More cuts. New plan.

Yet more power cuts this week, so...<dead horse.webp>. It's a fucking mess. I've made nowhere near the headway I wanted this month on anything, including the game, since most evenings are a write-off and there's just been an unendling slog of mentally taxing emotional and professional issues on top of that. It's the most stressful time I've had since the pandemic started, and that's saying something.

So I've decided to rejigger my plans. There's nothing to be gained from pushing so hard I have a stroke or end up releasing some half-assed thing I hate. And with December a no-bill month already (and already earmarked for work anyway due to the prior week of cuts), I'm just gonna say "fuck it" and extend the no-bill period.

I would have resumed work in January, but instead I'm gonna take both Dec and Jan off to try sort my life out. I'm supposed to be FINALLY getting solar in December to put an end to these power cuts for me personally, but that's uncertain because of yet more life shit (spot the theme). But I think with two months of focusing on that and fucking bribing whoever I have to bribe, I can get it installed.

I will then resume work in February, and release the 0.5 build then instead. I'll still release what I have this month, but it's honestly not gonna be much. Maybe five thousand words. February's release will be the planned full version of that. In addition, however, since November was already billed for and has ended up a write-off and I don't like just taking money with no output, I won't bill for February either despite releasing a build then. Thus billing will resume in March.

In compensation for the long wait before the next build, I'll not only finish up the end of the first day as planned, I'll spend time making some revisions and alterations that I've had on my todo list for a while. Things such as:

• In the train station, the scene in the newsagent isn't especially interesting (imo). I lacked ideas at the time, but trusted that I would think up something better in future. And now I have! I want to spice it up by having him accidentally wander into a porn aisle or something. Crank up the awkward.
• Make feeding Tsotsi optional even if you give your bag to Suri. The Zef discovery route isn't really flagged as such, and while I'm not against such things, in this case I wanna add one more chance for the player to avoid it.
• On the first night, Flax can choose to use a toy instead of fantasising about someone he met, and that decision will add a very different path in the near future.

It displeases me to have to post a post like this, but it would be more childish to deny reality and have a nervous breakdown while aiming for the impossible. I take pride in just getting down to it and churning out my 15k words a month, but a short break won't change that.

Thank you for your support this year, and I'll see you all next year.