Howdy, folks.

Today on May 22nd, DONTFORGET turns five years old.

I would like to thank you all for allowing me to work on this project for so long. I have taken many risks with DF over the years, and it is very easy for a project like this to lose interest and fade away over time. But half a decade later, DF is still going strong, if not stronger than ever before.

I never planned nor expected for DF to become as big of an undertaking as it has. It was often a joke in the early years of the project that there would be a "DF 2", which just goes to show how silly the idea sounded to us back then.

Well, fast-forward to today and that's actually not too far from reality! We're currently working on two DF games, "DF CONNECTED" and "DF STORY MODE", which is incredibly weird when you think about it. How did we get here???

To celebrate our 5th anniversary, I'd like to reflect on how the project got to this point, and to think a bit about the future ahead.

If you're relatively new to DF, then you might not be aware of just how much the project has changed over the years, so this might be an interesting read for you. Or if you're an older player who just got back to the game recently, this post might help fill in some gaps.

This post will be pretty long though, so grab a snack and relax for a bit!

Now with that intro out of the way, let's begin!

2016/2017: "Once Upon a Time"

DF began in early-2016 as a remake of my first Undertale fan-game, "Uppertale". You can actually still play what I finished of that remake on Uppertale's GameJolt page!

If you haven't played Uppertale, it was a direct sequel to the true pacifist ending where everyone lived happily on the surface together, but of course some shenanigans take place.

To make Uppertale Remastered, I created my own Undertale engine in GMS1. I ended up using this engine for DF all the way until 2018! It was even publicly available for anyone to use for their own fangames at one point, but I took it down since it had become quite outdated.

Anyway, the story of the original Uppertale was that, after moving in to a new village on the surface with everyone, Alphys invents a time machine to send Frisk back in time. The goal was to go back and take a photo of the moment Alphys and Undyne were about to kiss in the original ending, as per Alphys' request. Timeline shenanigans would ensue as a result, and Frisk would have to try and fix them.

However, for Uppertale Remastered, I wanted to try something a bit different.

Instead of the game being about Alphys' time machine, I changed it into a story about the mysterious machine in Sans' Workshop. Of course, this ended up completely changing the game...

To reflect this, I decided to change the game's title. What I eventually settled on was "Undertale: Don't Forget", based on the drawing in one of Sans' drawers that had "don't forget" written on it.

At first it still had the "Uppertale Remake" tagline as well, but this was dropped over time.

DF's new premise had Frisk find Sans working on the machine in his workshop, and revealing to us that his old science partner "Doctor Gaster" was trapped in a place called the Void, where this machine would be able to take them. However, things go wrong, and while Frisk and Sans do make it to the Void, they are seperated and need to find each other.

The game originally began with a flashback where you played as Sans and went to visit Gaster at the laboratory. Back then there wasn't a team helping me with sprites and music yet, so I made the new Gaster sprites myself (hence why they look awful lol).

Fun fact: I actually emailed Toby to gain his permission to make DF. At the time I think it was more common for fangame devs to ask for permission, since the fangame scene was still quite new (it was only a few months after Undertale's release, after all). He responded and said it was fine, as long as DF was clearly unofficial.

Here are the screenshots I attached to that email. These are the earliest screenshots of DF that I have:

These screenshots are from the original intro sequence for the game, but I ended up removing it since I felt it made more sense to start the game with going down the mountain. The flashback was repurposed for the player's first meeting with Sans instead.

If you've ever wondered why DF is so heavily associated with the color purple, that's because the original DF's Void was a corrupted timeline where everything was frozen in time and colored purple. I don't remember why I chose purple for its color instead of grey; I think I might have heard from a FNaF theory once that purple is an "evil" color and I rolled with it. That sounds silly now, but at the time it was good enough for me lol.

I wish I had actually made the colors more interesting, maybe at least given each area a distinct color instead of just purple for the whole game, but it is what it is.

Now, what some people might have forgotten (no pun intended) is that there was actually a point where DF was completed. DF's first release was a complete game with an ending, and it was intended to be the end of the project.

