Just a quick update: I have just a handful of things to do before EpicTable is usable for my Thursday night game. My plan is to take it for a spin on one of those Thursdays—hopefully, this coming Thursday—and then start inviting people to participate in the alpha.

Once this process starts, I’ll post a list of features in/out of the alpha, so you have some basis for deciding whether to participate in alpha 1 or wait for a later release. I plan to have automatic updates built in for alpha 1, so we should all be able to take advantage of new features as they become available.

The EpicTable alpha is nearing completion. I have a goal of using it in a game I’m in later this week. I ran into some snags this weekend that slowed me down, so I don’t know if I’m going to make this week, but it’s close.

The tabletop is working and auto-save is hooked up. Access to the catalog of saved items is still not there, so if you were to close the tabletop, you’d have no way to retrieve it. Suboptimal. The catalog is pretty necessary for alpha-1, but maybe not for this week’s game.

The features left out of this first alpha are no longer visible or accessible, which I’ve found has a marvelous focusing effect on me. It was too easy to worry about things not actually targeted for the alpha when they were staring me in the face.

Messaging (i.e., the new “forget port forwarding” messaging) is working, in the sense that message are getting back and forth, and this evening I’ll be reintroducing the message handlers and the participant join protocol.

I’ll keep you guys posted.