Lewin Kelly Heliodex

Heliodex project update - February 2024

Welcome back! Here's another late-but-still-slightly-less-late-than-last-time update.

Mercury

Mercury has entered the release candidate stage! This means that we're making the previously-closed beta more open, and making it much easier to obtain an invite key. We're working on a Discord bot that, instead of going through an arduous exam process, and complete what's been referred to as an "ORC Resume" (lmao), you can fill out a few fields and get accepted for a key.

Work on the avatar shop and Discord integration will continue, and a database reset will be performed before the bot is released.

Heliodex project update - March 2024

We're back! This update is even less late than the previous.

Mercury

Since Mercury entered its Release Candidate phase, we've received over 200 applications and the site now has more than 120 users. Since then, we've also migrated the backend from Node.js to Bun, giving us faster package installation and runtime speed, fewer dependencies, and a more stable codebase.

Our 1 April update featured a rebranding to Graphictoria 7, as well as a brilliant site redesign. It was reverted the next day, though if you did actually like the new design and branding, you can now add something similar with the Custom CSS feature in your settings.

Heliodex project update - April 2024

I ended up writing this update, forgetting to post it, and then losing it. That's my excuse, anyway welcome back.

Mercury

The domain migration (for the site, at least) is complete, and the site is now hosted on mercury2.com. Subdomains should be working as expected and redirect to their new locations (apart from status.banland.xyz, for some reason).

Other than that, little has changed. Mercury will remain on hiatus for the next two weeks, and the client will be re-released soon after.

Heliodex project update - May 2024

Once again that time of the year has arrived, I'm now finished with my qualifications and will be working throughout the upcoming holidays on various projects. Welcome back!

Mercury

Mercury has returned from its hiatus! New applications are being accepted, albeit at a slow rate as we are a little swamped with the backlog.

Highly anticipated client development is continuing, with more focus on DLL hooking. This may take a while, estimated at 1-4 weeks, but will bring additional QoL improvements and anti-cheat. In the meantime, for the website we'll soon be merging a number of commits improving integration between the backend and database into production.

Heliodex project update - June 2024

Can't put this one off any longer... you'll see. Here's the update for June, it'll be a long one this time.

Mercury

The Mercury 2 website has been replaced with a memorandum titled "The Future of Mercury 2". The short and not-sweet gist of it is that we ran into a whole host of effectively insurmountable technical issues regarding communication between the client and DLL hooks, and we didn't have the time, resources, experience, or incentive to solve them. Dare I say this is one of the "great filters" of any Revival project – and we've fallen to it.

We made the decision to close down the Mercury 2 website, services, and branding abruptly (as is taskmanager's forte), specifically to avoid the late-stage burnout and neglect that we've seen in other projects. Instead, we'll be using the time and resources we have left to rebuild and rescope the project by splitting it into multiple component parts. We're honing our focus on the eponymous

Heliodex project update - July/August 2024

We're doubling up baby! I didn't have time to write a post last month, so this one will cover both July and August.

Mercury Core

After ~28 months in development, the highly anticipated open-source release of Mercury Core has finally happened. This is (hopefully) the final form of this several-times-recycled codebase, and will continue to be supported by maintainers and by community contributions for some time. However, we're still considering how releases will work, and whether the main branch should be considered stable for production use.

This first release is intended to be only for highly technical users or programmers, though the README does include instructions for easy configuration with the mercury.core.ts file. We're working on a comprehensive video guide to Mercury Core, which includes setup instructions as well as a full tutorial walkthrough of creating your own fully fledged revival project w

Heliodex project update - September 2024

Hello again. Here's another monthly update to show what I've been working on.

Sprig Shooter

The Heliodex/sprig repository includes a set of tools and the Sprig Shooter game for the Hack Club Sprig game console. While the engine was designed to work with tile-based games, Sprig Shooter is a bitmap-based arcade-style game. Shoot enemies and avoid crashing into them to gain score, and the game gets harder as you progress.

The limited capabilities of the Sprig was a fun challenge to work around, and making bitmap graphics and music alongside custom engine behaviour and collision detection was a great learning experience. I've applied to get my hands on the real hardware, and I can't wait to see how the game runs on it.

	// "GO?
	// WHY THE FUCK
	// IS THIS IN GO?
	// ARE YOU STUPID
	// ???"
	// - taskmanager, 9 January 2024

	// cope harder
	// don't forget da .env

	{
	"applicationSettings": {
	"AndroidSwipeGestureUseStartingPosition": "True",
	"DFFlagAccoutrementWeldingFilteringEnabled": "False",
	"DFFlagAdminServerLogs": "True",
	"DFFlagAllowPackageLinkAncestoryClone": "True",
	"DFFlagAnalyticsNS1BeaconSupportLimitedRobloxUrls": "True",
	"DFFlagAnalyticsReportHttpStatsAtExit": "True",
	"DFFlagAnimatorEnableBone_PlaceFilter": "True;5326950832;5100919959;5064251723;5716845078;5588662702;5550062757;5762960116;5792232897;5796518985;5796546949;5796554295;5790039516;5646917919;5947859215",
	"DFFlagAnimatorOnSteppedKeepAlive": "True",

	// F# version, bit of a hack because it relies on luau anyway so just use the luau version, it's faster
	// also I'm never writing a mathematics evaluator

	open System
	open System.Diagnostics
	open System.Collections.Generic
	// digits one to ten must be in order

	// numbers one to ten, with 3 operators placed between them
	let sum = 100