Canvas 2 Crafter Jam Sesh
In this XQST crafter session, we set out to pick a color palette for the second Exquisite Land canvas. Using the same pixel palette tool as we did for canvas one, Lospec, the community members present went on a palette expedition. Selecting a handful of options, we were able to select the official palette for canvas two: Bubblegum 16.
Session details
- Friday 1/21/22, 3-4:30pm CST
- XQST Discord Server, #workshoppe voice channel + #workshoppe-chat text channel
- <10 community members present
- shahruz.eth
- frolic.eth
- kpaxle.eth
- jonbo.eth
- gorum.eth
- 0xeFa845164E612fe623ac21380AfC8ec78F22e3c3
- 0xBa36a539C7739A05e64e176F29078Ac681e924A9
Notes
🎨 Selecting a Color Palette
Today’s crafter jam sesh focused mostly on selecting a color palette. We’d previously discussed having some kind of process where community folks could submit palettes, and those palettes could be loaded into the XQST pixel editor to experiment with.
We decided during the session, let’s just choose the palette based on what feels right to those of us who showed up today! No time like the present.
Part of the reason to make a decision when we were together synchronously is we noticed async conversations and planning are difficult to focus—unless we’ve got a fairly well designed (read: constrained) collaborative game to play. While we could spend time designing a collaborative palette selector game, we could also just pick the palette and speed up the time it will take to actually play on canvas 2 together. We opted for the latter.[1]
If you’re interested in reading the chat, it’s all available in the #workshoppe-chat channel, starting at 3:01pm CST 1/21/22.
We talked color theory, we shopped around on lospec.com/palette-list for our favorite palettes with less than 16 colors, and we ended up with our top 3, which @aaz captured nicely here:
Ultimately we went with Bubblegum 16
🪙 Designing the Coin for Canvas 2
We then spent a bit of time jotting down the specs for the coin graphic. Given that the coin, or some similar type of object, is a central component to the XQST invitation mechanism—this is some prime design real estate!
We discussed the possibility of doing some kind of design challenge, and opening up the design to anyone who wanted to submit a coin for consideration. Ultimately, we agreed it would be best to do another sync session and see if we could explore as a group what the next coin could look like.[2] From there, one of the designers/participants in the sesh could bring the sketch to reality.
A next session, a canvas 2 coin whiteboarding sesh, will be held next week to further explore this area - details in the Discord.
👨💻 Getting Into the XQST Codebase
We didn’t spend much time talking about development, however there was some agreement from @jonbo and @gorum to get into the codebase sooner rather than later. With a palette selected, and some preliminary discussions on creating a countdown timer feature to encourage tile minting in a reasonable amount of time, it makes sense to start getting into code again.
We’ll be scheduling a code jam sesh next week as well - details to come in the Discord.
[1] The concept of using improvisational collaborative games is core to XQST. It forms the basis for the main collaborative drawing of canvases, and it also forms the basis of how we build, design, and coordinate. We’re new at using this technique in an open community so there’s a lot of experimentation going on currently.
[2] We’re relying pretty heavily on sync sessions right now, and don’t think this will always be the case. Previously, we’ve found sync sessions are necessary to find the right vibe of any working group. In the XQST community context, where we’ve got different people coming and going, and less continuity across sessions, we’re not sure how this will shake out. We do think there’s a way to work async with a bigger community through games (see note above).