Personal Update & Development Hiatus

Hey friends! It's been a couple months now since my last update, and normally within this amount of time I'd be making good headway or wrapping up another progress sprint for Moonshell Island.

I wish that was the case this time... but after the intensity of last year and how this one is starting, taking even a short break to evaluate has allowed my habitual burnout to catch up to me. It's worse than I've experienced before, and I'm having a much harder time starting again.

You'd think 2 months would be enough time to recover, but every attempt to get back to Moonshell Island just seems to backfire right now. I don't have much choice but to make this development hiatus official to give myself more time to figure things out.

What does this mean for Moonshell Island?

The plan for now is to operate at a lowered capacity until I'm ready to resume development on Moonshell Island. We'll continue with biannual postcards (spring postcard coming soon) and I'll share whatever I get up to as I try to reboot my creative drive based on what calls to me.

My goal is to return to gamedev with a more balanced approach that better helps me carry on sustainably.

What have I been doing so far?

As far as creative work, I'm going with the flow of whatever I feel like doing. It's pretty slow-going even when inspiration does strike, but I did manage to do a few things in the last 2 months.

2026 Voight Planner - now I can talk about it!

This was actually a 4-month commission project from early last year, when I had the pleasure of making 12 monthly game mock-ups for the pixel art themed 2026 Voight Planner! The funds from this gig were a big part of what allowed me to focus on rebuilding Moonshell Island when I lost my job and my programmer, and I think it turned out very cute and fun~

I know it's late to start a new planner, but you can check it out here:
2026 Voight Planner - Physical version
2026 Voight Planner - Digital version

Pixel Fan Art - for friends and for myself!

It's very rare that I make time for fan art or anything that isn't absolutely necessary, but in times of creative drought it's more approachable for me. So on a whim and by request, I did a few new pixel portraits for my friends and me!

The first is Azzura Silverstar from the Azure Claw Comics universe created by my friend Dave Vincenty! I've always been a fan and loved her blue lobster-inspired design.

You probably know that my friend Ain Rueda is helping me with character and postcard designs for Moonshell Island, but did you know she's got a project of her own brewing as well? It's gonna be epic, and this is one of many fantastic characters she's designed for it. Her name is Erdin!

I've also been sharing a lot of my old artwork on Bluesky, including these six fanarts I did in 2020! This prompted my friend Bjoern to request a new addition to the series:

Misato is my favourite Evangelion character, so I was more than happy to fulfill Bjoern's request! This expression of hers feels so relatable to me.

Last but not least, Marle has finally joined Lucca and Ayla in girl power after... 7 years?? (damn, talk about time travel...)

I doubt I'll get around to the rest of the party anytime soon, but I've always meant to complete this trio of heroic, inspirational women from the timeless treasure that is Chrono Trigger. They remind me never to give up, even against the most overwhelming odds and time itself.

I've not only been sharing old and new art, but I've also started sharing more about my perspective and what's gone into Moonshell Island so far.

Daily Devlogs - delayed Moonshell Island progress reports!

The main thing I've been consistent about this year is sharing the daily progress logs I've already shared here for the Moonshell Island Reboot on a delayed daily schedule over on Bluesky.

Mood/Track of the Day - a growing playlist!

I've also been sharing my mood of the day and a song I like that conveys it. So far I've been able to keep this up on a daily basis, but like the devlogs, it will probably slow down eventually.

For your listening leisure, I'm now adding all of these tracks to a growing playlist available on both YouTube and Tidal!

Crabby's Mood of the Day Mix - YouTube
Crabby's Mood of the Day Mix - Tidal
(a couple tracks aren't available on Tidal, but it's a great Spotify alternative!)

I'm still getting the hang of making these daily posts more visible, but they have been a fun way to become more active and social online.

TL;DR - what you need to know

In a nutshell, Moonshell Island's development will resume once I've recovered from burnout. This will take time doing self-work, building new routines and freely exploring other things that call to me during this time. I'll probably share some of these things here and on Bluesky!

In fact, here's a WIP teaser of one thing I have in the works that is taking me a while to finish.

As mentioned earlier, Ain and I will be preparing the Spring Postcard we aim to ship out to qualifying patrons in April!

I hope to come back from this stronger soon, but in the meantime please know I'm not giving up. I'm taking time to find a more sustainable way forward that is more realistic for me.

Thank you for understanding, and thank you for your support. Cheekynauts literally would not exist without it, and I don't take that lightly.

Take care of yourselves and don't give up either, alright?

Your friend,
Sam