Hey everyone!
The big update is finally here. The Wheel of Fortune minigame is live, and I have quite a story to tell about how it got here.
The new minigame
You can now look for the new circle icon in the video list to know if a video supports the Wheel of Fortune or not.
Simple enough, right? Well... let me tell you how the development actually went.
After getting reasonably confident about how to configure segments and style the wheel to match the originals in various videos, someone submitted this:
As you can see - that is a lot of segments. And on top of that, the outcome is also conditioned by what color you bet on earlier. I was not even remotely prepared for this level of complexity. My reaction was approximately:
In theory, a wheel like this was already possible to configure. But it would have taken ages, the sync file would have been enormous, and making any changes to it would have been a nightmare to navigate. So after a brief depression session, I got back up and said "challenge accepted" - and completely redesigned how wheel configuration works under the hood.
Without going into too much technical detail, I can now reuse common elements across segments in a similar way to how other parts of the syncing system work, just on a bigger scale. What looked impossibly complex before is now actually manageable. I'm genuinely happy with how it turned out.
Membership requirement
Given the complexity involved in making and maintaining this, the Wheel of Fortune minigame will be a members-only feature. This shouldn't come as a huge surprise as there was already a notice that minigames would be moving to paid tier eventually.
That said, the original slider bar minigame stays free. Hopefully that softens the blow a little. π
Other changes
There are a few more things in this update, but like previous releases they're mostly background improvements that unlock syncing capabilities for videos currently in the queue rather than anything you'd directly notice.
What's next?
Syncing/reworking and bug fixes of course. There are plenty of videos to get through, and I expect a few edge cases to pop up after a release this size.
And yes, I haven't forgotten about my own JOI video. The base plot is mostly done, so the next step is refining the artwork. Right now I have rough placeholder images with a lot of artifacts to clean up... though judging by some of what gets published, apparently that's a releasable state for some creators. π It's my first video production so I don't expect it will be perfect - just something I can be genuinely proud of rather than embarrassed by.
Once things settle down, I'll put up a new poll for the next feature direction. Until then - enjoy the wheel, and as always, thanks for your support! β€οΈ