New Year Update

Hello everyone! Apologies for how long it took to write up this Devlog, December was pretty... hectic for me, for several reasons.

Last month of the year opened up with some really terrible news in my personal life. Without going into details, they really wrecked my family for a while, and things will never be the same for us. Moving forward, we'll need to watch our finances carefully, and I'll probably have to help out at home a lot more often. This means my priority, now more than ever, is getting through what's left of Uni as fast as possible and getting my degree, so when the time comes for me to find a real job, I'll have more and better opportunities. The good news in this regard is I'm doing pretty well so far, so it shouldn't take more than a year for me to finish what's left of my course.

That said, more time spent studying means even less time spent working on the game. And even there, there have been problems: the intro of Chapter 13 went through many different versions, and even in the latest one, I just couldn't enjoy writing even what little I did. I realized too late that the reason why was because, on several occasions, I contradicted either what I'd flat-out stated several chapters earlier, or what I planned to happen several chapters in the future. I got into a bit of a depression spiral because I thought I was losing control of my story (and my sanity), and that only made me want to work on the project less. It took a while to realize what was going on, but I believe, thanks to my friends and colleagues, we've finally found a solution.

Starting today, Devilizer from Stormsinger Studios will officially be joining the team as a Writing Consultant. Over the last year, we've become fast friends thanks to a shared friend group, common interests, and our mutual respect for each other's work. He's a real fan of what we've got going on so far, and I know for a fact his storytelling style is very similar to mine, so I know I can trust him. His responsibilities moving forward will be helping me:

-Jot down an outline for the story moving forward, including character arcs, character relationships and their evolution, and everything else I've already thought of but never wrote down;

-Plan chapters ahead with me, so I know exactly how to connect each individual idea for a scene into a cohesive narrative.

-Should the need arise, write sections I'm not super comfortable with (especially slice-of-life stuff and similar) while I'm busy preparing for an exam or writing another scene that's more up my speed.

New chapters will be slow to release still, but Dev's addition to the team should help keep production speed and quality of work at an acceptable level while I finish my Uni course. I'm really glad he decided to join the team, and I'm really looking forward to his input moving forward. Hopefully this is the start of a new, much brighter year for us all and No More Future!

Stay strong! I'll see you again when the new Halfway Build is ready. ^w^