The original ending of DF was that Frisk woke up back in Sans' workshop, and it turns out that the whole Void section of the game was a dream, and the machine had actually gotten Gaster back okay after all.

Reception towards the game upon release was mixed, mostly because of the ending. After listening to player feedback, as well as my own dissatisfaction for the ending, I decided to remove it and change it completely. When I announced this decision, I admitted that I had rushed the ending, and I wanted to give it another try.

I made a few minor changes and released a new version of the game, which you all might know now as the "DF Old Beta". This version of the game was never completed. I added a scene at the end of the game where you would walk up to Gaster, but the game stopped there and said "END OF BETA".

So why did I never finish it? Well, that's because I decided to take a break from the story and work on a little experiment.

This "experiment" would become the first release of DF Multiplayer!

I've told this story a few times, but in case you haven't heard it yet, DF Multiplayer got its start from a discussion I had with some members of the Underracer team, which I was a part of at the time.

We were playing a random fan-game we found called "Undertail Online", which if you know what "Undertail" is then that sounds like a horrible idea, but the game was actually pretty normal and used an extension called "Game Maker Server" to make the game work online. It was basically just a game where you could walk around the Ruins with other players. However, the game had no battles and only a few rooms.

I jokingly suggested that I should try making a multiplayer version of DF using this "Game Maker Server" extension, and I talked about how such a thing could work with some of the Underracer team. What started out as a joke soon turned into a real thing!

When the first version of DF Multiplayer released in late-2016, it was pretty basic, but it had battles and a good foundation to make a true Undertale MMORPG. I updated the game consistently, adding new areas and features with each new version. Pretty soon, DF Multiplayer became the focus of the DF project, rather than the story. The DF Old Beta was silently cancelled in favor of DF Multiplayer.

It was at this point in the game's development that I started forming a team to help me with the game. While I remained as the game's designer and programmer, I brought on spriters, composers, and admins to help me make the game even better. I've gotten to know some really great people through DF, which I'm very appreciative of!

From late-2016 through most of 2017, I worked on nothing but DF Multiplayer, which was steadily growing. There was even a point where GMServer had to lock itself since too many people were trying to login at once!

DF Multiplayer was intended to be a non-canon demo for the full game, which would feature both a Story Mode and a Multiplayer Mode. However, DF Multiplayer just kept growing, and it ended up being its own thing with a full story and ending.

I don't really like the story that I went with for this game, looking back on it. It was a meta story where I actually existed in-universe as the creator of the world, and one of my newest creations was trying to destroy the game. The player would be tasked with going into the "core of the game" and defeating this creation. Since the game was only meant to be a demo and not canon, I just went nuts with the story.

I think I was inspired a lot by FNaF World when I was coming up with this stuff, as in that game its creator Scott Cawthon also existed within the game's world as a character.

With that said, I do regret how I portrayed myself within the story. My character was called "Lord RickyG", and you had to go into a church on the surface to find me. Some people perceived this as me being conceited by trying to make myself a "god" in the game, but at the time I just thought it was too goofy to take seriously. However, it's still something that I regret, because if I really wanted to do a self-insert I could have just as easily been a dog like Toby or something. I didn't really know any better at the time, so I apologize if the religious imagery made any of you uncomfortable.

Moving on from DF Multiplayer though, there was something else that I began working on in mid-2017. DF Multiplayer's engine was starting to show its limitations, and with other fangames beginning to release at the time with better engines that were more accurate to Undertale, I didn't want DF to fall behind.

I began working on a new Undertale engine, which would go on to be the engine still used today for DF CONNECTED!

This engine would be first revealed in my 2017 "Fangame E3" presentation:

With this engine, I decided that it was time to return to what DF was all about: the story. For the next few months, I spent most of my time working on what would eventually become known as the "DF 2018 Demo"!

2018/2019: "Putting the Pieces Together"

With DF Multiplayer's ending completed, I was able to put more time into what I called "Project Multiverse". I worked multiple hours straight every day, after school and every weekend, working on "Project Multiverse". Of course, this project was actually the new DF game that I was working on, which focused mostly on the new Story Mode.

