Hypno.exe in 2023!

Read on: Subscribe Star | Itch.io | Tumblr | GitHub

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Like a good time in the night, the new year has come and gone.

I have taken the liberty of getting some rest from focused development through January, so now with the turning of the month I return again to continue working towards a better application for better mind-melting, brain-washing, awareness-annihilating, goodness.

So what does this mean, exactly?

Firstly: Dedicated development time each week, set aside from the standard, full-time work I am engaged in. This will be accompanied by social media posts about the work done that week, available in four flavors: Twitter, Tumblr, Mastodon, and Hive Social (which has nothing to do with the dronification fetish collective of the same name). This way you can keep an eye and/or ear on me and the work I am doing, and can immediately call me out should a week pass without an update of some kind.

Secondly: Hypno.exe itself is getting a major overhaul. While I am not entirely re-writing it from the ground up, I am giving it heavy restructuring as part of upgrading it to Unreal Engine 5.1, so the next release will be slower coming than in the past, but when it does arrive it will have the same amount of features as it currently has, while having a completely reworked UI and better handling of large data like images and audio, as well as the general upgrades to stability, usability, and under-the-hood goodness. Maybe even proper VR support too, if the stars are right.

Thirdly: I will be taking a more proactive approach to both social media and whatever kind of community can be fostered around Hypno.exe; the more who use it and share their experiences, the better for everyone. Interacting with the people who use Hypno.exe in their hypnotic hi-jinks will better help to shape and guide its development as time goes by. Likewise, a healthy community provides avenues for people to request from, and make Programs for, other users.

To these ends, here is how you can help and/or be involved:

You can help by supporting development on Subscribe Star! This will help fund source control and automated build pipelines, which will drastically improve my production process, as well as generally supporting me and the work I am doing. With enough support I could even bring on a real UX designer to make a real UI not designed by me (a programmer). As a supporter you will also get you perks like exclusive discord channel access (more on that below), early builds, direct influence on development, and even priority support.

You can help and keep updated by following me on any social that you prefer, or all, or some. In order of my preference/favoritism: Subscribe Star, Twitter, Tumblr, Itch.io, Mastodon, and Hive Social. The serotonin and dopamine that your encouragement provides is no small thing, so it helps production.

You can get involved by joining the Discord! It is early days yet, but a major part of how Hypno.exe is being built is to have Programs and experiences be easily sharable, be it via .hypno files or exported videos, and Discord is a perfect test-bed for such features. Likewise, a community of other users is a great way to learn how to better make use of Hypno.exe’s features, and meet other people interested in hypnosis generally.

Finally, you can keep informed by checking out the GitHub! It may seem boring (and it is) but there you can find information like: known bugs, planned features, how-to documentation, systems diagrams, and possibly more.

I am going to make 2023 be a big year for Hypno.exe, and those of you who are already providing support and encouragement are deeply appreciated, you have made the road to this point far more enjoyable than it might have been, and I look forward to your continued support in the year(s) to come!