Devlog#7 : Finding peace
Hello there, it's time for a now "monthly" I suppose public devlog.
In the same structure as Devlog#6, I'll first talk about my life and everything around it, before mentioning the project.
1 : My life
As most of you may know I took a small break from working from Mid april to mid June.
During this time I sought alternatives to grow my income to afford a better PC, regarding that I have good and bad news.
The good news is that my GPU is arriving no later than in two days, with it I'll be able to pump better looking renders / animation while working on a way smoother environement.
The bad news is that, my life hasn't gotten any better, you see I still face a lot of personnal stress related to my family and to my potential appartment.
If you're unaware of how stuff works here to get an appartment, you basically need to justify that you'll be able to pay rent through paychecks, so trying to get an appartment without a job or y'know an "official" situation is complex, especially when your work is as shaky as mine.
It's my main source of anxiety right now, getting my own place, and unfortunately it's bringing a lot more problems to the table.
I've been under the constant stress of depression for two years now, at first I thought I was burned out with ToU, but it actually wasn't the case, it's thanks to a talk with a few dev friends, which I deeply thank for their insight that I managed to figure out that, I'm just simply depressed.
Working, work, important words, but ToU was never supposed to be work, it's passion, and deep down inside that really hard rock heart of mine right now, it's just begging to bloom anew.
It's not just work, games, food, everything in life really lost it's taste, and I only began to realize it well, a few days back.
So I took the major decision to get therapy while seeking ways to move out of my flat regardless of my situation, surely it's possible.
I had my first meeting with my psychologist this monday afternoon, and you see while I thought that nothing could reach me, it made me realize that, perhaps my patrons, no, my players, meant more to me than I thought.
I didn't plan on telling her that I work on a VN, but it sorta spew itself out and I ended up staring at her telling her how having people that keep supporting you, even despite being so slow, people that come in your DM, to cheer you up, to tell you that your work is great, that it inspires them, it's an incomparable feeling, and despite all the stress of being in my situation, I realized that, well you guys were the best kind of therapy one could get, it's pretty silly to say but I ended up tearing up at the mere thought that some of you guys just give me money, because you enjoy my work, and because you enjoy my personnality, and I'll never be able to thank you enough, and for that I need to get my head back in the game, I owe you guys a proper completion of ToU, with all the quality and love it deserves, and then you'll deserve the same treatment for Project Jericho, the Alpha is coming soon for Demon tier patrons and I hope that you'll enjoy that story because despite being slow I've put all of my heart into it (That applies to 0.11 too of course!)
But for now I've got a lot on my mind, my friends tell me to force through the mental barrier to push through to look for the spark, but for now I don't feel able to push myself to work out of nowhere 8 hours on ToU, I first need to get my shit together, and until it is, I can't promise stable release.
What I CAN promise is :
2 : Tales of Unity
ToU 0.11 Beta 2 will be available for demon tier patrons before the end of the 1st week of September, it may even be up tomorrow or the day after that much I can promise, it's just that near completion.
It will contain around 120 renders, 2 full animations, one with Lou, the other with Elise, a third one is planned for the full release.
You'll be able to complete a full morning and meet a few interesting characters suggested and created by patrons down the line as you set your eyes on Lou's freedom as Bolvar plots his next move on you.
Chapter 3 will last for a few more updates as it contains 3 major parts, we're in the middle/ beginning of the end of the first part of that chapter which is the shortest.
Himia will have a small part to play so look forward to seeing her again with her updated style!
Mine and Ophelia accompanied by Ygritte are also planned to make a small appearance (They will be back in the spotlight during the 2nd / 3rd part!)
I am also slowly setting up more goblin love, with the introduction of Carmine the 7th goblin of the game.
3 : Project: Jericho
I'll be honest, but lately, I've been loving working on Project: Jericho.
Mentality and ideas change a lot through the years, ToU was wrote by 19 year old Stronk, and now 22 year old me is coming up with a whole new design and world.
It feels like walking through a new land except I sorta climbed the everest before exploring this time !
I've spend the first half of August getting a main menu ready for the game !
(You can see it in the Project: Jericho channel in my discord with the Curious Lad role!)
I then took time to push the story a bit more, so far I'm about 20% in 0.1's full completion, and it contains around 60 renders.
With my new PC being ready by the end of next week I assume, I'll be ready to work a bit more on P:J as of right now I'm kinda pushing on my old 1060 on 15FPS to get anything to look good.
But the futuristic / dystopian / fantasy feel of P:J sort of charmed me, I'm still happy that I manage to spend an equal amount of time in both of my projects.
As I said before, REALLY looking forward to have you guys try it out a bit, keep in mind that Alpha 0.01 will mostly be a test build for players to see the render quality, enjoy the music and the overall vibe, as this first build will have tops 10 / 15 min of content.
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A lot happened both in my life and in my projects within 3 weeks, and a lot more is to be planned but as I said, I mostly need to stabilize my life it's absolutly major that I get better condition to feel strong feelings again, back in 2020 / 2019 when I was coming back home from buying groceries, I had a TON of ideas about ToU and as soon as I got home I wrote them down instantly and worked on them, I want to do that again.
Please feel free to give me any feedback, or advice be it related to my projects or to my own person I am always open for any kind of feedback really.
Take care of yourself bros, thank you again for sticking around, and while the unstable work may stick around for a bit, you can be sure that the day I come back I'll come back STRONK !