With the holiday season upon us, our volunteer team isn’t moving as fast as they might, but progress is being made regardless.
The JSCL compiler that converts the Source Code, which programmers write, into the Object Code (JavaScript) that runs in your web browser is being stabilized this month. That means we should be back to working more on game features and less on the underlying system components. It also will make it easier to share our improvements to JSCL with others through the main JSCL project. This works both ways: others will be able to take advantage of improvements being made for Tootsville, and we’ll likewise be able to more easily incorporate improvements that others might make to the compiler.
In the arena of curators, some interesting pieces have been identified, including the beginnings of the Tooth Theatre film lineup. The first scheduled film will once again be The Cobweb Hotel — the same spooky classic cartoon that was played for the Theater’s grand opening 7 years ago.
Our servers are also playing host to a mirror of the Project Gutenberg library, a collection of classic books in the public domain. A selection of these books will be available in Tootsville itself to collect, read, and share.
The so-called “Robo-Toots” — non-player characters — are gaining conversation skills in a special offline “training” program. When this research project has been developed a bit further, Toot characters who don’t have any player accounts will be able to have fun conversations with players about their favorite topics. The artificial intelligence systems responsible for that are gathering knowledge about real-world topics through reading specially formatted “fact collections” and dictionaries.
There is still lots of opportunities for volunteering with Violet Volts in all kinds of areas, so if you’d like to share your talents and maybe learn some skills in the new year, and you’re 13 (with parents’ permission) or 18 years or older, let us know and we’ll be happy to put you to work ?
Let’s Make Some Noise!