The Missing Part - 2026

Just like last year, before I begin, I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in any way they could over the past year. The three chapters I worked on and finished during this period demanded a lot from me, and reading your positive comments in between helped push me through when I might not have been able to complete my daily quota. Thank you all very much.

Releases

A brief outlook on the year ahead in terms of planned releases.

Chapter 4 - January

Chapter 5 - May/June

Chapter 6 - October/November

These are rough dates and may vary depending on the length of each chapter. Chapters 3 and 4 required close to 4000 renders each, which I felt was more than sufficient for a new release. As long as it can capture the content I want within a chapter, I think I will continue to stay above 3000 renders per chapter.

Patreon Changes

As some of you may know, I had to start my own company at the end of 2025 because of the income generated by developing my game. In addition to the extra accounting tasks that came with it, I'll also have to pay various taxes in the future. I must also achieve a positive business result, even if only by a small margin. Otherwise, I will have to make additional tax repayments in the future, which I definitely want to avoid.

For the time being, however, this will not result in any changes to my Patreon model, and the prices will stay the same. All of this is possible thanks to your generous support. Based on my current monthly income, I should have completely offset my losses from 2024 and 2025 by the end of 2026. I want to avoid offering the game for a fee and/or offering it in other stores, such as Steam, until the game is completed. Every developer can do what they want, but I don't feel comfortable presenting my unfinished game as a season, a book, etc., and selling it prematurely. If the same level of support continues, I will stick with the model of releasing the latest chapter exclusively on Patreon for two weeks, after which it will be available for free until the game is finished. Later, currently estimated to be in 2028, I will sell the completed game on Steam and other platforms.

Personal Goals

Overall, I am very satisfied with what I have achieved in 2025. At the beginning of the year, my goals were to improve my post-processing skills and to learn how to create animations completely on my own. Looking at chapters 3 and 4 compared to chapters 1 and 2 and the prologue, I believe I have accomplished this. As far as my workflow is concerned, I think I have reached maximum speed, unless there are upcoming technical innovations I can use. I can put together a 4000-render chapter with just over 8000 animation renders and 55000 words in five months when working at full capacity in my spare time. I know I can't maintain this pace for years to come, but it gave me a good idea of how long the entire game production should take. 2028 seems like a very realistic end date for 10 chapters in total.

A few weeks ago, I joked with my mods on Discord about the length of the game and set a new goal for myself. After four chapters and a prologue, the game now has just over 150 thousand words. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has just over 480 thousand words. Since the game is now about one-third complete, it would be great to finish it by saying that my first game turned out to be as long as or longer than The Lord of the Rings books. Let's see how far I get with this goal.