On February 21st, 2018, I released the first proper trailer for DF, featuring a voice-over by Jon Causith as Gaster:

I was trying to do something very different with DF this time. As you might be able to tell from the trailer, DF was not structured in the same way as Undertale. Instead of a linear story adventure, DF was an open exploration game!

The player would be able to hop from one "universe" to another in search of "soul pieces" (the term "universe" was eventually replaced with "timeline"). You would need to find "wormholes" in the overworld and enter them to be taken to a short challenge level in the Void. Completing the challenges would reward you with a soul piece.

Basically, I was trying to make a cross between Undertale and Super Mario 64, if you think of the soul pieces as power stars.

In September 2018, I released a demo for this new DF game.

You played as Frisk, and were tasked by the followers to put Gaster's soul back together. You did this by travelling across the multiverse with a machine he had invented before his soul was shattered across time and space.

The demo featured two of the five planned "timelines", with the first timeline being the main Undertale timeline, and the second being a timeline where monsters made it back up to the surface.

The machine would plop you down somewhere in the timeline you selected, and you could go off in any direction you wanted in search of soul pieces.

There were also various side-quests to complete, usually with a reward of some gold. There would be NPCs hanging around that you could talk to and receive these quests from.

This game was also the first appearance of DF's arcade, which is still used today in DF CONNECTED! It featured three minigames, "Thundersnail", "Splat2d", and "RicksterCraft". They were a fun distraction, but some people felt that they didn't fit in with the rest of the game at all, which I was also inclined to agree with. They're just kind of there lol.

There was plenty of side stuff to do, but the main focus of the game was exploring and finding wormholes. Bumping into a wormhole would tell you what level it was and what task you had to do in it. The wormholes were assigned level numbers so that players could complete them in the intended order if they wished, but this wasn't required.

Entering the wormhole would bring you to the Void, which used a very simplistic visual style inspired by the "flipside" from FNaF World. As you might be able to tell by now, I liked FNaF World a lot at the time lol.

Collecting the soul piece would play a little jingle and send you back to the overworld.

And that was essentially what you did for the whole game. There were also bonus collectibles called "puzzle pieces" which you could trade in for new costumes for Frisk, inspired by Super Mario Odyssey.

On average, the demo lasted around 1 hour of playtime, which was not too bad for a fangame demo at the time. I was mostly happy with how it turned out.

However, upon release of the demo, the reception it garnered was mixed. There were some players who liked the new gameplay and were glad that DF was trying to be different, but there were also others who felt that the new gameplay was tedious, the side-quests were not very interesting, and that there wasn't much story.

I began working further on the game to address the feedback I was getting, with the plan to release another demo in the following months. But my plans were put to a sudden halt when the entire Undertale community was hit with a bombshell.

That bombshell would be none other than Deltarune, which had its first chapter released the very next month, October 2018, and it pretty much changed everything.

Not long after playing Deltarune, I put out a devlog stating that the game had completely changed my view of what DF could be. Rather than trying to make a "sequel" or "continuation" to Undertale (which was becoming increasingly more common in the fangame scene by that point), Deltarune inspired me to expand DF much further than that.

My first big change to DF was the decision to create a new protagonist. I had been using Frisk since Uppertale, and I felt that it was about time to replace them. I wanted a new character that could represent DF, as up until that point DF had no unique characters at all.

After some trial and error, I eventually settled on a design of a short, floofy-haired kid named "Harlow". I got their name from the word "hollow", and it also happened to be a gender-neutral name which was exactly what I was looking for.

Here's the image I used to reveal Harlow's design:

And here's the original concept art that I drew:

As you can see, Harlow looked kind of sinister at first, with a wide smile and obscured eyes. Ultimately, Harlow was mellowed out a lot for DF Chapter 1. They turned into a typical silent protagonist in the same vein as Frisk and Kris, although the difference was that Harlow was the game's narrator. The narration was done from the first-person perspective of Harlow themselves, which gave opportunities to flesh them out a little more.

