Update on the project and some personal shit.

Fuck. I've been drafting this thing for an unreasonable amount of time. Well, fasten your seatbelts, folks. I've got important info that's well enough to justify breaking almost eight months of silence on the platform -- pretty big stuff packed here.

Hi, it's been a minute. I missed y'all. I hope you've all been staying healthy in the past seven(?) months I haven't been around here, and the whole three months I haven't been on Discord. For the Patreon-only folks, we haven't talked since Christmas. It's crazy how time flies. Speaking of Discord, I know some of you aren't on there, which I totally get. I'm not that active there myself (or on any social media, for that matter). Still, never let that deter any of you from messaging me directly about anything you want to know about development. I always relish the opportunity to talk to you guys and read what you think about the game, or what you think about... anything, really. It's one of the reasons I'm mainly on Discord. Getting to talk to all of you is one of the few perks of development. Of course, that is when I don't ghost everybody and retreat into myself like a giant pussy whenever I feel less than optimal.

That said, I need to talk about some of what's been happening behind the scenes for the past four years.

I originally planned to address this in my Steam pre-release post I've been drafting for many, many months, but both posts have grown too long to be done in one take. So, I'll talk about this a little now and maybe expand on it in the Steam post? I don't know yet.

Bear with me a second.

I'm always quiet about this sorta thing as it's never anyone's responsibility to think or care about anyone else's personal bullshit. We're all fighting our own battles. Still, I feel like right now, as we move slowly but surely towards the biggest stage in almost five years of development, there's a necessity to talk more about this, at least a little bit (and at least once), so you can get to know more about the guy behind this project and that, hopefully, will serve as sort of an update on the general state of things and give you folks an idea of where this is all headed. Between my ever-declining mental health and my computer barely running YouTube anymore, I feel like this is the only thing I can really do right now.

>About me.

I'm Capella. It's not my real name, but the one I picked for myself. Capella is the name of a binary star, which means it's actually two stars orbiting each other. Fun fact, I didn't know that information prior to wanting to pick that as my online handle, yet it's ultimately the reason I did because, for many reasons, chaotically opposite forces living and working together fascinate the hell out of me. I'm somewhat pragmatic in the sense that I tend to enjoy things better when there's reason and purpose behind them. It's the reason why I want the magic system in my game to have rules, function as a "science", and for its usage to have a reason for being other than "eh, it works because it's magic".

It's also why I hate most usage of sexy design in video games. Ironic, I know. But why is that? Is it because I think objectifying and sexualizing women in video games is bad? Nah (lol). I want EVERYONE to be shamelessly sexualized and objectified as long as it makes sense. God of War's Greek singles in a pool ready to mingle with their titties out? Hell yeah. Medieval armor with "boob plate"? Fuck no -- burn it!

That's just me, though. Everybody likes what they like.

I'm on the better side of my twenties (the side where the Cock and Balls® software is still getting updates). I'm 6'4, and I'm a pale, rough-looking dude who sees the sun a total of 7 days a month. My appearance often has people thinking (or just telling me to my face) that I'm brutish -- I'm not. I feel like I try to fight that image too much by avoiding conflict, and it usually puts me in a position where I become a serial enabler and people-pleaser. I think that if you're kind, even when you don't feel kind, life is easier. I internalize my emotions a lot, and maybe that's why I have a very modest social battery or why I'm not easily angered, but when I am, it's always 100% personal. This is one of the things I dislike the most about myself, and I hope to get rid of it one day. I wanna be able to lash out, say shit I don't mean, and feel lighter in the next morning. I want not to hold grudges or turn excessively cold towards people when I reach my breaking point. I wish I had my emotions on a leash and not the other way around.

