To you, who have supported me through the dark

Hey there everyone!

...

*crickets*

...Fuck.

Let me preface this, although it should be obvious with the forthcoming post, that FEF content build 0.7 is out!  Info on that is in the other post.  Please enjoy it.

More importantly, allow me to apologize.  If I could personally kowtow to you, I would, because for several months I have had the gall to leave this account up without explaining the circumstances for going silent.

Long story short, I got a job! Yay! And a real, part-of-a-system job, with avenues for promotion and climbing.  It's not glamorous, it's not exciting, but, barring some kind of fuck up, it's stable, which is good.  Stability, is good!

It's also, surprise surprise, exhausting as all hell.  The period when I was most productive was, naturally, when I was unemployed, or employed less professionally, when I could just be on the computer all day, alternating between working on the game directly, or making assets, or researching plugins/workarounds/etc.  Now, that's no longer nearly as feasible, and... well, that takes some adjusting to, on my part.

Am I complaining that work saps free time used for creative ventures? Yes.  It's so dumb, but it's a truth I just didn't really *get* until it became my reality.

Second, back in november, my laptop (metaphorically) blew up, with no up-to-date backups made.  I've just got the one device, the laptop, so losing that nearly took me down.  Thankfully, tech support was able to back up all information, and after a week and change, I got a new computer, my current one, but...  It just, it was so scary.  So terrifying, the thought that all of my work was just... gone.  And that experience blew out my momentum and motivation, along with the holidays and work and life.  I was working on it, vaguely, and I lacked direction.

And because I lacked direction, and was exhausted, miserable from the computer situation, I became a depressed ball of anxiety, afraid to check this patreon.  I'm not bipolar, I swear, but sometimes.... I moonlight as one?

Eventually, I got my mojo back, and work restarted with gusto, but after that down period, I basically had to relearn what I'd accomplished prior to the crash, and what needed to be done.  Leading, then, to the current build, which is lighter on content than I'd liked, but featuring more of the backend stuff that I really love.

...

Man, this kinda petered out, huh lol.

Anyways, I cannot thank you who read this enough for your support.  Obviously, my day job is still going to be a weight (ha) around my neck keeping me from rapid progress, but the groove is back.  From hereon I am aiming for 1.5 posts a month.  I'd love for 2, but... that anxiety, it do be a cruel thing...  I will of course be working on the game much more frequently than that, but what part of that is shiny and post-worthy, who's to say.

.....

STRAY THOUGHTS FOR CONJUNCTION WITH THE RELEASE POST

....

this update continues my trend of failing to make the fairy playable.  She will be! Literally the next thing I intend to figure out is what, exactly, stuff like fairy feeding and fairy hits will do, relative to recruiting her.  The plan is feeding her to blobdom (relatively) gives her enough mass to make a body more you-sized... I just need to figure out math, and some fat assets for her default rpgmaker body.  Or something to that effect.

Additionally, I have begun doing second-tier supports, but in the current build, they just kinda stop after the Phase 1 girls, because that's a shit ton of writing to do and some characters have less personality for these things (sheila and phoebe and jeff come to mind, with the first being too friendly in some cases and too serious in others; phoebe being a bit too airhead for good conversations; and jeff for being too whiny).

I've started remaking assets...  I've redone Kui's face portrait 3! times now, and been unsatisfied every time.  It's something about her eyes...  At any rate, my intent is to re-do the character portraits to remove the white bg, which would be easy if had known what I was doing at the start.  But I didn't, so... Pain.  They're basically redraws.

One day, gwen will get a unique sprite.  One day.

And the current build just kinda ends.  There are hooks for the next part of phase 3, but I need to figure it out a bit.  In the meantime, I'll integrate and update the other maps to Phase 3 conditions, which will be, um, "fun."

Also, I'm considering rewriting the factions a bit.  The cult want a fat paradise by summoning the goddess, which is mostly true, but I'm considering tweaking it so that they aren't doing that out of love for their fellow man, but rather so that the goddess rewards *them* with a fat paradise... wherein they eat all the nonbelievers.  Or something.  GAIN are kind of a motivational mess, but that's because of their secret, *REDACTED*  And Expa are like the weird neutral route where you gotta fight both, for reasons.  I dunno, lol.

ANYWAY

Thank you, truly, for all of your support.  I am so incredibly grateful to you, and to all of the fans of the game.  I'm sorry for going dark, and I unfortunately cannot promise it won't happen again, but know that I take so much pride and joy knowing that there are people out there willing to experience my weirdness.  Thank always.

See you next time!