Are we there yet? (Patreon)

Okay, important things first! 

I got a reply from Rob about the state of the build. He says he thinks it'll be another couple of days before he can send it to me. Those are the words which when last time I heard them from him, things went south. Waaaaaaaaaay south. 

People do/say strange things when they've been faced with several life-events and didn't take enough time to properly deal with it... and still somehow think a few all-nighters can make up for it... I certainly hope he has learned from that experience.

But, despite being slightly triggered because of past associations with those words, I'm looking forward to finally be able and test the build when that link does finally reach my inbox.  

After Rob has sent it to me I'll probably need a day to check it out and find any major problems  before the bug-testers get their turn. That means only in the very best of circumstances it could be available to the bug-testers on Christmas day. 

Many people will find that day already filled with social obligations and other things to do.  I at least, in my recent recluse way of life won't be able to escape from that. Add some more days of testing to that and... boom!  It's already past Christmas for the early access crowd.

When I said "Christmas build" in my last art update, this was not what I meant or expected. Now that we're here... well, all I want is for this thing to start rolling again. I'll be happy with anything which let's us end this string of postponements in 2019 and have a fresh start in 2020. 

That's the most important thing I wanted to let you know. Now let's talk about some other stuff.

I asked for some suggestions for possible future projects and damn did we get some! Just catching up with some of the series mentioned will take me forever. Some because I've never seen(or even heard from) and others because it has been an eternity since I've seen them. I think we might have to do a poll in the future and load it with all of the suggestions. I have my own slight preferences, but almost nothing which can't be bullied into something else with enough pressure from you guys.

The first few days I was kinda like "Oh shit I was hoping for a clear winner". So instead I decided to pick something which I thought would be nice to try and two other things which got mentioned a lot in the comments and just slap something together, all the while thinking of it as the equivalent of a sketchpad. Trying out things, see what happens and all that, but nothing set in stone. 

Rob has mentioned to me, on more than one occasion, the possibility of not doing just one thing but several things at the same time. Like mixing different characters from different cartoons. My first inner reaction was: "you... must be crazy."  

I'm more of a "you must never cross the beams" -kind of person, so mixing things did not sound that good to me. As in a "Get away from me you heathen!" sort of way.  But then again, NOT keeping strictly to the storyline of the Avatar cartoon also sounded like sacrilege to me at first. We've been doing that a lot though and imo it worked out for the better. Still, it took some time for me to get 100% behind that idea too. 

So I was playing around with ideas while in the back of my mind considering this as a possible surprise for you guys. A surprise test build just for you to play around with and see how the bigger concept behind this whole mix/match thing would feel. Giving it your yay or nay etc.

And then ...I got sick...   I still managed to answer some of your pm's etc, but not much else. 

I'm mostly better now. Enough to write this and I'd like to continue working on my "test-sketch-build" some more. If the FET release is less than stellar I could release whatever I got finished on the 29th or something? That would give me some much needed extra time. I'm gonna take some time off on Christmas, but I should still have enough time to show you what a new future project COULD look like in a very limited way...  so far it was/is fun messing around with it. 

And since it's almost Christmas I feel I can do some seasonal greetings. I don't expect to post an update before the FET build is ready  and since that's likely after Christmas I might as well do it now.

Guys, the last part of this year has been more than rocky. I don't believe in the astrological good/bad years kind of thing, but I'll happily make an exception if that means this was the bad one and the next will be awesome.

We hope you'll have a great time for at the very least the rest of this month. Hug whomever will let you and not call out for the police, share some joy, eat/drink eggnog (depending on how good you are at making it) and don't catch whatever I caught!  

Merry ngwccutcwsiat!