Bad news. Even worse excuses.

Never in my life have I ever hated writing; until now.

No good way for me to say this, but in my arrogance, I've underestimated the workload. Hate to sour people's nights with this post, but some of you will notice I missed my release yesterday. The game wasn't ready, so I've decided to push the release date back until it is. I wish I'd told you guys about the delay sooner but I only realized I wasn't gonna make it two hours before release.

You guys got the beta excuse from me yesterday when I could barely even read what I was typing out. Today I'm here to give you the uncut release full HD 4k excuse, also available on mobile devices.

There has been a huge lack of oversight on my part. First of all, I didn't anticipate not having my two computers to render together overnight since I still need one of them to work, which I've been doing around the clock, no-sleep, raw sex to make the release date. I've tried working while rendering but aside from not having enough RAM, my CPU has started to overheat a lot lately, reaching 212 Fahrenheit. After rebooting I even got a BIOS message before entering Windows telling me I had to cool this shit down or start shopping for a new CPU. First time I ever got that message. Don't know how much mileage I still got on this computer and I don't wanna test it.

I fought so hard to make yesterday go exactly how I dreamed it would be. I had never been awake for that many consecutive days. I thought I was starting to hallucinate, but I'm not sure. I don't think I'd know if I was. At that point, I was spending more time drooling over my keyboard than actually working, and two hours away from release, I threw the towel and went straight to bed.

The last thing I wanted to do was go back on my word, but there was no way I would've won that fight yesterday with the game I have now. I have to go back, lick my wounds, and live to fight another day. There's no putting into words how deeply ashamed I am for this. I feel corporate and fucking dirty for pushing this back and pulling the apology letter move right after I gave a specific date and everything. Though this decision made me want to throw up, unfortunately, I was physically incapable of going any further. Both because I can't make my laptop and my overheating desktop render any faster, and also because I'm beat. I had thoroughly replaced my sleep for power-napping this entire week and I don't want to think about what was going to happen to me had I stayed awake for another day. I've never gone this long without proper sleep.

I've reached the limit of my design.

Still, I think it's pretty cute how my brain suddenly rewired itself back to peak condition the second I needed an excuse for my incompetence.

On the bright side, I did get more done this week than I have done for the past six months thanks to that deadline. There's a silver lining to this clusterfuck, I guess.

In the end, I do this more for myself than for anyone else, so I'm not sharing this with you guys because I want it to become your problem, it's not. No one's putting a gun to my head and forcing me to work on this day in and day out. This is entirely on me. I just want to explain why I failed to make good on my word as it's the only thing I can do right now. I don't know what the full consequences of this fiasco will be for my release, but I know I lost a lot of respect for myself yesterday. Probably a lot of yours, too. At the very least, I can give you guys a status update on what I've got so far, and what I don't.

• New script reworks for 4.1 are done. Script polish pending.

• With the new renders, Chapter 0 has now been completely reworked compared to the first version of the game, with new animations and gallery unlockables.

• Animations for Chapter 1 are done.

• One of the animations for Elena's library scene has been completed and rendered. Another one is still pending.

• At least five animations still pending. I can now animate and render one animation sequence in under 48 hours if I set the render time limit to 20 minutes for each frame. They get the job done but it doesn't beat letting them cook all the way, though.

• Render count is around 500 and still going. Post production pending. I haven't checked which renders came out undercooked yet.

• Sound pending. Sound levels seem good so far.

• Gallery system pending. I know how I want it to work on the backend, but I've been struggling with the user interface for months and can't decide on how it's supposed to look. I do have an idea I liked but haven't tested yet.

• Achievements pending.

• UI polish pending.

• New changelog menu pending.

• Chapter 5 script mostly done. Screenplay pending.

• I've been overfeeding myself for the past week or so (lots of protein) so the brain should be working fine. I have plenty of fish, chicken, beets, and kale to eat this week so things are good on that front.

• I still have sleep debt to pay, another night should suffice.

• Most importantly, I've built momentum and work cohesion is good. I'm not distracted.

Anyway, not a lot of promises I can make right now except that I'll be getting my strength back up, and going back to fighting for my life and future as soon as I finish writing this. I have nothing else happening until January 1st and all of my mind, body, and soul is going into this until it's done. Night through day; week after week; whatever it takes. I'll be uploading a render from the upcoming version every single day until the game's released. If I could do anything more without breaking some rules, I would. I hope this won't make you guys think I don't take this as seriously as a heart attack. I'm sorry for letting you down.

Day #1. (Chapter 0) The Protagonist is trying not to have a bad day, but a bad day is trying to have him. I can relate.