Can you believe we're close to October? 

I promised to put up a blog post last week to explain what happened around the start of September, but then I got sick and am now presently trying to recover my energy - I keep telling friends it's like having Colin Robinson visit me while I was languishing on my bed -. Today I have energy to spare, so I'm finally writing down this overdue blog post.

As you may know, on September 9th I published Party At Room 313 which was a missed game submission for Single Choice Jam that I decided to release anyway. The evening after, I was preparing to set back up the drafts I temporarily put on hold while on holiday and focusing on PAR313. I remember saving the drafts I downloaded and deleted from Google Drive over my old external hard drive, but as I was sifting through the documents, I slowly came to the realisation that they were not where I remember them to be. In fact, they weren't anywhere at all. 

For context, I had to do a massive hauling on my laptop to make space for Baldur's Gate 3 in the early weeks of August, and somehow between all of these to and fro, the zip file containing all of my ongoing drafts must have fell through. I went over and over through the external hard drive and double-checked the places I was sure to have saved it, but it was getting more obvious by the hour that I lost them. So yes, I lost half a year's writing to the void. The following drafts being:

• Under A Rainstorm (Chapter 2 was in the process of being picked up) this was a submission for Phantasia Jam which I ultimately left following this incident
• Die Wűnderliebe (the penultimate chapter coincidentally is set in autumn, which was a fortuitous happenstance) I had been working on this since last October
• Ultimate Possession! (I was close to finishing Episode 3 and started writing a good portion of Episode 4)
• Fracture (a horror project I already lost back in July 2022, which I only reprised around March-April out of sheer frustration from all the drama I was writing)
• Secret Project A (An anthology IF whose first chapter I had begun writing to procrastinate over UAR and DW)

For this to happen a second time just as I was excited with the idea of switching over to a new SSD storage, specifically for game documents related to VNS and IFs, after testing it out for Steam, is a massive blow to my psyche. On top of that, my family coincidentally was undergoing a personal event the month prior that further enhanced my depressive spiral. This ridiculous replay of what happened from the summer of last year drained the excitement I was starting to have over picking up old VN projects to play with Feniks inspiring Ren'Py codes, and the creative streak I was experiencing since spring rolled out. 

Because of this massive heartbreak, I haven't been able to find enough motivation nor willpower to start from scratch or focus on a new game project. I'm feeling empty, emptier than I have ever been game dev wise. Usually my brain churns out ideas one after another, but since the past weeks, nothing has sparked my passion to make something into a game. Nothing at all. A friend suggested I may be experiencing burn out, and after getting sick last week -which I was hoping would push me to write a short IF similar to Lamplight- I am inclined to agree. 

When I say I'm on dev break, I tend to follow up by saying I have something in the works behind-the-scenes, but not this time. I have nothing to follow up once PAR313 is done. The ones I did have are gone now. Half a year's work lost. If there's one lesson I hope you earn from this long post, it's that you must habitually have back-ups of your game projects. Save and re-save them obsessively everywhere! Do it every week or every day if possible! Invest on a good external storage and always be careful when moving your files. 

From here on out until who knows when, I will focus my energy on drawing. I don't know when I'll be able to find the drive to get back into game dev. I don't think pushing myself to would be of any help. Not only that, but I am exhausted. Simply exhausted. I don't even know if everything's worth the effort any more.

Closing this by giving a huge thanks to my friends who have been patient with my whims and supportive of the journey I made in this path. I wouldn't suggest it to everyone, but I think once you understand the difficult process of game development, you grow appreciative of the hard work of the professional indies who do this for a living, or of the team behind every massive game title you will ever play or for any media you consume. The humanity in them is what make it all magical.

Until PAR313's finale. 

Take care,

— S. H.

PS. You can find me in the following places should you wish to. There's also an ongoing celebratory sale should you wish to support me after everything that has happened.

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