Hi everyone! This is Aiden, co-CEO and co-founder of Alium Software. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It may not have felt that way, but it’s been over two months since we’ve last delivered a progress report to you. Last time we updated you regarding the status of ParksBot and hinted at Project Stardust.
First, let’s talk a little bit about ParksBot.
If I’m being honest, I can’t say this is good news. After the announcement of our 4.0 update, Cory and I added some features to deliver us analytics regarding the usage data of the bot. After looking at the data, we’ve determined it would not be worth creating ParksBot 4.0 with the number of features and parks we had planned to implement. Due to this, and the amount of time the update would’ve taken, we’ve decided to cancel all future updates of ParksBot. We will always appreciate what we started over two years ago with ParksBot, but it’s time to move forward. ParksBot will run until it’s no longer supported by the APIs it relies on. We no longer offer support for the bot either. Thank you for your continued support of ParksBot.
In other news, the Alium Software Discord server got a new logo. The previous one looked really outdated so we wanted a new coat of paint as we enter the next phase of the Alium Software project. That’s right, we’re entering Phase II of Alium Software. What does that mean? Basically, we’re in an awkward several month-long transitional phase between the past (ParksBot and the rest of the previous projects), and the future (Project Stardust). You may have noticed a reduced amount of channels on the Discord server as a result of this, such as the archiving of the changelog, and the disappearance of bot testing and support channels. I can also confirm that upon the release of Project Stardust, we will be dropping the Alium name, brand, socials, and label, in favor of a new one related to Project Stardust.
Now, let’s talk Project Stardust.
It’s been coming along very smoothly! Unfortunately, I’m not able to reveal it yet. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but it’s still far from ready for its reveal. We really appreciate your patience with us as we continue to work hard on the project. We previously mentioned that Stardust is 8–12 months away from the reveal and we are still aiming for that timeframe. We’ve been working on legal work, branding, as well as the product itself. We had planned to make a progress report in April, but we didn’t have any specifics to share with you all. This doesn’t mean we’ve made less progress, we’ve merely had fewer specifics that we could share with the public. This pattern will likely continue as well, so I wouldn’t anticipate regular progress reports in the future either. There may be a few more reports before we finally show you what Project Stardust is.
Although this article sounds like a lot of negatives, such as the cancellation of ParksBot updates or the slowdown of posts, we’re progressing incredibly smoothly on the project. We’ve definitely had challenges along the way, but never once did we doubt our ability to finish the project. I can safely say we have never worked this well on any previous project we had ever worked on for this development team. Thank you so much for your support with your presence in our Discord and for reading through this article, although it may not seem like a lot, it truly means a lot to both of us that we have even a small group of people watching as we work to finish this. We understand if our pace is not as fast as you may want, and unfortunately, Phase II will feel like a long trek as we continue work on Project Stardust. However, we both see the end coming soon, and we hope you’ll be there to see it when we arrive there.
I’ll see you back here in this corner of the internet soon. Till then, we’ll be working very hard.
See ya!
Aiden
