Hey everyone,

After a bit of a hiatus, I wanted to update you all on what's been happening. The dream of creating Lustfer Games was born in 2018. Inspired by the genre, I was confident in my ability to create something cool with better graphics than what was available at the time. Nowadays, many games have incredible quality, but back then, I knew I could make something special.

After a lot of learning, I thought I could present something decent. In early 2022, I released the project "Secrets of The Valley" to the public. It wasn't easy at first, but I gained knowledge and made good friendships along the way that gave me the strength to continue.

For those who don't know, I spent the entire year of 2022 working full-time on this project. I woke up at 8 am and went to bed in the early hours, rendering, coding, translating, creating posts, responding in forums, and doing countless other tasks that a solo independent developer needs to do. Well, not completely alone, sometimes coffee, music, and my cat were my companions for hours on end.

To dedicate myself this way, I had to drop out of college, give up going out, and miss weekends and holidays with the commitment to update as quickly as possible and demonstrate my dedication to the community. Unfortunately, despite my efforts, the project didn't take off as I had hoped. But I remained steadfast, believing that I would succeed sooner or later. The only problem was that I was basically supporting the project and my personal expenses for 12 whole months with my personal financial reserves. So at the end of 2022, I had to start moving on with my life and get a normal job again.

I was quite frustrated with everything, but that's how things are. In recent months, I've been busy with work and discouraged, trying to find the strength to move Lustfer Games forward. That's why there has been a lack of production and updates.

It's important to note that even before launching this project, I was investing as much as I could to have a decent computer and take a risk in this world. I started with a Ryzen 3900, 16GB RAM, and a GTX 1080 8GB. As the project progressed, I realized that the biggest bottleneck would be the GPU, so I decided that all the money from supporters would be exclusively used to obtain a 3090. In my country, it cost an incredible US$1800 (our minimum wage = US$264).

And I think it's worth mentioning that I never spent the money from the investment that you supporters made. The idea was always to reinvest everything to improve the workstation and repay you with better quality and faster updates. Finally, I managed to raise the necessary amount for the 3090. This was obviously due to the trust that many of you had in the project, remaining with recurring support to this day. It's very gratifying to see that many of you are still with me, and some who had left have returned. Of course, even those who left for good have my gratitude.

This post was just to let everyone know what's been happening lately. There's another technical issue that was a hindrance, but I'll talk about that soon. I'm planning the next steps, and I'll be sure to share more with you very soon. As expected, at this point, I have almost the entire next chapter written and rendered. I've already posted some preview images for Patrons. Stay tuned, after considering a few possibilities, I'll bring them to you and count on your help to decide our next steps!

Best,
Lustfer