Music and video games are my greatest passions and everything surrounding them are the only things that justify me getting out of bed every day. I enjoy most genres of music, from nu-metal to classical, from hip-hop to EDM -- which is my favorite genre of music, with rock and its sub-genres coming as a very close second. Though my favorite band is Queens of the Stone Age, I generally enjoy electronic more (dubstep is what really got me into music). That's also true for my games. I like RTS, RPGs, rogue-like, souls-like, action-adventure, table-top, FPS, TPS, psych tests, whatever. I'm pretty biased against Triple-A games, though, which sucks, as I can't bring myself to enjoy most big releases. I think most of Triple-A gaming suffers from having too much glam and no substance. My all-time favorite game is Kenshi, with Skyrim as a close second.

I'm from Rio de Janeiro (the state, not the city), Brazil (yes, the same state Robbie was born in, only she was born in the countryside, and I've always been a city boy). For some reason I can't explain, I don't enjoy soccer or going to the beach. My fellow Cariocas look at me like I'm an alien for that. I'm pretty big on freedom and guns, though, so at least we have that in common. "I want gay people to be able to protect their marijuana plants with guns" is a sentence that I have in the chamber at all times. Generally, I'm pretty liberal when it comes to most stuff. I'll agree with anything that's not harming anybody, involving kids in adult shit and/or harming their ability to become mindfuck-free adults, or is activism (subtle or blatant). Goddamn, do I hate activism -- regardless of which side of the political spectrum it's coming from. Mainly because activism doesn't offer anything to anybody but instead expects you to agree with its message like it's the objective truth to any and all. Actually, scratch all of the above. I just really, really hate politics.

I'm what I would call a chronic thinker in more ways than one. Why, because I wish to flatter myself as a 21st-century big brain? Hell no. I dedicate 80% of my brainpower to developing ideas and narratives instead of putting that energy into living and being alive, and I needlessly overthink and over-elaborate everything instead of just doing it (like this post right here I've been trYING TO WRITE FOR THREE FUCKING MONT̴̛͈̱͛̈́̈́HS̴̨̛͍̋̈́ OH ̶M̶̶̶Y̶̶̶ ̶̶̶F̸̰͊͊U̶̶̶C̶̶̶K̶̶̶I̶̶̶N̸̶̷̶̶̶̷G̶̶̷̶̴̶̷ ̶̶̶G̶̶̶O̶̶̶D̶̶̶).

Whenever I catch myself coping too hard and thinking I'm somehow special or a misunderstood genius (lmao), I remember that if I was really that smart, I'd have figured out a way to be happy by now.

I've been prescribed meds for this shit more than once but didn't take them, as I was too paranoid that they'd make me too sluggish to be creative. It wasn't entirely paranoia, though; sleepiness was actually a side-effect of those. I'm sluggish enough, now sluggish AND uncreative? If the doctors wanted to fuck me, they could have at least taken me to dinner first.

I have a problem getting my mind and my mouth to just shut up sometimes. A good example of this is how I've been drafting this very same post for at least three months and still can't decide on what to say or if anyone will even bother reading all this. Should you, even? I want you to know a little bit about me. Let's make this fair -- if you've read up to this part right here, tell me a random fact about yourself or something interesting that's happened to you recently, be it good or bad. That way, I'm not the only one hogging the mic.

I still got your attention? Awesome.

Another detail about me is that I'm easily distracted. In one of my shameless episodes of Procrastination™, while scrolling through YouTube and getting my shot of daily, dirty, and deadly dopamine, I once stumbled across a clip of Joe Rogan talking about Miyamoto Musashi in his podcast (this is all going to make sense, I promise). Miyamoto Musashi, for those unaware, was a legendary samurai rumored to have fought -- and won -- more than 60 duels, many of which were to the death. He died undefeated, the madlad. In the clip, Joe Rogan elaborated on a famous quote by Musashi: "Once you see the way broadly, you see it in all things", and I think about these words all the time.

Now, I'm under no illusion I'm at all comparable to a legendary swordsman who once carved a bokken out of a boat oar and iced an armed opponent with it, but those words really resonated with me and mirrored my own journey in a way. I aspired to become a game developer as a child but abandoned that dream as I approached adulthood. After I consistently pushed and bettered myself through music, I realized that if I could find a true enough purpose in anything, I could teach myself how to do it and get decent at it, no matter how hard it might seem at first. As I saw the path through the lens of music, I was shown a path to all things, or more specifically, game development.

