A long time ago, I had a request to make a color guide for the standard color swatches in HeroMachine 2 for someone who was color blind. I just stumbled upon the file on my hard drive, and thought I should re-post it here so it would have a final home in case other color-blind users might find it useful. Click on the image below for the larger, more legible sized version.
Everyone’s been able to enjoy HeroMachine 2 and the expansion for free for quite a while now, thanks entirely to UGO. Because they’re both paying the hosting costs and providing my daily bread, I’ve been able to work on the program full time. And what makes that possible for UGO? Ads.
So as you can imagine, good ad placement is pretty much key to making this whole free thing work. As a result, we’re trying to come up with a way to include an ad right in the Flash applet itself instead of just placed around it on the page. The proposed interface looks like this (click for a larger version):
Let me know in comments what you think about this change — is it too much, or alright? I removed the icons for some of the basic functions like loading and saving and moved them to a menu across the top, how do you think that is working? What about the loss of the message window?
Update: After some discussion on the HeroMachine Yahoo Group, I have submitted this tweaked version for consideration (click for full size version):
I’ve included a small static text box explaining to the new user what they should do. I also moved the dropdown boxes for component and genre closer to the previews, as that’s where most of the activity occurs.
Every day seems to bring more news indicating that we will sometime soon see a real-life super-hero. The latest? Scientists have produced adhesive strips that work just like a gecko’s, possibly allowing people wearing boots and gloves featuring the material to climb walls like Spider-Man.
Now if only someone would just invent the ability to have the proportional sexual attractiveness of a spider, maybe we could all land supermodel girlfriends like Mary Jane Watson, too. Now that would be news-worthy!
I was going through some old sketch books yesterday, and came across some of the very first ideas I had for HeroMachine. What struck me was how similar they are to some of the knockoffs I’ve seen since then, and how some of the ideas back then may surface in HeroMachine 3. Since part of what I want to do with this blog is to include you in the process of developing a piece of software, I thought I should share those old drawings; here goes!
If you’ve used HeroMachine to help your web site, I want to spread the word about it! Either leave a comment here with your URL or send me an email containing a link and a quick description and I’ll post it. Whether you wrote a novel and used HeroMachine to help visualize the characters, or you’re a role playing gamer who brought villains to life for your players with the application, send it along and share it with the world.
I look forward to seeing what you all have done!