One thing that I often get asked is why Harlow is a purple soul and not a red soul. Well, the truth is that it's mostly because purple had just become the color that I associated DF with the most! The older versions of the game used a lot of purple like I explained earlier, and so it just kind of stuck. When it came time to make a new protagonist, I wanted to try experimenting with a new soul color, and purple seemed like the most obvious choice because of how much I used it. Besides that, I also just think that "perseverance" is the most similar trait to "determination", since they're not too different when you think about it, and I liked that aspect.

After revealing Harlow, I worked on what would become known as "DF Chapter 1", or "DF v1", for nearly a full year. Between the reveal and Chapter 1's release, I put out a new trailer for the game on my birthday in 2019:

One of my main focuses this time around was trying to incorporate more new assets, as up until this point the game had mostly been reusing assets from Undertale over and over. The graphical difference between DF Chapter 1 and the DF 2018 Demo is quite noticeable.

However, at it's core, the gameplay of Chapter 1 was very similar to the DF 2018 Demo. Once again the player was tasked with exploring an open world in search of wormholes to collect soul pieces. This time, however, the story was changed drastically to be a bit more involved, the puzzle pieces were completely repurposed, and there were more NPC interactions. These changes were to address the feedback from the 2018 demo.

Finally, in September 2019, DF Chapter 1 (v1.0) was released.

Unlike the 2018 demo, Chapter 1 featured a file system, akin to Deltarune's. This was to encourage multiple playthroughs as the game was going to have multiple routes at one point (beyond the typical pacifist/genocide).

Starting a new save file would bring the player to an intro sequence where an unknown voice (later revealed to be Gaster) would introduce the player to their new "vessel".

The general premise of Chapter 1 is that you play as Harlow, a young child living peacefully on the surface with your adoptive monster family, and you are woken up by your older sibling, Chara, after having a bad dream.

In the dream (which was the intro sequence), a voice told you that you have forgotten who you "truly are", and that you need to visit the infamous abandoned house in your town to find the truth. You head outside and are able to explore a bit of "Hometown", a little village nestled beneath a mountain.

You go over to talk to Chara and Asriel, who are waiting for you in front of the town's central fountain. You tell them about your dream and that you need to go to the abandoned house in the northeast, and they say that they'll wait here for you.

You head to the house, and it looks oddly familiar. Of course, you probably recognize it as a ruined version of Sans and Papyrus' house.

Going around the back, you're able to enter the basement, where a mysterious machine lies in wait.

Interacting with the machine for the first time will bring you to a strange void-like area, where you'll once again speak to the mysterious voice from the start of the game.

They'll reveal to you that this entire world is "fake", nothing more than a fantasy, and that you must free yourself from it by collecting all of the soul pieces which have now spawned around the map.

The goal of this chapter is to collect all 10 of the soul pieces and return to the machine in the basement to progress to the next part of the game. There were also a lot more puzzle pieces scattered around the map compared to the 2018 demo, and you needed to collect all of them in order to use the machine at the end of the chapter.

For convenience, the game added a progress screen so you could keep track of everything. Besides the soul pieces and puzzle pieces, there were also new sidequests added on top of the ones from the 2018 demo, and new treasure chests which contained costumes for Harlow to wear.

As you can see at the top of this menu, the original plan was for there to be four chapters, as well as two bonus areas. Frankly, I don't remember what purpose those two bonus areas would have served, or how you would get to them. In future releases of Chapter 1, this list was shortened down to just three chapters.

Anyway, once you had gotten all of the soul pieces and puzzle pieces, you'd go back to the machine and speak to the mysterious voice one more time, who would give you the task of "waking up the others". You'll hear the sound of glass shattering, and Harlow will wake up in an old, decrepit laboratory. It seems like you were in a glass tube of some kind, hooked up to a machine oddly familiar to the one from the basement. Reading lab entries throughout this area, we learn that we had actually been inside a virtual simulation for many, many years.

Heading further into the lab, it is revealed that Sans and Papyrus are the "others" the mysterious voice told us about, and the chapter ends as we enter their simulation.

And that was Chapter 1. Well, the Story Mode part of it, anyway. The game also had a new multiplayer mode, allowing players to connect online and explore Hometown together.