Which got me here.

I got to work on my first visual novel, and though I've been concocting narratives ever since I learned how to think, this is the first thing I've ever really written and publicized. It's my first time working on anything related to graphics, which is funny since I can't even draw a straight line on a piece of paper. Now, here I am, just getting off doing the compositing for my Steam trailer. I can say some shit like "UV Maps" or "Subsurface Scattering" and know what the fuck it means and how it works -- which doesn't sound like much, but I'm not exactly a prime example of talent, so this is pretty big for me. This is the first time I've been able to consistently dedicate myself to anything, every day, even if a little bit. I was blessed with many first times that would've never happened if I hadn't picked up that guitar. I have a purpose and a path in front of me where once there were none.

All of this, for me, is a massive opportunity, and I feel so grateful to have been able to work on Mad World up to this point. This game had no business going on for as long as it has. I remind myself of that every day, which is likely why I might have built up a tolerance for feeling motivated by that fact.

I've been feeling some fatigue regarding this project for the past couple of years. Like, the better I get, the more I lose that flame that got me here to begin with.

I know, I know... it's been two years since the last real update for Mad World, and this has to be the LAST thing you guys want to read coming from me, but it's the truth. I've been feeling sort of disillusioned... for lack of a better word? But that also feels wrong, as I was never under the illusion any of this was going to be a cakewalk. I'm in this constant state of knowing what to do, knowing why to do it, but only getting more and more confused by everything. And the more confused I get, the less time I have to figure everything out. I've been trying as hard as I can to set the right rhythm to make it work, making this my primary focus to the detriment of everything else in my life, which, in the past couple of years, has been driving me to neglect my own health in stupid ways.

It's all boiled up to a point where I almost died from stupid shit like Sinusitis (or whatever infection it was -- even the doctors couldn't tell me) that developed itself into a monster over the course of two weeks. All because my brother had the flu and coughed near me twice. He got better in three days. I got violently sick.

Who the fuck almost dies from the common cold in 2024? This guy right here.

I live on my own. I couldn't nurse myself back to health as I was barely able to stand up for more than two minutes to cook. I couldn't even order anything to eat online since I was sitting at home with no working internet because local gangs ripped apart the entire infrastructure of the neighborhood so they could railroad us into hiring their internet service instead. I also had no cellphone service because I didn't pay the bill (yeah, I'm broke af). When I finally reached 42º C (107.6º F), I managed to connect to the wifi in my brother's store right across the street. I hadn't thought of that. Called my parents and asked for money to buy medicine, which immediately sent them into panic as they knew the only reason I'd ever call them to ask for anything was if I was actually dying.

Did I forget to mention I'm extremely prideful? Not a very good survival trait in my long list of shitty survival traits, or rather, my shameful lack of them.

My parents were out of town, but luckily, my brother was near the neighborhood and rushed me to the ER. I cried like a little bitch all the way there, and in there too, because I knew that I had lucked out and could definitely have died. That was further proven by how much agony I was in the days after and how much blood I was letting out in my urine or spitting in a bucket. My immune system was buried UNDER the shitter. That had to be the worst week I ever had. Very few times in my life I have felt as weak and vulnerable as I did then. Do you know what that taught me about myself? I'm ready to chase this for the rest of my life, even if it ends tomorrow. I regret none of the decisions that sent me coughing blood to that ER or that put me through absolute torment in the days after because I know it's part of the process. Yes, it really is as stupid and suicidal as it sounds.

You'd think that having my head so deep in the game like this would make it pretty easy for me to do what I have to do and not fret over every task and overthink to the point I can only ever be productive for four hours a day on a GOOD day. I can't. Not without psyching myself up over the course of multiple days or coming up with stupid games like "if I can't get X amount of stuff done under an hour, then I'm uber gay, and not the tough and manly kind, but the closeted kind who listens to Taylor Swift and hides it from his family".

