If you really need Android support, you can go to the Android downloads and experiment with them. Version 1.5.1 (APK) is confirmed running for a lot (but not all) devices.

Unfortunately that energy is gone. Whenever I would have the time to work on reported issues, I am simply not motivated to do that. It feels more like work instead of a hobby project. I've forced myself to do do minor stuff, but that worked less and less over the last months. I feel the need to step back from all my RPG applications (Commlink is not the only chargen application I am developing) and also social media channels for this topic for a while and also pausing my Patreon. Take some months just to reload my batteries and hopefully return back.

I will keep paying the rent for the website and the issue tracker, which will keep being a place to report stuff, but I won't check what is happening there. I will be reachable via Discord, but ignore my server and others regarding to Shadowrun.

The motivation​

When I initially started working on Genesis sometime in 2015, I was making a character generation software for a a german fantasy RPG that had just been released. Over the years, I added support for other RPGs and redesigned the user interface. I even started support for Shadowrun 5, but I wasn't aware of all the complexity and requirements of that game system and with Chummer5 being the go-to software, I abandoned it. When early in 2019 Pegasus asked if I would make another attempt with Shadowrun 6, I agreed. Taking lessons learned from SR5, I made the SR6 support even more versatile - and complex. Still, Shadowrun being a mess with rule details, exceeded my complexity expectations, which became obvious after the release of the rigger book in 2021.

I also did not expect being kept so busy with one RPG alone. The other RPGs supported in Genesis added just more of the same (more spells, more gear ...) and just very few rulebooks, so it usually meant adding new book content was just a matter of days. Enter: Shadowrun! 1-2 rule-heavy books every year, with unexpected variations or additions to existing rules and - what you don't recognize as a human - detail rules that don't really fit into the corset of existing datastructures. I found myself working exclusively for Shadowrun the whole time onwards.

The decision​

Working on something and not being able to do it right, constantly made me think "If I just had designed it that way, that could work and would not require a problematic workaround now." After a while, I got so frustrated that I stopped working on Genesis and paused my Patreon for 2 months, just deciding if I wanted to continue with Genesis at all. I decided, I would not and start from the scratch. Shortly afterwards I received Double Clutch and my excitement took over and so went another 5 months just to bring DC into Genesis. But than I started with Commlink When I got hold of the Sixth World Companion PDF in January 2022, I made the decision not to support it in Genesis and focus on Commlink. Minor changes would still be made to Genesis, but all new things would go into Commlink. Genesis's sources are publicly available, it has a custom data mechanism, so I gave it into the hands of the community to continue support - which worked for additional data of 6WC or Hack & Slash.

The changes​

But Commlink is not just about being able to better support upcoming Shadowrun books - it also has some new ideas:

• Provide a library
  Providing some kind of look up mechanism for rule elements like spells, adept powers, qualities, echoes ... I think of it as some kind of meta-index.
• Better adapt to all kinds of screen sizes
  Genesis was developed with traditional desktop computer monitors in mind and tried not to be crowded. And while it worked on smaller laptop screens, it often caused problems there. Redesigning the user interface to better support screen sizes (from large desktop monitors down to smartphones) and be more responsive was a rather large task
• Run on mobile devices
  Since the early days of Genesis, users asked for a mobile version. The normal response would be to develop a web application, that could be used on desktop and mobile devices as well - problem is: I am an experienced desktop application developer with near to none experience in web development. Of course I could try to learn web development, but it would take ages to reach the experience I already have at classic application development. The solution came with new technology that would allow to run "convert" desktop applications in a way that they run on mobile devices. The same technology allows producing even faster desktop applications, so those "binary" versions can be produced for all desktop and mobile operating systems. (With iOS being most problematic, because Apple is really tight and complicated for such an approach.)
• Metatype illustrations
  When creating characters I like to have a visual of the metatype/-variant/.. I am playing. While illustrations for common metatypes exist, the more exotic are hard to come by and the art styles are very mixed. I decided I wanted to have illustrated metatypes in the same style and started to commission a Shadowrun artist with creating them - that effort has been paid by my Patreon supporters (and from my savings).

There are more ideas, but since they did not made it into the 1.0 release, I will talk about them once they show up in the software.
If you have ideas for new features, let me know at the feature request tracker.

State today​

With regards to supported books, Commlink exceeds Genesis by supporting the Sixth World Companion and Hack & Slash, but it falls behind by not supporting custom creations (e.g.: custom spells, custom vehicles) or the books Power Plays, Slip Streams or Collapsing Now yet. See the full comparison here

Although Commlink has been available for Alpha testing since January 2023, it is only within the last 2 months that it has been tested more by the community. I think I got rid of all really critical errors (meaning those that lead to crashes or break Nuyen and Karma cost calcucation at chargen), but there are several lesser errors ("I should be able to select X", "Y should not be visible", "Button has no function", "Pool calculation is not correct", ...) still lingering. I need your help spotting those errors - you can report them here

Coming next​

I expect to do a lot of bugfixing, while also adding features (like support more content) or improving existing features (like continue redesigning PDF export). There is also more complicated functionality missing (like online character storage) or custom data, which still requires a lot of work. I am mixing bugfixing, implementing feature requests from the tracker (see above) and my feature visions and decide each evening what I feel like doing - making it impossible to have a clear roadmap. I usually report to our Patreon supporters in more detail what is going on behind the scenes, but of course there should be new blog entries here every now and than.

All metatypes and their variants

When the Sixth World Companion was released, I sold the permission to publish some of the metavariants to Pegasus Games, which lead them to appear in the german translation - and paid for even more commissions. A rather huge donation helped paying 4 more illustrations and with the continued help of Patreons all metasapients and SURGE collectives have been illustrated now.

Metasapients, Drakes, Changelings and SURGE collectives and room for more

Merchandise​

I really like those illustrations and some of them are especially cool. I thought it might be fun to have them on shirts, bags or whatever and tried to create Merchandise shops ... which was not so easy as I thought it would be.
There is the GetShirts shop, which is a great shop, allows storing image variants for dark or light background and accepted all images without a problem. Unfortunately they only produce in Germany, so international customers need to pay expensive shipping costs. There also is Spreadshirt, which in theory would deliver to several continents, but rejected 60% of the uploaded images (2 images due to "Copyright" (likely the soccer shirt) and 4 others due to "Quality") and but my account into a kind of probation state that prevents me from selling outside Europe.