Hi guys!

Welp, 2016 is pretty much over! For some of you it already ended, and for the rest it’s getting closer and closer to the end.

2016 was one of the best yet one of the most hectic years of my life.

I started the year off with a FNaF fan-game I was somewhat proud of, Fazbear Studio. At the time, it was one of my most advanced games I had ever made.

However, I was starting to get worried. Would I be stuck with FNaF for another entire year again? I tried many times to deviate from FNaF, but it kept coming back. Don’t get me wrong, I love FNaF, but it really was time to give it a break. It seemed like I had nothing else to turn to or do.

Then I was introduced to some random game on Steam called Undertale.

At first, I didn’t think it would be much. But after being told it was a “must-play” so many times, I gave it a shot. And boy was I not disappointed.

It was amazing, it was the most fun I had experienced in a while.

When I finally finished Undertale, I realized that this was my way out of the whole FNaF thing. I had something else to be a part of.

At the time, there were barely any Undertale fan-games that tried to be close to a full-length game. They were all just battles as far as I could tell.

I saw this as an opportunity to try something new. I had never truly attempted to make a long game before. I was used to the FNaF-style games and maybe a short platformer here and there.

So then at school I wrote out some plans for a fan-made sequel to Undertale. Nobody had done anything like that then, atleast not on GameJolt.

The ideas I came up with eventually formulated into the first version of Uppertale. I didn’t understand the story behind Undertale back then as much as I do now, so there were plenty of mistakes in the story, but hey, it was a start.

I released the page for Uppertale on the 9th of January at the start of the year. It got some attention.

While I still view Uppertale as a failure, many people think that it wasn’t, and I can’t thank them enough for all of their support. Uppertale had done better than any of my other games before it, and it was all because of them.

As far as I know, Uppertale set the standards for the “full-length fan-games” of the time. Of course, those standards have raised a lot since then, but I’m still kind of proud of that. I like to think of myself as the “pioneer” of the full-length UT fan-game, even if I did it awfully.

When I finally gave up on Uppertale, I thought of what I could do next. But before I tried to make another game, I wanted to work on my programming skills so I didn’t repeat any mistakes I made with Uppertale.

On the 1st of May I put out the GameJolt page for my Undertale Battle System Engine. It was a major improvement compared to Uppertale’s shitty battle system.

Using this new battle system of mine as a base, I decided to try and “remake” Uppertale. I created a page for “Uppertale: Remastered” on the 22nd of May.

However, when trying to come up with a new story, I had even more trouble with it, and I decided that I didn’t want to do anything related to Uppertale ever again.

And so I had to come up with something else to do. I decided to read up on some more of the lore of Undertale and see what I could experiment with.

It was then that I put my attention on someone known as Dr W.D. Gaster.

I looked to see if anyone else had started any Gaster fan-games, and there were a few for sure, but they were either never released, cancelled, or just a joke game.

I saw this as yet another opportunity. And it was then that I came up with the idea for “Don’t Forget”, a game where you play as Sans and find out what truly happened to Dr Gaster (that’s what the plot USED to be, anyway)!

I changed the page I had made for Uppertale: Remastered to become the page for Don’t Forget.

Over time, the plot for the game changed. A lot.

I worked for a long time on making a demo for the game, and when it came out a lot of people seemed to like it. It needed changes, of course, but it did alright.

Then I got a bit cocky, I’ll admit, and made an extended demo for some YouTubers to play. Hell, I even sent one to JackSepticEye! Don’t ask why, I have no idea. I guess I liked his Undertale let’s play series so much that I was dying to see what he would think of my game.

But anyway, a few YouTubers did play the demo I sent them, and they appeared to like them, which made me extremely happy and determined!

I worked for a while on making a final version of the game, and I rushed one out with a shitty ending I absolutely hated.

This is the version of the game that YuB played. If you want to see what the ending looked like, I recommend you check the video out. YuB is a pretty awesome guy, so either way it’s definitely worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkTzOuKBTo

Anyway, I decided that all this hard work I had put in shouldn’t all end like this, and I tried to change the game AGAIN! In the meantime, I put up a new version of the game that removed the ending I hated and just ended with a cliffhanger. This is the version that MatPat played.

That, my friends, was one of the main highlights of my year. I had been watching Game Theory for years, and it got me through some really tough times and inspired me to keep making games. When I first started making games, actually, one of my goals was to get someone like MatPat to play one of my games. And when that day finally came, I’m not gonna lie here, I cried like a little bitch xD
Here’s the GTLive they played it on if you want to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQcwpwkjQIQ

Anyway, I was so overwhelmed and so happy I couldn’t even process it.

Having MatPat play my game pretty much sent me into maximum overdrive and I was determined to finish Don’t Forget!

However, a few months later I made an all-new fangame engine for one of my friends and I decided to upload it to let everyone else use it. This new engine was way better than the one I had for Don’t Forget.

This eventually led to me deciding to start Don’t Forget over from scratch. I just wasn’t happy with the way the story was going at all, and I wanted to use my new engine’s features.

This pretty much leads to present day, where I’m working non-stop on Don’t Forget’s multiplayer, stressing myself out as always.

And even though this year had its ups and downs, it was still one of the best years of my life, and I thank you all so very much for being with me during it and for all of your endless support. I know I lose my cool sometimes when someone gets on my nerves, but I don’t normally hold grudges for very long, unless that person did something really messed up, of course xD

With that all being said, thank you all so much for everything, and I hope you all have a happy new year. Let’s hope 2017 has even more great moments than this year did!

But, before I go, I just want to point out that Don’t Forget has just gotten over 4000 followers! That is incredible! Don’t Forget has truly left Uppertale in the dust! I know I pretty much just said thank you over and over again in this devlog, but again, thank you all SO much for following and supporting this game. It truly, sincerely means a lot to me. I hope I can somehow repay all of you for everything you’ve given me.

And with that, I think I can wrap it all up here.

Have a happy new year everybody, and I’ll see you all next year :3