dev diary: ok burnout you win this round

this month has kinda been a wash in terms of productivity. i haven't been able to stick to my schedule at all, the things i'm able to focus on feel random and out of my control, and my brain so far hasn't course-corrected like it usually does. WAIT, I PROMISE THIS ISN'T A BUMMER POST!!! this is just how things go sometimes!!!!! i was hoping i'd go back to normal after the plush campaign ended (i burnt out during the underling one too so i figured it might happen again)--but no luck just yet. so i'm changing strategies...

first, i'm considering pausing the patreon starting at the end of this month. i don't want it to charge people for april if i'm going to continue to not have much progress to share. i planned to pause it during may anyway (since i will be going on a trip overseas!) and come back in early july. this is A REALLY LONG TIME already, but now it's even longer... shoot... i don't like the idea of doing this because i really enjoy sharing weekly updates (if nothing else). the money is thankfully not an issue. but i think this is probably the best move to make if i want to relieve some of the internal pressure that's stopping me from being able to make art like normal.

second, rescheduling things: so the major thing is that i planned to try to finish a SAS update this month. i haven't been able to do that (argh!!) and now the window of time for it has closed. something came up for april that i can't talk about due to NDA (business things are happening!!!)--this is a really really good thing for the long term, but for the short term i need to plan around it and make sure i have enough mental energy to be able to handle that stuff (i don't know how much work i will need to do for it). SAS is lower priority to me than treat, so i'm going to go ahead and push it to summer/fall.

i know i will be really really happy if i can release the next treat build in may. i'm going to aim for a public update so that people can reach the bad ends easier--the patron WIP build will have the next section of chapter 8 (i scripted a lot of it already), but the public update will only have new bad end stuff. i'm confident i can get all this done before my vacation, especially if i don't have to worry about anything else. it's already most of the way there!

so yeah, current plan: work on treat this week and get a sense for whether i'll have substantial updates for april. if i don't, i will pause my patreon on march 31st. in the worst case scenario, i won't be able to finish the treat build before i leave on my trip--that just means i'll get back to it in july instead. i'm 99% sure the vacation will cure my burnout, and i'll have lots of fun things to share about the trip once i'm back :) so i'm looking forward to everything despite it all being a little stressful!

thank you all for your patience!! i promise i'm doing well, more than anything i'm just frustrated that making art is so difficult for me right now! but i'm on the path to fixing that!! have a good week!!!!!