Here's a demonstration video of multiplayer that I released close to the game's launch:

However, the older DF Multiplayer was still more widely used by players at this point, as it had more content than this new DF multiplayer did, which was still yet to receive new areas beyond Hometown or even PvP.

Anyway, as for the reception of the initial release of Chapter 1, it was once again mixed like the 2018 demo. Players liked the new story and graphics, but there was criticism towards the puzzle pieces being mostly pointless, the sidequests not being important and only giving some gold, as well as there not really being much character interaction.

In response to this, I updated DF Chapter 1 over the course of the next few months, leading up to the v1.3 series of updates.

Chapter 1 was changed drastically in v1.3, and is probably the version that I think most people who liked Chapter 1 will look back on.

One of the major gameplay changes Chapter 1 received was with the puzzle pieces. They were changed so that they were now used to open up wormholes instead of only activating the machine at the end. This helped to provide a better sense of progression as well as to make the puzzle pieces have a more active role in gameplay.

The sidequests were also changed into "Tasks". Some of these tasks were now required to complete the chapter, as they contributed towards progression instead of just always giving a useless gold reward. For example, one of these new tasks unlocked a shed upon completion, which contained a wormhole and more puzzle pieces inside.

There was also a new gamemode added called "Randomizer", which randomized the locations of every wormhole and puzzle piece, making the game much more replayable. There was even a contest held to see who could get the fastest speedrun on randomizer mode, and those winners are still listed in DF CONNECTED's Hall of Fame!

There were also some aesthetic changes, such as adding a new silhouette of Gaster in the cutscenes where he spoke to Harlow during the game. Originally it was just white text on a black screen and nothing else for these scenes, but now there was actually a visual element to them, which made the game feel more polished.

In a devlog I posted around the time of v1.3's release, I admitted that I had rushed the initial release of Chapter 1, and that I was working on these new updates as fast as I could to make up for the unpolished release.

The reason that I had rushed Chapter 1 was because I was feeling conflicted at the time on whether I wanted to continue the project or not. I was even considering cancelling the game sometime after releasing the chapter.

Thankfully, after releasing the game and having a bit of time to think about it, I managed to get myself back on my feet and keep going with the project. I guess you could say I "persevered"!

After releasing v1.3 and bringing Chapter 1 to a state where I was happy with it, I began planning a new update, v1.4. This update was going to add new story content to Chapter 1 (such as more scenes with Chara and Asriel), a new map system to help with exploration, and most of all, a bunch of new content for the multiplayer mode (which was still quite barebones as of v1.3.3).

Here's some of the Story Mode screenshots from v1.4 that I released at the time, showing the new maps and "assist mode" that I was working on:

Along with these, I also put out new multiplayer screenshots:

The multiplayer mode was growing significantly from what it was in v1.3.3. The v1.4 update was adding new areas, a new "local chat" system, a new Undernet social media service, and plenty of new skins!

After a while, v1.4 became less and less about Story Mode, and more about the multiplayer. This eventually led to the announcement that "v1.4" was no longer happening.

Instead, I made the decision to change the update into "DF v2.0", the next major release of the game, and (controversially) it would not feature Story Mode at all!

Instead, my plan was to release v2.0 with only the new multiplayer mode available, and then adding an updated Story Mode (which I referred to as the "Chapter 1 Redux") in a future version when it was ready.

After this announcement, I buckled down and worked on v2.0 for a while. The game would not receive a new release for over half a year, which marks the end of DF's 2019, and the start of a new era for the game.

2020/2021: "Establishing a Connection"

I'm sure I don't need to tell you about what happened at the start of 2020. Needless to say, the world situation was not looking very good at the time. I was also in my final year of college, so there was a lot going on in my personal life.

Despite these challenges, progress on DF v2.0 was still being made. On my 19th birthday I released a gameplay trailer for v2.0, which showcased just how much the game had changed since the previous version.

The update finally released on April 11th, 2020. What followed was something I never would have expected.

On the update's first day of release, it broke the record for the most players in a GMServer game at once! We reached over 300 players at its peak, which was super exciting!

With all of the commotion surrounding the game, I went into overdrive and pumped out v2.1.0 the very next day, followed by v2.1.1 and v2.2.0 in the few days after. Needless to say, a lot of coffee was consumed during this period.

