Greetings all! 
I’ve got some wonderful news about some progress that’s been made, and some changes to our development philosophy.
We are opening up The Think Tank.
The Think Tank is no longer a closed group that is based on activity. All prior #roadmap:brainstorming conversations are now public for anybody who wants to read or contribute.
The group itself will be renamed back to “Trust Level 3” to reflect is original purpose of grouping high-trusted members together. Those in that group will retain their private #general:lounge area.
We have launched our development API.
The work to Launch the API Server has finally been completed. This is just a starting point. A few important notes:
- This is not currently using any production data.
- It will eventually require api keys to use.
- There are no plans at the moment to open up the API’s internals.
For non-devs amongst us, this gives us a path to finally overcome the many, many technical challenges that have been holding us back from building new features and improving old ones. Amongst other things, it will allow us to make the game more stable, easier to redesign, and even makes a mobile app 
much more viable.
It will also finally make it possible for players to make tools properly, by giving them direct access to the data they need.
There is a lot of work ahead to do all of these things, but we’re taking a very important first step here.
For the devs amongst us, that brings me to my next point.
We are looking for volunteer developers.
If you’ve ever wanted to code for IC, now’s your chance!
I’m going to continue to focus on the API internals, and rewriting some of the current front end where appropriate to make use of new changes. However, the interesting work is really going to be in an entirely new front end based on more modern web technology.
I can very much use your help. This new front end will not be in any way based on IC’s current code. It will be from scratch and specifically built against the new api. This will be the method by which we shed nearly 2 decades of technical debt.
If you’d like join our efforts, you can join the new @Volunteer_Developers group. This is an open group; anybody can join it.
There are plans to Open Source this work to wider benefit.
Outside of IC, I’ve been talking with the owners of crimebloc.io and opendominion.net for awhile now about an open and collaborative effort to help the wider PBBG community.
Not only do we have potential to help others, but others will reciprocate and help us as well. These other developers and games are technically our competition, but they are also our friends and we support each other.
“A rising tide lifts all boats.”
The specifics are still being worked out, but the long term vision is that at least parts of IC can run on and benefit from an open framework of our own making.
Thanks for reading! Watch #roadmap for more news!
