The Universe Surrounding the International Post-Apocalyptic Franchise, Depleted
On Halloween, we bring you a special treat, that’s only the least bit tricksy! Fans of Depleted can downoad the epub of World of Depleted: A Tale of Cymbrogi, Volume 1: Family Retreat. Optimized for e-readers like the iPhone, iPod, and Android, you can read it on any .EPUB software. Tomorrow, we’ll also make the .PDF available!
Happy Halloween and may you enjoy the new story that gives you greater insight into the Cymbrogi, Gavin Hesterdale, and other fun people within the World of Depleted!
Many fans have been wanting to hear more music from the amazing zero-project and we are now pleased to let you know that his music is now available for you to listen to and download! Signed up ontributors will be able to use his music in their projects free of charge, as zero-project has chosen to sign a special derivative use waiver. Folks who wish to include soundtracks that include zero-project’s music may do so, although standard Contributor payments will apply!
If you’ve been checking out the Contributor’s Inner Cloister recently, you’ve undoubtedly seen some of the many changes that have been going on there. Amidst the release of Day 419, we’ve been tweaking the layout pretty substantially. The new page is quite a bit different than the old layout and that was intentionally arrived at to provide the community based setup that we want for our Contributors. The fact that the looks are fairly disparate isn’t a huge issue, as they’re supposed to represent a visual difference that would be seen when moving from the battered exterior of a post-Fall city into the untouched inner recesses where secrets and mysteries lurk undisturbed.
Some of the new features that I’m excited to be able to share with you are an auto-login that takes you to your own personal Contributor page. When you haven’t logged in, you’ll default on our news page, like normal, but, after you log in, your personal page will be your home page. (You’ll still be able to easily click on the News menu and check out all the newest breaking news, of course.) We feel that this will make communicating with one another much easier and faster, not unlike getting on to your main Facebook page (although I’m biased enough to feel our layout is cleaner than facebooks).
Other new elements we’re unveiling are a quote generator that has a plethora of quotes I’ve hand-picked to rotate from time to time as you navigate about the site, which will reside tastefully on the left sidebar. Some are short quotes, while others are from well known (and lesser known) books and songs. Not every quote is designed to be something that is representative of something good (like a few quotes from Adolf Hitler, for example), but all of them are designed to make you think about the human condition in the light of the World of Depleted. I believe that many of these quotes will surprise you (at least, many of them surprised me) and, from surprise, often comes creative inspiration! We’re also optimizing what information is in your sidebars, so that you have important things easily accessible to you whenever you log in!
As always, there are a few things we’re working on that haven’t gotten all the kinks worked out. One of them is a sidebar mounted music player which, when fully completed, will allow special “listening” room chambers where you can listen to music from a Contributor artist while you chat with other collaborators in a chat room. Right now, there are still a few bugs to work out (such as the fact that the player vanishes when you log in), so you can sample the music we have up right now (from zero-project’s Fairytale album) by logging out of your account and clicking on the sidebar player when it appears.
Further, if you check your custom profile area, you’ll note that there are a few new options, including an ability to choose what “role” you will take in this world. When completed, you’ll be able to choose a number of basic roles that you want to associate with (such as Knights of Xeno, Neo-Palidins, Dark Dreamers, Healers, Reapers, The Order of the Steel Rood, or even the N.I.R.) based on your personal ideals in this world. As you improve your skills by publishing more work in this world, you’ll be able to rise in rank in the role you’ve chosen. (For example, if you chose to be a Dark Dreamer, you will start out as a novitiate, but you can rise to visionary, prophet, and finally to seer as you progress through the ranks.) And, with greater rank will come greater levels of authority and control within the actual structure of the Inner Cloister, giving you access to places that few others have!
I think that adding a role-playing style edge to our creativity will only make this a more interesting experience for all involved! And, of course, we’ll be treading a careful path so that folks who are uninterested in the game-type mechanics will not find them overbearing against their own speed of creativity in this world.
If you haven’t been by the new World of Depleted Contributor site, go ahead and check it out!
-Jeremy Hanke
Interim Leader of the League of Dark Dreamers
New updates on the horizon from the Depleted team:
“While some of the setbacks on the post-production end of things for Day 419 have been very difficult for us all, it has permitted us to further improve other elements of the film, including the effects sequences, and to refine our production and post-production workflow. Readers of Viking’s imprint, MicroFilmmaker Magazine, can look forward to in-depth articles and tutorials about the workflow we’ve been developing.”
More on this as we know it!