Welcome to Explorer Exchange!

After two weeks of development, I am proud to announce that Explorer Exchange is ready for all the Explorers of D’ni and its Ages.

It’s amazing to think that I got here at all. When I began this “project”, I thought that I would be making a simple one-page list of marker games, and I figured that I would never actually release it, having seen few personal projects to completion before loosing interest. It’s also technically interesting, considering I didn’t know any PHP/MySQL before I decided to modify my friend’s DB-List script. But thanks to him immense help, and the help of Google and a good PHP/MySQL book, I’ve managed to get everything in implemented, tested, and fixed in my plan for 1.0, minus a 1-px positioning error in KHTML-based browsers (Konqueror and Safari) which I am still looking into.

I’d also like to thank everyone who helped give feedback, test the site, and run around Er’cana and Eder Kemo as I took over 200 pictures. It was a blast.

I decided to make a web site listing marker games for a couple of reasons. First of all, marker games are a fun, Explorer-produced way to pass time in the Cavern when the DRC is not around. Secondly, I wanted a better way of procuring games. Previously, I had to resort to either asking random people if they had any games or posting my KI number in one of the many “I have a marker game!” threads on the various message boards. My hope is that Explorer Exchange will help make finding and sharing marker games easy, without having to deal with dozens of different message board threads or harassing other Explorers.

I should mention that another hope of mine is that once other KI-sharable, Explorer-created games are released that I can add support for those as well, and Explorer Exchange will have more than marker listings. If the Jalak game is KI-sharable, I will work on adding support for that once it is released.