I'm sick and fucking tired of having to trick my own brain to get shit that I love doing done. I know what my objective is, and I know the path to get there. I want to be able to walk with my own legs. That's why, five weeks ago, I started seeing a neuropsychiatrist to hopefully get my drugs up and my thoughts down.

It's come to a point where I know I have to seek professional help. I don't feel right -- never did. This has been a problem for me since my school days. Throughout all my years as a student, I was always the ONLY one in the entire class who could never get any work done until the day I graduated. Which, to be honest, didn't bother me much back then because fuck school. But now, if I am to reach my full potential, I can't afford to not be in my best condition every single day. I'm moving towards an early grave. I don't eat, I barely exercise, and my brain is fired up all the time in all the wrong ways. I almost died. I do not want to die young -- not before I see how far rage and pride can get me.

The treatment is costing me an arm and a leg, so I'm hoping to get my money's worth and discover I am, at the very least, a high-functioning psychopath. It's another thing with me -- I go to the doctor, and I pray that there's something really wrong so that I'll walk out knowing I'll be better than I walked in.

When it comes to my life, I have no plan B, and I do not wish for one. I can either achieve everything I want, or I will gladly walk into the afterlife as the most unsuccessful motherfucker to ever walk. Even if failure is my destiny, it'll never be my choice. I know it sounds corny, but reality often is. Recent experiences have taught me that I'm willing to back up my pride with my blood and that these aren't just words I tell myself. I just wish I won't have to for much longer. Maybe that's wishful thinking. Maybe life is supposed to be an endless trial, and it's weak of me to wish for anything different.

Anyway, just thought I'd give you guys a bit of insight into who I am and how I've been. I don't do this a lot. I hope it's worth something.

>About everything else.

Writing has always been the part of development that comes the easiest for me. Coming up with ideas and dialogue for new or existing WIP scenes is something I do at least twice a day. The whole thing practically writes itself. There has never been a day in the past four years that I haven't written something. That said, not only do I have most of Chapter 5's arcs and dialogues done, but I already have most of the main story of Mad World conceptualized and written, including some bonus chapters and content for the sandbox mode. Now, it's only a matter of dragging my sorry carcass there. I'm not gonna lie to you guys; I'm dreading that shit like it's the black plague. I'm not trusting my ability to get all of that done. Then again, I didn't think I could finish Chapter 4, and though it took me an entire year, I did it, and I'll be riding that high until the day I kick it.

The trailer for Steam is... coming along. I can't say it's been smooth sailing, as there have been A LOT of setbacks and stuff going south. I wish I could say I'm almost finished with it, but as things keep going wrong, the deadlines keep moving up. By now, getting it done has taken me as long as a full game chapter usually does. This whole Steam sitch has put a lot of work on top of a lot of work I already had, which sucks, but it's part of the process. I still aim to deliver at least two other updates this year, not counting the remaster of some older artwork leading up to the Steam release. I hope you guys haven't forgotten about that, as I expect you all to hold me to it. By my estimates, it'll take at least one month to get the remaster done, and then I'll have to pull off two and a half years of work in two months. Sounds impossible, but if I can get my hands on some quality meds and stick to the pipeline that's been in the works for four years... I think I can do it. I have enough material set aside that I can just mechanically produce and not think too much about it. I want to at least try.

I also wanted to talk about the "Warlock" tier I implemented here on Patreon and tell you guys it wasn't my plan to create it and do fuckall with it. Unfortunately, the rendering situation is dire and the artwork is costing me actual money. I've chosen to allocate the resources to get this trailer out there as fast as possible. I still plan to show you guys some of my unreleased animations and other artwork once I'm done with all this. I've studied a lot between chapter releases, and I think you guys would be pretty impressed with some of the stuff I can cook up.

