I believe I've posted this before, but I feel it bears repeating; I have been working on a personal project, specifically because I felt I needed to give myself more experience before trying to take on this project. I needed to give myself some time to practice building my own platformer, set in my own world and with all my own rules before I attempt to make a game set in someone else's.

It's been almost a couple years now since I started working on that project. Many times over, I wanted to give up. I'd be at a loss of how to setup a certain level, fix another, or design a boss. Once, I even considered giving up gamedev, and thought about just focusing solely on practicing pixel-art... But a fellow dev dissuaded me, reminding me that even if I did do just that, I'd still want to see my pixels in action. In the end, I had to keep pushing forward.

Other times, I wondered if it was a mistake to set Soul of Joy aside in favor of my personal project, but in the end I knew... If I couldn't finish a 30-minute platformer built around my own rules, who am I to try and tackle a project as big as this? No matter what if I was to return here, I knew I had to prove it to myself first; that I could in fact see a project through.

Well, now... I am pleased to say that my personal project is *functionally* complete! By that I mean, the entire gameplay is there and playable, from start to finish. But I'm not quite at the end yet, there's still plenty of polishing I must do, along with some final play-testing. But now, after what's felt like a long hard battle, I feel that I am on the road to victory!

There's still no ETA on when I'll return to this game, but know that when the time comes it will be with newfound experience and confidence.