2014: Our year in review (Part 2)

This is the second part of our review of Z&A's 2014. You can find part 1 here.

July started out with the release of four new products, two of which had been our gifts for the recent D/s hunt. Other releases in the month included a chestnut version of the turntable, a reboot of the corner chained and the circle display; chestnut versions of the wooden horse and cell beds as well as a wearable version of the tall display cage; a reboot of the chain chair and display cross and finally reboots of the horizontal cross and the arm hang frame.

Behind the scenes more preparation work was being done on The Femdom Hunt V. By this point we were working on the theme for the new sign and also drawing up the lists of people to invite while checking who was still around from the previous hunt and where they were now.

The background development project that started in June also carried on this month with the code moving from being in the "under development" state into the "tweaking and testing" state.

Themes for Raven Park dances this month were Tarantino and British cult science fiction TV.

August kicked off with the announcement of the dates for The Femdom Hunt V, along with the opening of applications. It goes without saying that a lot of the background work this month involved dealing with hunt applications.

Releases this month included chestnut versions of the sphere cages and the cross hang post; a wearable version of the ground box and the wall hanging; the crate bed and the cage table and a chestnut version of the bondage frame.

The Z&A Submission HUD was also updated to v1.4.

The ongoing background development project was coming along nicely with the first proper products being built using the new scripts that had been written.

Raven Park dances this month were themed as fictional secret agent and Dune.

September was a very busy month with the ongoing work of handling Femdom Hunt V applications and also the ongoing background project which would finally be launched the following month, a very small teaser for it appearing at the end of this month.

Product releases this month included the wooden and metal yokes; the floor standing and wall mounted chestnut display cabinets; the wall box cage and the storage shelf. These last few releases concluded the effort to replace many of our original products with builds based around the work that started at the end of 2012 and which was launched in early 2013.

Raven Park dances this month included Steampunk (with the dance set being built by and provided by Drow Sicence and Sunshine Technology) and anarchy in the UK.

October was a very busy month for Z&A. It started with the closing of applications for The Femdom Hunt V followed by the first, second and final walk throughs and then, on the 17th, the hunt started.

Before the hunt kicked off, however, there was another significant event for us. We finally revealed the background project that'd started back in June: the brand new range of Z&A cells. As with the start of the new display device range in early 2013 the idea here was to slowly phase out our original cells and replace them with a range using a new script engine and, where it made sense, rebuilt using mesh to reduce land impact. Also, from the very start, we'd be offering the cells as both transfer and copy versions. This project is still ongoing and should conclude some time early next year. Not that we'll stop making cells then -- there's little chance of that.

After the initial launch the new cell range expanded during the rest of the month with the release of the slatted wooden cell, the bars field cell, the observation vault and the bars brig cell.

It wasn't all cells this month though. Antony also found time to make a HUD restraint that his Mistress has been after for quite some time: the Z&A Walkabout.

There was only the one Raven Park dance this month: the frocks dance. The following dance was moved to the Z&A main store and served as the opening weekend dance for The Femdom Hunt.

November started with the end of The Femdom Hunt V. That week we extended the cell range with the cell that had been our gift during the hunt, adding also the light glass cell and the brick and iron cell. Other products released this month included the cast iron cell and the reboot of the floor sleep; the gold inlay cell and the gothic stone cell and the red and blue carved wood cells.

The Z&A Submission HUD also got a further update with a couple of minor fixes and the addition of a couple of new features.

A second Raven Park dance was used over at Z&A, this time to serve as the closing weekend dance for The Femdom Hunt V. Raven Park dances proper returned with a Game of Thrones theme followed by the Antipodean Ball.

December started with the release of a new wearable punishment picker, a reboot of the popular Z&A Tree and the addition of the boxed field cell to the growing new cell range. Other releases in the month were the latex box cell; the field brig, wooden plank cell and the balcony cell and the Z&A Goggles and the wooden cage. We finished the year off with the released of a wearable version of the body cage and another addition to the range of cells.

We also celebrated the time of year by dusting off the Z&A Christmas Tree and remaking it with the new display device system and making it available as a gift to all. We then followed this up by doing the same with the Z&A Snowman and the Z&A Subbie Gift Box.

Because we prefer not to hold a dance over the actual Christmas break (too many people are too busy with RL) we only had the one dance, but we made it a Christmas dance. Well, a very gothic Christmas dance.

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And that brings us to our the end of our review of Z&A's 2014. It's been a very busy year with lots of changes in the shop and lots of builds and scripting going on. As of the time of writing 204 products were released with a release happening every week of the year except the week of Z&A's birthday (because that week's "releases" were made available as gifts for everyone who came to the party). Of course, lots of products were also retired from sale (101 if our calculations are correct) so there's still plenty of room (and thanks to the move to mesh lots of free land impact) left for whatever we come up with next year.

To everyone who has shopped with us, hunted with us, visited Raven park, made Raven Park their home and have come and had fun with as at the Raven Park dances (and especially Eve Terr who has provided lots of great music for all the dances): thank you so much for helping make 2014 a really fun and rewarding year for us. We hope it was fun for you.