This month, I aim to try and get my driver's license for the third time. I've been failing the exam since 2020, and retaking it costs a shit-ton of moolah that I didn't have -- until now. If all goes right, I should start making a little bit more money as an Uber driver. Certainly more than I can get biking around the city. That, of course, is good news for the project, so I thought I'd mention it.

Some of the setbacks I've faced include working on a single animation for an entire week and a half. Due to how the hip bone rotation worked, I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted to, so I had to get premade animations from Mixamo and scrap everything I already had. That frustrated me a lot, as I don't like to cut corners unless I absolutely need to, and I wanted to challenge myself with those specific motions. You guys wanna know the best part? I think I must've spent two months on just that section of the trailer, and it amounts to about 15 seconds of its entire runtime at most. I'm not even mad; it's just funny. This kind of thing happens a lot, but I always get to learn something from it.

Once it drops, I'll let you guys guess which characters in the trailer have Mixamo animations and which ones were animated by me. Of course, I'll be rooting against all of you, as my ego really needs you all to fail.

>Now, to the biggest news so far.

Going forward, the game will need to go through a name change, which is heartbreaking for me to announce. The game on the Steam store, Itch.io, and F95Zone shall henceforth be known as Unsevered. 

I want to give, however, a little eulogy before we move forward and tell you guys why I picked "Mad World" to begin with and why I'll be moving forward with a different name.

I love anime, and one of my all-time favorites has to be JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It was one of the biggest inspirations for me in the earlier stages of conceptualizing what Mad World is. One of the better parts of JoJo's for me is how it absolutely honors its own name by being bizarre, unexpected, and full of personality. You can justify 80% of the shit that goes down in that anime by just saying, "Well... it is named JoJo's Bizarre Adventure -- what did you expect?" I wanted to name my game something simple but that, at the same time, reflected what it was about. Something that told people I was going to come up with crazy bullshit that would be different and unexpected in a lot of ways. I don't remember how, but I landed on "Mad World". I guess I didn't give it much thought. Otherwise, I would've noticed how many other games are also called "Mad World". One of the most prominent examples is an MMORPG on Steam called "Mad World - Age of Darkness".

I've tried to come up with many reasons to keep the original name, but they are all emotional reasons, and moving forward with a different name is objectively the more logical thing to do. That, of course, makes it no easier for me to do it. I've been developing Mad World for four years and Unsevered for about six months. It's sad that I have to let go.

Another issue with the original name is that it's not very unique. It's tough to do my little ego-search and get more in touch with my audience, as there is a ridiculous amount of "Mad Worlds" around. It's also the name of a very famous song, which, against everything some of the familiar faces around me believe in, was not at all the inspiration for the name of the game!

As a direct contrast, "Unsevered" is... well, I dare you guys to find anything with the same name. Shit is that bulletproof... hopefully.

The new name still (very effectively) embodies the overall vibe I want for the game -- one of being challenged at every step and still pressing on. Head held high. Spirit unsevered.

I'll still honor all the good times we had together by keeping all the release files from here on as "MW-Release X". Let this be a little easter egg of sorts for the big brothers and sisters around -- the same ones keeping my Patreon sub count above 50 for years, and keeping my Discord server warm. We all know I don't make it very easy for you guys to do that.

Me and the process aren't good friends, but I do my best to respect it. Unfortunately, getting to be on good terms with it is a process of its own. I had my last session with the doctor this week, and I'm currently waiting to hear about the results of all the tests I've been doing for the past five weeks and what it is that I have. Hopefully, it's not psychological, it's not autism, or any other thing I can't pop pills to fix (I'd lose my shit). I hope this will be the last year I lose the battle against myself, and I can really bring my very best to the table. You guys deserve nothing less than my 100%. There's still so, so much I want you all to see.

Thank you guys for putting up with me so far -- don't think I don't see you. Next time we see each other, we'll be talking about Steam, and that's an entire beast of its own.

See you soon. Hopefully, no radio silence until then.