Progress Update and a little 2022 recap... | 02/01/2023 (Patreon)

Hello there you super cute and very wholesome people!

Another week, another month, another year, another progress update! ( thank god I only have to do this once a year )

Before I get to the recap, let's talk about the games ( so you can skip the last part if you don't feel like hearing me talk about that ). I will also start changing the supporter tiers this week and will inform you on the changes ( everyone will get more stuff, no matter on which level you support me :) ).

Not that much to talk about regarding My New Family yet, Chapter 18 release is still pretty fresh. However, I've been thinking more about My New Family 2, even though I still haven't decided which engine I'm going to use for the renders. I know that Honey Select 1/2 are strong options, but I was also thinking about DAZ. Not sure how that would work for characters like Lucy, though, since the more "cartoony" graphics add a lot to her looks. Nothing set in stone yet!

Now, My New Memories. Since the release of Chapter 18 I've been working pretty much all the time on MNM again. Yesterday, I reached 1k line of codes for the first day, and I just finished the morning stuff ( MC, Lina and Olivia are now on their way to visit Anna in the hospital ). To give you an example of the size: A regular day in Chapter 18 of MNF was around 1500 lines of code. So yes, the days in MNM are going to be even longer. I'm also pretty confident with being able to release a beta this month already. If there is going to be a lewd animation for the day ( not fully decided yet ) it will probably be something I'll add later, so you can still play the full day. But it has been a while since I was able to work so much on a game, especially in terms of writing. And I have to admit, it feels amazing. I'm so motivated at the moment and I feel like it's only getting better. Todays render is another talk with Anna. After the MC had this interesting morning talk with Lina, he decides to close his eyes for a little more, where Anna will talk about a rather...Heavy topic, I think. It's something I have not done in My New Family, so I hope I'm able to deliver the emotions I want with that one.

So let's talk about 2022 now...

2022 Has been a rollercoaster for me, mentally and physically. The early months were great, I was feeling better than ever before ( mentally ), but it seems like it wasn't meant to be like that. Things that were out of my control happened and send me into a pretty bad downward spiral. Only the work on my games and the amazing community I have kept me going, distracting me from things that happened to me. Sadly, work got impcted as well and I still feel pretty bad about the fact that I wasn't able to deliver the content in a pace that I used to be able to. Then came the phyiscal issues, my extremely high heart rate, my blood pressure spiking for no reason etc... Early 2022 was very, very bad for me.

But the year got better. It got better because of all of you amazing people. Having such a strong community behind me kept me going while I was struggling. Hearing from some of you guys that also had things like that happen in their life, as weird as it sounds, made it easier for me to deal with everything. I was able to deliver two My New Family and one My New Memories update. That is still not as much as I wanted to release ( I wanted at least two MNM updates ), but at least I was able to put something out. I feel like the comments I got regarding delays and that it's taking too long were justified, and I agreed. Getting used to regular updates and then things slowing down as much as they did is not a good feeling. Probably even more so for me than for you players, since I constantly thought "Why are you not able to do this?", mental and physical issues aside. 

I still had to keep in mind that the My New Memories update released 6 months after the My New Family update, and the My New Family update released 4 months after the My New Memories update. If you say it like that, it doesn't sound too bad, right? But if you take away the fact that I only worked on MNF after the MNM update dropped in november 2021, then it took eight months to release, which is two months longer than I wanted it to be. I don't know. I feel like stressing yourself about release dates can be a good and a bad thing. If you stress too much, you will end up not being able to deliver at all. And if you are too relaxed, you will just delay it further and people call you (rightfully) lazy. I don't know. It's a slipper slope. Changing between both games is still the right decision further down the road, I think.

So while 2022 has not been the greatest year for me, I can already tell that 2023 will be way better, at least in terms of work. While I still struggle mentally regarding certain things, I'm feeling pretty good in terms of game releases. My New Memories Chapter III is coming along nicely and I'm sure the epilogue will be the same.

Thank you again for all the support you guys gave me in 2022. Be it financially or by just playing my games. Your comments and messages, the engaging talks on Discord etc kept me going through all the struggles. There are no words in the world that would express the immense gratutide I feel because I have this amazing community. Really, from the bottom of my heart, thank you people!