My creative process for this whole thing has been a… journey, to say the least.
I was trying to show my mom the entirety of the Allanon Multiverse, which was just a collection of documents, photos, playlists, and whatever else I had cobbled together for this disaster of a man. She said something along the lines of “I wish there was an easier way to look through all of this.”
And bam! The idea for a website was born.
At first I looked at stuff like Google Sites, but the scope of what I could do was incredibly limited. I had taken an HTML class in high-school, which was… 11 years ago? Jesus. But I thought, hey, I remember some shit, I can do this.
Narrator voice: She did not, in fact, remember some shit.
Yeah, it’s been a struggle. My class didn’t fuck around with Javascript at all, and we used Dreamweaver which sort of felt like cheating lmao. Ah, Dreamweaver.
So I’ve been relearning some things. It’s been a lot of copying and pasting code, reading through it, going “Ooooh, I see, I see” and trying to replicate it.
Honestly, I almost gave up on the whole idea because I couldn’t figure out what I wanted the homepage to look like. At first I was going to do just an early 2000s inspired site, very oldschool looking. I browsed through Neocities trying to get an idea for what I wanted to do, but nothing jumped out at me.
Then I had the idea to make an old ad, like a JCPenny ad. Turns out, that was hard. Somehow, I landed on making the homepage look like an old mall directory. The idea actually worked out pretty well, because I could give each Allanon variant their own “store”.
Then came the idea of what each variant’s page would look like. It’s been a lot of fun, a little (okay, very) frustrating, but all around, rather rewarding.
Everything is made on Canva before being brought over (oh, Canva, my beloved).
Honestly, it’s more playing around on Canva than actual coding, it feels like. Which works for me, because I’m obsessed with Canva. The main image serves as the background, and I separate some elements to animate them (or at least, I try to) and use a shit ton of hitboxes.
I’ve also started making soundscapes for each variant using CapCut and sounds I downloaded from YouTube. For example, Gang’s sounds like a detective’s office with typing, folders opening, rain and sirens through an open window. Cyberpunk’s is an old ship struggling to work. It’s been fun and equally as frustrating to figure out. Which, I guess, makes it worth it? Not sure, haha.
If anyone ever looks at my code and goes “Good lord, what a mess”, I won’t blame them. It is a mess. But Allanon is also a mess so it’s in character. All part of the plan, baby.
It’s been a slow process, but it’s been fun. Nothing feels better than trying to make a little element move two pixels to the left and feeling that rush of dopamine because it did, in fact, move two pixels to the left.
I feel like each Allanon variant would have a different reaction to me making this. And I typed them out, because I wanted to.
Gang: Huh. Neat. Uh, quick question, though. Why?
Dijiin: *he’s just staring*
Vampire: This is beautiful. Thank you. I am confused as to why you would put forth so much effort, though. Did someone force you? No? Threaten to beat you? No? Huh.
VR: Oh, hell yeah. Wait, why isn’t my store the biggest? Why are all these other punks here? It should be the VR Emporium. Actually, fuck it, I’ll make it myself.
Western: What the hell is this lightbox?
Captain: Hm. Impressive. Useless, though.
Cyberpunk: Hell yeah, man. Uh, a little weird, but hey. Do you, I guess.
Dark Lord: Oh, fuck. Neat. Can I try? *a few moments later* Hey, I broke it.
Apocalypse: Oh, shit! I love dumb shit like this! Ha! Look! There’s me! Hell yeah.