I'm baaaaack! (An update post)

(Tl;Dr at the end, important bits in bold.)

Hi everyone! RamblingDeviant here! Happy 2023! A year that we all hope things are finally not terrible! I'm definitely among that group.

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. after the last post, I took a lot of time to actually rest and recover. 

This post will be followed by another one for patrons, but I wanted to make a public one to follow up the last one.

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#1: Health Update

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

I'm happy to report that the rest and recovery has been fairly successful. I'm still not back to where I was, and I'm pretty sure I never will be, I've come far enough along to feel okay with getting back to it. I'm at the very least not bedridden anymore. To everyone who is still here, I thank you for your patience while I recovered.

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#2: Meanwhile...

Have you been up to anything?

Since last summer, I spend that time polishing up on some skills when I could. I even took up learning a few new skills, including video editing, which has been on my bucket list for a while! I also tried to work on a few projects for this, but realized my mind and heart just weren't in it yet.

Funny enough, I was going to make my big comeback about two months ago, but something else occurred that I didn't expect...

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#3: You did WHAT!?!?

Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

So, in search of something to take up my time, I ended up watching some people on Twitch and, probably to no one's surprise, found myself pretty ingrained into the independent VTuber community, even becoming a moderator for some and helping work on projects for others. It was pretty lightweight work, and kept my mind occupied without stressing myself out.

I did have an explanation here, but all of this has happened under a different account, so I'll withhold details to prevent doxxing myself.

A few emails back and forth later, and I find myself now hired as a video editor making *very* good pay. 

So yeah... I got a new job. 🤯

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#4: So are you quitting this?

Clever line here

So yeah, that's why I haven't made my big comeback earlier. The initial part of my end of recovery was taken up by this job, which takes up a ton of time.

As for this? Well... I think I've learned my lesson. Instead of just jumping back into this full time, I'm going to ease back into it. This is now my secondary focus, and will probably be that way for some time. I know that might be dissapointing to a lot of you, but I have to look out for my mental and physical health, and that's the best way to go about it.

But let's be clear. I am not quitting. At least, not for now. I do enjoy writing and making IF games, and I don't want to just outright abandon it. I'm not done telling stories just yet!

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#5: The Estate, aka The Elephant in the Room

Some things are best left in the past.

A few of you have caught wind of this either through the Discord server (which you should totally join if you haven't) or through the listing on TFGames, but...

I cancelled The Estate. It's dead now.

For the few of you that are screaming and throwing up in shock, yes, I have completely abandoned the project. On Discord, I posted an extensive explanation as to why I came to this conclusion, but I'll keep it short and sweet here. If you're interested in more details, please refer to those posts. It's pinned in the #game-discussion channel.

In short, for anyone who's been around for a bit, you'll know the updates for The Estate slowed down quite a bit before they stopped completely. This was due to several issues, most notably the story. I wasn't sure where to take it. Trying to brute force my way through this problem let to burnout, which in turn contributed to my poor health. And then things got worse.

I was contacted privately by an individual about their concerns about the content of the game. I literally cannot talk about what those accusations were here, as they are strictly against Patreon's Terms of Service. That should tell you how bad the accusations were.

Between that, the burnout, the lack of direction, and several other issues, I finally came to the conclusion that it was time to say goodbye to it. For the eagle-eyed among you, you may notice that all the download links in older posts are gone.

I have completely removed every copy of the game. Every version that was hosted somewhere is gone. Of course, I'm not naive enough to not know that copies exist elsewhere, but I have no control over that. I'm just going to ignore that they exist. If you are reading this and happen to have control over those uploads, I'd ask that you please remove them.  This even extends to the codebase. The story no longer exists on my computer, nor in any backups. This was a full scorched earth process.

Again, if you want more details, you can find them on the Discord server.

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#6: The Future

I want my flying car, dammit!

If you've read any previous posts, you'll know that I had a few other projects I was working on. After some thought, I have decided to shelve all of those extra projects. During my recovery, I had a lot of time to think. A lot of those projects were born of desparation and burnout, so while I still believe in them and love the concepts, I think they need more love and care from a future me that has the mental capacity for them. If I worked on them right now, I wouldn't be doing them any justice. 

I have some new projects coming, some that I'm very excited about. However, I do have a lot of lovely patrons that deserve something for their patience and continued support, so following this, there will be a patron-only followup post about upcoming projects.

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Tl;Dr

So, to recap: I'm not dead, my health is getting better, I got another job, no I'm not quitting, The Estate is dead and buried, and I have new things in the pipeline.

As I said before, I'm not done telling stories yet. I have so many more amazing characters and fantastic worlds to explore with all of you. I hope you'll join me, and look forward to what's to come! ^_^

See you soon,
-RamblingDeviant