Hey people. Been a hot minute.

Seeing as it's been a while since my last post, I figured I should give a quick update on how things are going.

Over the past half year I haven't really worked on anything port-wise, mainly due to mental health, burnout and trying out new creative things like video editing. This may seem disappointing to many, but unfortunately that's how it is.

Within the last few days I've been thinking about chipping away at projects here and there, mostly Shows' Playing with Power.

Not much is functional yet, besides the main screen, and a lot of UI/objects/etc remain to be added. I'm hoping to get the mode at least halfway done by the end of the month.

I aim to look into Shows' issues with random crashes, get familar with Android Studio and see what causes them.

My motivation is not all there yet, and I have to ease back into the flow of gamedev. I can still read my code thankfully, so hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult to get the hang of it again.

Despite all this, I want to emphasize that, there is no guarantee things will go smoothly from here on out. Things aren't great on my end, and real life takes priority. No deadlines until the game is in testing.

I've reflected and thought about my nearly decade-long journey here on GameJolt and things I've released.

I came to GameJolt way back in 2017 when I was 13 years old, and began developing these ports in late 2018, when I was 14. I didn't understand a single thing about proper gamedev, and frankly still have much to learn today at 22.

To some degree I feel shameful and disappointed in myself to have been so inconsistent and somewhat reckless with projects as simple as ports.

Prime example of this is Origins which had undergone practically no testing prior to release. I pushed for a deadline, which we not only missed, but the port itself was completely butchered and riddled with bugs which ruined the game experience. 4 years later and I still have bugs to fix with its pending 11th patch.
It used to be disasters, I'm not proud of how I handled things back then. Some may remember older posts of mine where I've questioned my development skills and the purpose of making these projects.

They say that, you have to fall on your face once or twice, maybe a hundred times to learn. In that sense, I also feel thankful that I am able to learn through these releases.
Recent ports have undergone much fewer patches, including FNaTI 2017, FNAW4 and Shows' Demo. I'm happy that I've learnt to release projects in a much more polished state.

Recently I've managed to feel a little more pride in being able to bring these silly games to different platforms, allowing a wider audience to experience them, with fair quality and optimization. Granted, they're not very performance heavy, but they run better than they would if not rebuilt from scratch.

I've come to realize a large portion of problems stem from my tremendously terrible memory. I'll finish a patch, beta, you name it, upload/release it and remember to fix X ten minutes later, Go fix it and release, only to remember Y an hour later. Huh? You ask where Z is? Oh....yeah..

I've been trying to better on this, it's not easy to say the least. But I'm getting there.

As for burning out.. I'm not sure yet on what to do to prevent these in the future, will look into what methods there are. The FNATI Collection, I see as a major mistake in hindsight, due to the sheer amount of games and time consumption it will take. Looking at the road ahead with how many projects are left is draining to say the least. But I will do my best to deliver, even if it isn't in a timely manner. Eventually, guys.

Maybe I'm taking this too seriously, I can't judge with certainty. At the end of the day, it's just a hobby, some silly games, and I'm not getting paid for any of it.

A whole lot of words, yeah. I just thought I'd put these words out there, get it off my chest. What I want to say:

Thank you if you stuck with me despite the rough releases, my inconsistency, and various cancellations over the years. I appreciate the support and platform you've given me despite my errors.
Above all, thank you for allowing me to learn over the years.

None of my projects are cancelled still, but please have patience.
Thanks.