Getting started¶
The Family runs in a browser at flux-frontiers.github.io/kpress_family. It needs WebGL, which every current desktop and mobile browser has. Nothing is installed, and nothing about you leaves the browser except the requests that fetch the page and the family's files.
Start driving¶
- Open the orchard. While it grows, the start screen shows Growing the orchard; then the live orchard fades in behind the title, the camera slowly circling the home tree.
- If the site has more than one family, pick one from the Family menu under the buttons. Each entry gives the family's name and how many people it holds. Picking another family reloads the page and grows that family's orchard.
- Press Start driving, or Guided tour to let the cart drive the ring and stop at each grove. About says what the orchard is, lists the controls, and tells you what is in tonight's sky.
The start screen remembers the family you picked last on this device and opens on it next time. It also says how many lines are already in your album for that family.
The orchard opens in the season of today's date where you are, under your own sky right now. To change the season, use Season in settings; Winter drops most of the leaves so you can see the wood. To change the time of day, use the clock button in the top bar.
You start at the hub, on the plaza in front of the home tree, facing its plaque. The groves are out along the roads.
Controls¶
Keyboard¶
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| W / S | Drive forward / reverse. Release to stop. |
| A / D | Steer left / right. The cart turns in place when stopped. |
| Drag | Look around: drag the orchard left, right, up or down. The view eases back to straight ahead when you let go; the tilt stays. |
| Left / Right | Look left / right. The view eases back to straight ahead when you release. |
| Up / Down | Tilt the view up / down. It stays where you leave it. |
| Shift | Hurry. |
| Space | Brake. |
| E | Add the nearest tree's line to your album. |
| C | Next camera: behind the cart, high view, in the cart, god's eye. |
| V | Schematic trees on or off. |
| N | Name plates on or off. |
| Mouse wheel | In god's eye, zoom toward the cursor. |
| Q | Start or end the guided tour. |
| G | Browse: the groves and exhibits. |
| B | Browse: every line. |
| L | Browse: your album. |
| H | Home, in front of the home tree. |
| ? | About the orchard and tonight's sky. |
| Esc | Settings. With a panel open, closes it. |
With the record reader open, Left and Right turn to the previous or next person in the line, and Up and Down scroll the page.
Touch¶
On a phone or tablet the controls are on screen:
- Left stick: drag up to drive, down to reverse, sideways to steer.
- Drag anywhere else: look around. Drag up or down to tilt the view, left or right to look to the side. The tilt holds; the sideways look eases back when you let go.
- Add: adds the nearest tree's line to your album. It lights up when a tree is close enough, and reads In album for a line you already have.
- Guided tour: starts the tour; the same button reads End tour and ends it.
- Pinch: in god's eye, zooms toward the point between your fingers.
Everything else is in the top bar: home, Browse (groves, every line and the album), and the three-dot menu, which holds the time of day, silent mode, screenshot, clean view, settings, About and Exit to the start screen. On a wider screen these are buttons in the bar; Exit is the last.
Gamepad¶
| Control | Action |
|---|---|
| Left stick or d-pad | Drive and steer |
| Right stick | Look around |
| A | Add the nearest tree's line to your album |
| Left trigger | Brake |
| Right trigger | Hurry |
The screen¶
- Top left: the family's panel: how many trees, the season and the time. With Show geometry and frame rate on in settings, it adds a readout of triangles, draw calls, leaves and frames per second.
- Top right: clean view, screenshot, the clock, silent mode, home, Browse, settings, About and exit. On a phone the bar keeps home and Browse, and the rest move to the three-dot menu. The Browse button counts the lines in your album.
- The minimap: under the buttons. It shows the groves as colored dots, the exhibits as gold diamonds, the hub as a dot at the center, the home person's grove with a gold house, and you as an arrow. North is the top. Tap a grove to list its lines, an exhibit to jump to it, or the center dot to go home.
- Bottom center: the search field, moved clear of the stick on touch screens. See Finding people.
- Bottom left: cards. When you slow down beside a tree, its card appears with the line's name, founders and a summary. See Reading the records.
- Bottom right: on a wider screen, Ride the ring, which starts the guided tour.
Clean view (the eye button, or Clean view in the three-dot menu) hides the buttons, cards and search, and keeps the minimap. The same button brings them back.
Where your progress lives¶
Your album, the groves you have visited and the home person you chose are saved in this browser only, separately for each family. Your settings are shared by every family. None of it follows you to another device or another browser, and a private window forgets it when it closes. Empty the album in the Album tab clears the album, and Reset all settings clears the settings; see Settings.