It has now been exactly one year since the release of Lust in Suburbs.

I had wanted to make games for a long time. Originally, I planned to become a programmer, and I started learning long before I ever thought about creating my own game. At some point, though, I burned out, almost completely gave up programming, and decided to try doing what I genuinely wanted to do learn how to draw and make my first game.

I spent about six months learning to draw before deciding that it was finally time to try. Developing that first game took around a month and a half. I drew all the necessary art, put everything together, uploaded it, and waited.

The funny thing is that it was basically an early version of Lust in Suburbs. It had the same main characters, a similar story, and many of the ideas that eventually made their way into the current game. It was simply made much worse. I am still a little embarrassed to show the full version, but I will leave a few screenshots here.

During its first month, the game received 30 views and two downloads. Later, I discovered that I had simply forgotten to press the Publish button.

At the time, I did not understand what had happened. I thought that nobody was interested in the game, and it seriously discouraged me. I began to wonder whether there was any point in continuing. Eventually, I decided that I could improve, fix my mistakes, and try again.

Over the next few months, I continued learning. I constantly practiced drawing faces, tried to improve the characters, and worked on everything I disliked about the first version. Around four or five months after that failed attempt, I released a completely reworked version of Lust in Suburbs.

Almost immediately after the release, I started receiving messages from people who liked the art, the characters, and the game itself. I think that was the first moment when I realized that I might actually be able to make this work. Even then, it was difficult for me to believe that people genuinely meant what they were saying.

To be honest, I still find it difficult to fully understand sometimes. When someone tells me that they enjoyed the game, part of me thinks, "Did you really like it?" But every message like that means a lot to me. It is wonderful to see people playing the game, waiting for updates, discussing the characters, and caring about where the story goes next.

I think I spent this year quite productively. I tried to release an update roughly every two weeks, sometimes a few days earlier or later, and I maintained that schedule for almost the entire year. During that time, I released around 25 full content updates. Even now, it is difficult for me to believe that there were really that many.

Of course, not everything went perfectly. I also want to apologize for the most recent update. It was far too buggy, and I understand that it negatively affected the experience for many players. Right now, I am working to fully fix version 0.1.02 while being much more careful with version 0.1.03.

Sometimes I focus too heavily on creating new content and do not spend enough time on the code, testing, and overall code quality. I understand that this is my mistake, and I will try to take this part of development more seriously in the future.

I also want to thank everyone who has supported me throughout this year. I always enjoy reading your messages, feedback, and kind words about the game. Even a short message about a character or scene that you enjoyed can greatly improve my mood and give me more motivation to keep working.

Thank you as well to everyone who reports bugs and helps me find problems. I do not always have enough time to properly respond to everyone, but I genuinely read your messages and appreciate the help.

Do I consider financial support mandatory? Of course not. Everyone has different circumstances, and nobody should feel obligated to support the project financially. But would I have been able to spend this much time on the game, maintain the same enthusiasm, and keep releasing updates at this pace without your support? Honestly, probably not.

I am incredibly grateful to everyone who supports the development financially. It genuinely helps me continue working on the game. At the same time, financial support is not the only thing that matters to me. Playing the game, sharing your thoughts, writing feedback, and simply staying with the project also give me a huge amount of motivation to keep moving forward.

I am not planning to end the development of Lust in Suburbs anytime soon. I already have plans for at least another six months, possibly longer. There are characters and storylines that I want to continue, as well as ideas that I have not yet had the chance to implement.

However, I also do not want to stretch a single game out forever. From my experience, many games in this genre become less interesting over time because they never move toward a real conclusion. I believe that even an imperfect ending is better than a story that continues forever simply for the sake of continuing. Lust in Suburbs will have a proper ending when the right time comes.

That does not mean I will finish this game completely and only then begin thinking about the next one. Most likely, as Lust in Suburbs gets closer to its conclusion, I will gradually begin working on another project alongside it.

Maybe I have already started. No, of course not. But who knows?

That was the first year of Lust in Suburbs. During this time, I released around 25 updates, the game gathered more people around it than I could ever have imagined, and it became a huge part of my life.

Thank you to everyone who played, supported me, wrote messages, helped me find bugs, and simply stayed with the project. This year would not have been the same without you.

Thank you.