Hi everyone! I hope you’re all right. I come to you today with not so good news.

First of all, I’ve heard back from itch regarding the ban of The Daughters of the Sun, Son of the Woods and The Thread and the Sword. I’ll let you read it for yourself:

And as you’ve certainly guessed, waiting two weeks for such a generic answer that doesn’t take the three games into consideration at all is quite frankly insulting. Please remember to contact as regularly as possible payment processors. As I said in my previous devlogs, this fight won’t be won in a week.

Anyway, I’ve felt vastly… demotivated since the ban of the The Daughters of the Sun trilogy, but I won’t lie, this email was the nail in the coffin. I feel completely, utterly, and entirely demotivated. I had plans for the summer, and, in particular, to release the demo of Waterlily on the Froth, on which I made big progress, especially before O2A2 (overall, all the art is done but for three sprites and a CG). But the thought of the game being banned for dealing with child grooming quite frontally, the meaningless of trying to save your content when those who put it in peril don’t even have the resources, certainly, but also the empathy to truly listen to what you’re saying… Honestly, sticking to game dev recently has quite a toll on my mental health.

I haven’t said it here, but a few weeks ago, after the itch incident started, I ended up in the ER. Fortunately enough, nothing too serious, but one thing came out: I am very stressed, and I really need to chill out. And right now, making games doesn’t help me do that.

In particular, it’s the first time in my life I’ve felt demotivated about game dev. I’ve had some hard times since the start of my solo dev journey (back in February 2021), but never have I felt demotivated. Too exhausted to be as productive as I wished? Yes. Not enough time to make games? Yes. Torn over a project and wanting to give it more time to mature? Happened too. Worried about a game I’m creating? Oftentimes. But lacking motivation, and creating without the fire that makes a soul burn? No, it’s the first time.

That’s why I’m announcing I’m going on hiatus. I’d still like to make a vent game about the situation. The script is written, so is the sprite for the main character, but I don’t have the motivation to draw the sprite for the secondary character, to code things in, to do the GUI… Maybe I’ll have it at some point, but ultimately, as of now, I’m just too depressed about game devving to really want to try, and I think it’d be healthier for me to focus on some other of my creative endeavours. I don't know if a hiatus required such an official announcement, but I think making it'll help making it clear in my mind.

However, if I end up working on things I’m proud enough of to share, even sporadically, I’ll share them to my Patreon members. The membership is absolutely free, but you need to create a Patreon account. Otherwise, I’ll just focus on uploading all my games on Patreon, progressively (as I even lack the motivation to do something as simple as that).

I thank every supporter I’ve ever had, and I hope to come to you as soon as possible, with fire in my soul again.

Best,

Chimériquement