Hello there! Sorry about the radio silence. With us being students, holidays and new years were quickly replaced with exams and reading! But that did not stop us from working on LoreMaster.io, and so we are back again with another update.
In this blog post we will talk about the results of the Story Canvas user tests, and after we will give an update on the closed alpha release.
Story Canvas User Test Results
As mentioned in the last blog post some time ago, we conducted tests of the Story Canvas. These tests resulted in a lot of great feedback. We have already taken some of it and made changes to the Story Canvas.
The Story Canvas
During testing we found that the way we had implemented linked content was not as intuitive as we had hoped. We had created a searchbar in which the user searched for the name of the Lore Page you wanted to link, but we found that many users during the tests did not remember what they had named their pages. While this could be an example of so-called testing blindness (where you don’t put much thought into, for example, naming conventions due to it not being a real use-case-scenario), this issue could arise with users with many pages in their world. Therefore, we have chosen to further look into developing the linking to be more intuitive. How exactly we will change the feature will be unveiled later, as we are still working on it at this point.
For the nodes in the Story Canvas, we also got some great feedback! In the current iteration users cannot change the size of nodes. This can clash with Story Canvas images of smaller sizes. Furthermore, the color picker for nodes was well received, but testers found it difficult to reselect the exact same color, for example to categorise their nodes. To alleviate these issues, we are working to make node sizes changeable, and be able to pick node colors through hexadecimal code.
Changes can be made to the nodes via hex code in the node settings.
Navigating the story canvas was intuitive to the testers. The biggest issue was the lack of zoom functionality. We have added zoom functionality, but it is still in early stages. We will be testing it further to make it as good and usable as possible!
The bottom left of the story canvas has a zoom bar.
The Other Stuff
In the last blog post we did also mention some other things to test. These things were the world creation dialogue and right click menus. We are happy to inform that testers found these features intuitive and usable. Testers did however have issues with movement of documents from one section to another in the navigation bar. We have fixed these issues!
The moving of documents into new sections and a new toolbar in the Story Canvas.
The Closed Alpha Release Update
Time for a small update on the closed alpha. We are sorry to report that we will be postponing the closed alpha. This may not come as a shock to those of you who have read that the plan was for it to begin in January. The reasons are that we do not feel comfortable with beginning the closed alpha in the current state of LoreMaster.io.
As students this is still a learning process, and therefore we make mistakes in our time estimates. Combined with troublesome features and external circumstances by virtue of our full-time work as university students, we would rather spend extra time creating the best possible LoreMaster.io alpha, rather than start testing the application in a potentially flawed state.
I know what you are thinking: “When does the closed alpha begin then? And how do I get in?”
Well we have moved it up until mid to late March. Terms and conditions will apply, but these terms will be clearly stated on the sign-up page. Everyone who has signed up for being notified at launch will be getting an e-mail invite, but there will be limited testing spots so keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook for more information.
We are looking forward to testing further with you, and getting your feedback on LoreMaster.io!
Until next time, all the best!
The LoreMaster.io Team
In the realm of Loremasterio exists a huge arcane portal that links the world to an infinite amount of other worlds!
Enter Through Patreon!
The academy in Loremasterio trains some of the brightest minds in the entire realm!
See all features
In the realm of Loremasterio, all of the world’s lore is kept in the Archives of Effortless Access. 
Because the waters of Loremasterio are difficult to navigate, the cartographers of the realm have had to get creative!