Censorship, our progress, and personal drama! (Ch8 Progress Report + Devlog) (Patreon)

Hello everyone,

First of all, I hope you all enjoy what few previews I'm able to show you for Ch8. I wanted to post even more, but due to the potential for spoilers (and... certain characters... and darker themed content)... I'm not able to show off too much. Hopefully you guys don't mind me keeping previews light for Ch8.

All of that being said... we do have a lot to talk about.

I'll get the boring stuff out of the way first:

I've unfortunately been dealing with some personal issues. I want to keep this post lighthearted in tone so I won't go too deep into details... but the gist of it is that my brother recently had to have an operation done on his heart due to complications with drug use. So if I've seemed rather "absent" from the community of late, if I seem a bit drained, or if anything ends up being delivered a bit later than expected... this is partly why. Those of you who saw a big post I made a while back know some of the more intimate details about my family situation... so I'm sure you guys can understand that the buildup/combination of hardship after hardship has taken its toll. But as usual, I'll be alright.

Next, let's talk about the biggest elephant in the room: censorship:

As many of you have likely noticed, there's been a significant crackdown on adult/NSFW content thanks largely to activist groups and payment processors enforcing certain "moral guidelines" on storefronts. One such storefront, Itch, is a place where Radiant is currently being sold. Itch made the decision to delist all NSFW games thanks to pressure from credit card companies, so this has obviously impacted us and our ability to bring in revenue.

While I don't want to speak too soon and/or announce anything concrete, I'm keeping my hopes high that we'll make it through this. I've been fighting like hell, doing my utmost to raise awareness to the issues plaguing adult games and communicating directly (in private) with related entities. No matter what happens, Radiant will thrive and continue to be developed, even if I have to start selling my own personal assets to make that happen. This project means the world to me, it is the most fulfilling thing I've ever done, and nothing will stop us from seeing it through to completion.

That being said, it would be remiss of me to not ask you guys to fight the censorship as well. One of the ways you can do this is by supporting the creators affected. Another way is to take action directly by following the steps in this guide. The unfortunate reality is that if we want games like Radiant to continue to exist, then fighting this falls onto our shoulders.

With that out of the way, onto Chapter 8's progress:

While were running a bit behind on Chapter 8 (for reasons that I hope are fairly obvious)... it shouldn't take us too much longer to wrap things up. We're sitting somewhere around 65% completion and we plan to double-time it to get the rest of it done so I can start testing and finishing up the coding. There's been no major issues and nothing major will need to be rewritten or changed, so there won't be any huge delays like there was for Ch7.

That being said, I don't want to make the mistake of misleading you guys as I've unfortunately done many times in the past (not on purpose)... so while I'll avoid giving any specific deadlines... I'll just say that you should expect Ch8 to take about 2 more months.

That's it.

I love you guys, and thanks for everything you've been doing for us and for this community. We couldn't do any of this without all of you, and we will overcome these dystopian laws and censorship advocates at all costs!

-SirD.