Then, on April 27th, 2020, I released v2.3.0. It most notably added some new AU vessels along with plenty of PvP improvements.

What followed after its release shattered our expectations: we once again broke the record for the most players online at once! Nearly 600 players were on at the same time at its peak!

While I don't have a screenshot of it for myself unfortunately (probably because I was asleep), I've been told that the game actually did go a bit past 600 players at one point, which is absolutely insane! I think the new DF multiplayer just released at the right place at the right time, and it was incredibly rewarding and a huge morale boost for myself and the team.

On May 22nd 2020 (exactly one year ago today), v2.4.0 was released, followed by a few more patches to fix things up. It was a hefty update that added some new vessels and plenty of new gameplay features. This update ended up being the last one for nearly a full year.

At the time, my plan was that we were going to release "v2.5" as the final update for DF Multiplayer, and we would then get to work on adding the complete Story Mode back into the game.

However, as current players will know now, this did not end up being the case.

During the development of v2.5.0, a lot of discussions were happening internally. I was not happy with the "Chapter 1 Redux" that I was planning, and I became increasingly uninterested in making it. I went into a creative slump where I tried to come up with new ideas for a story, but for a while I had nothing.

To take a break from DF, I began working on a little side project. It wasn't meant to be much at first, but the more it progressed, the more it presented a lot of possibilities that I just couldn't ignore. This little side project became "DeltaEngine", my new Deltarune engine.

I was at a crossroads with DF. I was creatively burnt out, and I was worried about the future of the project. I had two choices: I could continue doing what I already was and see how it goes, or I could take the leap and seperate the project into two games - an Undertale MMORPG fangame and a singleplayer Deltarune fangame.

As you probably know by now, I chose the latter.

In September of 2020, on Undertale's 5th anniversary, I announced that DF was receiving some major changes. The project was now being split into two games, and the title of the project was changed from "Undertale: Don't Forget" to simply "DONTFORGET". This rebranding felt appropriate since the project was no longer just about Undertale, but Deltarune as well.

I revealed a trailer for my new DeltaEngine, which I announced would be used for the new "DF STORY MODE" game, while DF multiplayer (now renamed "DF CONNECTED") would continue to use my current Undertale engine.

On top of that, I also announced that DeltaEngine would be free for public use once DF STORY MODE was complete!

After these announcements, I got back to working on v2.5 for multiplayer, which was giving the game a complete visual overhaul, many new gameplay additions, as well as new side-quests and boss fights.

However, I was now in my first year of university, and with the stress of deadlines coming up, I had to delay the update a few times. For the rest of 2020, there were no new updates for DF CONNECTED.

Fast-forward to April 2021 (last month at the time of writing), when more deadlines were coming up for university, and I had to make a decision on whether to delay the update once again, or release it without the new side-quests and boss fights that I had promised.

In the end, I chose the latter, and DFC v2.5.0 was released on April 10th, 2021!

I did my best to put out patches in the following days after, but then I had to buckle down and get assignments done in time for my deadlines.

Thankfully, as of DFC v2.5.3, reception towards the update has been mostly positive, which was a huge relief!

As of now, I'm currently working on DFC v2.6.0, which adds some new features that have been widely requested, as well as some much-needed improvements to the game. After 2.6, I'll be working on adding the new side-quests, boss fights, and story content for v3.0, the final update of DFC!

And that's the history of DF so far! From its first release all the way up to now. It was quite a lot to take in, huh? I wonder how many of you actually read all of that lol.

So... now that we've taken a look back, what comes next?

2022 and Beyond: "What Comes Next?"

I've stated my plans a few times, but I want to be a bit more transparent about my intentions with this project.

Truthfully, I'm getting burnt out on Undertale. I still love the game, and I'm very appreciative of what it has done for me, but I'm just not as interested in the game and its fandom as I used to be.

I began this project when I was 15, I'm 20 now. I feel like some members of the fangame community don't really think about the people on the other side of the fangames that they play, they just always expect us to be here. That isn't a bad thing necessarily, it's nice that people like my game so much, but this makes talking about the end of the project a bit more difficult. I get asked stuff like:

"Why are you already thinking about ending DFC?"

