I need money. So I’m announcing a little fundraiser.

I think it will be exponentially easier to ask for money the further along this project gets, so I tried to put it off for as long as I could and don’t ask for much now. But without some money coming in soon, it will inhibit my ability to continue to work on this project as much as I’d like to.

Early funding is difficult for FOSS projects like this. I could of course try to get funding from investors, but that would sabotage the quality of the product. I’ve built this on the assumption that affirming player rights and not compromising on quality can be financially viable, but that requires other early funders to replace profit-seeking investors.

The goal of this fundraiser is to reach $6,000 by September 1. I think this is on the low side for how promising Super Practica is, but it might be on the high side for how little publicity I expect to do, so maybe these factors will cancel out.

On the high end of what I can reasonably use in the near future, I think around $500,000 will enable rapid growth, but we can grow into that if and when the effectiveness of Super Practica for reproducing practical knowledge is proven. Hitting just $6,000 now will position Super Practica for future growth, and I can raise the bar when I have more to show in future releases.

So if you think Super Practica looks promising, and especially if you’ve read the 100-page book and were persuaded by its arguments in favor of its particular scientific methodology and design process, consider funding its development!

You can also help by sharing this website!

Update (September 16) #

It has since come to my attention that the activity known as “fundraising” involves work beyond making an announcement. This goes some way toward explaining why this “fundraiser” was a failure.

Less facetiously: Whenever I set out to fundraise, I always think my time is better spent developing Super Practica to better demonstrate its potential, so very little of such work gets done.

The purpose of announcing a fundraiser was to make the following points:

• The rate at which Super Practica will grow is proportional to the amount of funding it receives.
• The point of diminishing returns in the form of money I couldn’t put to good use is still very far off.
• With no funding, Super Practica cannot grow at a decent pace. I literally can’t make it alone, and therefore require funding (or volunteers, but preferably both). Its success depends on it “taking off” eventually.

Running periodic fundraisers is annoying, so I’ll try to find a better way of communicating these points in the future.