Dev Blog #111 - An Open Letter, and Apology (Patreon)

Greetings everyone.

This was bound to happen sooner or later, so let's just get into it.

Like A Powder Keg

So I'm just going to be frank here.

Those on Discord have noticed a major drop in communication from me, those in the Dev Build tier have noticed an alarming absence of dev builds, and even last week's devblog was cancelled. The reality is that in writing today's post, I'll have written more than I have for The Company over the last three weeks combined, and that fact alone would be enough to make me sick. As it is, there have been a number of detrimental parallel processes running in my life, building up pressure, and finally coming to a head at the start of the month.

Without getting into details, the end result is the loss of friends and lovers that have been in my life for over a decade, further deteriorated family relationships, the crippling of my ability to write or really show interest in most anything, and an introduction to the world of mental health support. I'm still learning how to pronounce most of these medications... My daily routine has effectively been wake up to get the kids to the bus stop, then go back to bed until it's time to pick them up, choke some food down, feign humanity until bedtime, then repeat.

It's not great.

Regardless, I'm working through it day by day as I claw my way back to some semblance of a normal working routine. This feels like one of those coalescence of life events that, for me anyway, was bound to happen sooner or later, and just so happens to be happening now. What an absolute clusterfuck of a year...

The Company is not Dead

You'd be forgiven for reading this and assuming that the punchline is that I'm suspending if not outright cancelling development on The Company.

You'd be mistaken.

I'd be lying if I said that the development schedule for The Company hasn't veered off course and gone straight into a ditch, but every day is an increasingly effective effort to salvage the wreckage. I've been working with my auxiliary writer to keep development on Chapter 4 moving, albeit at a greatly reduced rate, so things haven't stagnated completely. Still, the damage done is real, and while I wish I could provide some kind of timeframe for recovery, the reality is that I just can't right now. We're definitely not talking months, here, and Chapter 4 - Part 1 is still coming out this year. Period.

Still, you're all not here to support the veritable shitshow that is Westane's personal life, you're here to support the Human Relations sim that is The Company. I've completely failed in delivering in that regard, and I can't apologize enough, nor would I expect any of my backers to stick around long enough to see the game get back on track. At the very least I would ask you to follow me, keep an eye on development, and come back to support it once you're happy with how things are moving again.

To all of my backers, I'm incredibly sorry.

In spite of all of this, I want to thank everyone for their continued support, which I hope I can earn back as quickly as possible!