Proximate Draft (or half of one) and Bad January

Hello there. Hope you're all doing well.

First thing's first, I'm coming here with a draft of the next video, or half-ish of a draft. It's on a game called Proximate.

It's a survival horror game set under the sea, and is entirely in first person. I'll let the draft do the talking whose link is above. Oh, go on, then here's another link to the draft. Feel free to comment here or on the video with any feedback. The game's peculiar nature makes making a video about it a bit of a challenge.

Now this is only half a draft, if even that. I cover the non-spoiler section of the review and stop before spoilers begin. The spoiler section has had some progress but not enough to show off. It's also turning out to be more adventurous and quite a bit more personal that I had anticipated, making me think it's probably only about a third of the length the full video will be. So I polished up the first part to be ready to view as an apology to why I still haven't finished this video. Here come the explanations and excuses.

In short, in a series of bad months, January has been the worst for me.

On the good side, I managed to secure a place and moved house (you can even see bits of it in the draft) and I'm thankful for that. This was however a massive disruption of packing and unpacking and bill sorting. Not unexpected problems. Manageable. Less manageable was catching the flu at the New Year, and it was full-on, knock-you-out, head-swollen, gunk-'n-all, flu. Resting in bed whilst surrounded by boxes I need to sort and jobs that need doing around the house was awful for me mentally. I felt incredibly isolated in a new place where I don't even have all my things available and ready to hand. I was out for about a couple of weeks too and it's only this week I feel completely 100% again, with my energy back and no echoes of a sniffle reminding me where I was. A bad start to the year.

But then there was Boris.

Boris had been quite seriously sick for the first half of last year, causing him to suffer on-and-off in stressful periods and needing a lot of care and attention. He seemingly got better quite suddenly in the summer, but we (the family, Boris is the family cat) were aware it would likely return. It did, and it hit him hard, and in January, shortly after I had moved, it was getting too much for him. He was in pain, he was miserable with it, and that was awful to see. He passed away early this month. He lived sixteen and a half good years.

I've haven't made any announcement about this publicly yet because this has affected me a lot. I grew up alongside him. We adopted him while I was still in high school and he's been a purring pillar in my life throughout. I've got stories about his antics that could fill a book (he put me in hospital once, that was a fun 10:30pm trip). I'm still sad to be talking about him in the past tense.

I do want to tell people though as Boris has been a part of the channel, making cameos in many videos, even jump-scaring people at the end of the MyHouse.WAD video. I think about that last one a lot. There's a lot of people who were startled by his little jump-chirp-headbutt routine. If YouTube's retention analytics and unique viewer numbers are to be believed, it's over a million people. I put him there, but that trick's all his achievement. But I'm rambling, yes, I wanted to tell people. People liked him. But it's been difficult to say it. It's still difficult now, but I have to take the plaster off. You all, and others, deserve to know.

I am very aware Boris is all over my social media banners, here on Patreon, my Ko-Fi... Pictures of him everywhere. It doesn't hurt to see him, but I will probably be looking at replacing all of those in the year. Not immediately, but we'll see. Maybe I can look into some actual branding.

There is our other cat Pickle too, who I've mentioned occasionally, and she's fine. She's a year younger than Boris, so also quite old, but still very happy and content.

So that's been me for the past month. Overwhelmed, sick, sad. A great start to 2025. And 2025 has also just been a rough start as it is. I really wish I could do more to help the people whose worries are more serious than mine.

But here's what's happening with the channel.

One final time, I am going to pause payments for the month, and this time will be the last time. I understand some of you have commented saying you don't mind paying whilst I put myself back together, but I'll feel better when I have something fully completed and released which something at least will be out this month.

That being said I won't deny money would probably help after moving house, so I am going to put a link to my Ko-Fi here and you can donate here if you want to. Please do not feel obligated to and put yourself first. I am not in any immediate financial danger. This is purely voluntary and no-one should feel they should or feel bad if they can't or even don't want to. Thank you.

In February, I will be releasing the Proximate video and also the Steam Next Fest video. I don't know which one is coming first. We will see. We'll take things as they come.

I will also show off my dedicated office/studio once it is finished! This is one of the bigger draws of moving for me, having a space that will permit me to do more with work. More on that later when I've worked out how to get these soundproofing tiles up without the landlord getting upset.

I have ended these posts the past few months thanking you all for your patience and support, and please don't let the repetition detract from how genuinely thankful and humbled I am by all of you. I am happy to have wonderful people looking forward to what I do. I am happy to be doing what I am doing. I want to take that happiness forward.

We are in strange times, but we will go on.

Stay safe. Be vigilant. We loved you and we love you.

- Jack