"Why can't you keep DFC going for longer?"

"Why do you want to close the discord server?"

"Why won't you update DFC again when Deltarune is finished? There'd be so much new stuff you could add!"

"Why does DF have to end?"

Well, the answer is: I've grown up now. I started DF when I was a teenager not far into high school, and I didn't think it would last this long. I'm in university now. Pretty soon, I'll be out there looking for a job!

To be honest, I feel out of place here. I don't keep up much with what's going on in the Undertale community these days. People talk about new AUs and fangames all the time that I've never heard of, and I feel like an outsider at times.

As much as I'd love to be able to make this game for as long as I wanted, time marches on. Something that Undertale taught me was that you gotta realize when to let things go, and DF is no exception.

This is why I announced DFC's "end-of-service", where at some point in the next few years, the game will transition towards a "private session" system. You'll only be able to play DFC with your friends by sending them an invite code to join your own private session, rather than joining a public server like you can right now. The point of this system is so that admins are no longer required; if someone is bothering you, you can just go to another private session.

The alternative to this would be shutting the game down and making all of your save files inaccessible, which wouldn't be that great, so we're doing a private session system instead.

I've yet to announce when exactly this "end-of-service" would happen, but I'm prepared to give a date for this now.

In the Summer of 2023, roughly two years from now, DFC will reach its "end of service".

I've chosen this timeframe because that's when I'll be leaving university. I have two years left to study here, and after that I'll be in the next phase of my life. Unfortunately, I just can't see DF being able to continue beyond that.

So, what will happen between now and then? Well, DFC v3.0.0 and DF STORY MODE of course!

By the end of this summer, I want DFC v3.0.0 to be released. Once any remaining patches for it are finished, that will be the end of DF CONNECTED. It will be a complete game.

Afterwards, the team and I will work solely on DF STORY MODE for as long as it needs. Development will be pretty relaxed compared to DF CONNECTED, as there's not as much pressure for timely releases with a singleplayer game.

While I've tossed around release periods for DF STORY MODE a few times before, truthfully I can't predict how long the game will take to make. As of now, I have no release period in mind.

You've probably noticed a trend throughout DF's development history that I've rushed things a lot. I rushed the first release of DF, I rushed the 2018 demo, I rushed Chapter 1, and I rushed v2.5. I've done a lot of rushing over the past five years.

With DF STORY MODE, I don't want to rush anymore. The game will be released when it's ready. I hope you can understand this decision, and are able to wait until then. I'm very proud of what's been planned for the game, and I can't wait to share it with you all!

By the way, there's one thing I would like to say about DFC and DF STORY MODE that I haven't talked much about. It's something people often ask me but I never give a clear answer to:

"How are DF CONNECTED and DF STORY MODE related?"

Usually my answers to this question are vague, but I'd like to set the record straight now, since it does cause a bit of confusion on why DF has two games if they don't seem to have anything to do with each other.

Well, the answer is this:

DF CONNECTED takes place chronologically before DF STORY MODE. Both games are canon.

Take that information as you will!

Anyway, I'll be working on the last two versions of DFC and taking things a bit slower for now. I can't wait to get cracking with DF STORY MODE afterwards. In the meantime, I hope you all continue to enjoy DFC!

Conclusion

Well, this was a long post, huh? Thank you all for reading this behemoth of a post (if you did lol), and thank you for being a part of this journey with me and the rest of the team.

I know I might grumble sometimes, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I feel very fortunate to have been able to make something like DF. This project has grown so far beyond what I thought I was capable of making, and going back through all of the older versions for this post really hit me with just how far this game has come along. I would like to thank all of you, the players, as well as everyone on the DF team, past and present, for helping me make this project a reality. It means the world to me.

And with that, happy 5th anniversary! Now let's go and finish this sucker!!

Artwork Credits

Devlog Cover Art by Prima

2016/2017 Section Art by Szkraft

2018/2019 Section Art by iAbokai

2020/2021 Section Art by ItsJustRandomMe