(Guest art by Homdogger!)

Introduction

Hello everybody! Come one, come all for nothing other than the second anniversary of VS Monika.EXE: OUTDATED! I find it to be absolutely baffling how this project has already managed to become this old without it officially kicking the bucket along the way...says a lot about my stubbornness determination. (I can feel my hairline receding as we speak...)

Unfortunately (due to matters that have already been mentioned in last year's Fall Devlog(ette)) I wasn't able to prepare anything super big for this anniversary...but that doesn't mean that I plan to leave you guys empty-handed! Given how big of a day today is (with it also being Valentines Day), I'd be very forlorn if I weren't able to do something for it, which is why I'm here writing regardless.

Let's see what I can talk about, shall we?

Development Status

It might be best to get formalities out of the way first before I get to the fun stuff, though.

Things haven't really changed much since fall, unfortunately - mentally I've been doing slightly better than before, but as for the team things have been the exact same. Trying to go further in-detail would most result in me repeating the same points yet again, so for those who desire to look more into the news of mod inactivity I recommend the previous devlog to you.

Q&A

Instead of a big, behind-the-scenes kind of post like last time, I thought I'd go for something humbler and host a small Q&A in which members of the Doki Doki Funkin' Hub server (be sure to check the gamepage description for more information!) could ask me questions for me to answer here.

The server hasn't really been super inactive recently so unfortunately not a lot of questions really came through; I decided to just answer all of the ones that came into the inbox. I hope these answers can be to everyone's satisfaction! :)

Lusk: What's your opinion on OUTDATED (in general) and it's lore? Are you proud of the mod?

A: I think it might be safe to say (in simple terms) that it's a product of its time and that only I from that specific time period would have been able to think about.

MEXE (and FNF OUTDATED) in general is composed entirely of domino effects - a lot of things were happening in my life at the time, and those were things that wound up influencing the project & character in return (I may have mentioned this before in a past devlog). It's hard to imagine her being the way she is today had my life gone down a different direction.

To say that I'm proud of OUTDATED is a complicated question, but I do happen to carry an instinctual fondness for the project due to it being a representation of such a specific part of my life - I feel inclined to do whatever I can to make sure this project sees completetion.

Laden: Who is MEXE, and what is her lore?

A: MEXE is MEXE. She's a little bit of a weirdo.

While I am doing my best to keep the execution of her character sincere, I still consider her to be an overglorified joke character at heart, so if/when you guys ever get the chance to properly delve into MEXE's backstory/lore I'd advise that you not expect anything within the same realm of writing as Shakespeare or whatever.

Belts the Puppet: Is MEXE even human, or is she some animalistic monster disguised as a horribly bootleg Monika?

A: Hmmm...neither? MEXE identifies as human, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she is one...it's a little complicated.

Also, you're being very rude. She worked very hard on putting together that outfit. :(

Carof: Was OUTDATED meant to be initially a revival of the other Monika.exe mod and then became a retake with little to no elements from the other mod, or was it always a retake?

A: Can you really consider it a retake if it technically came before VS Asmodeus?

This was mentioned in this mod's FAQ, but I had came up with the idea of MEXE as a concept a day before Festival had been released on Youtube. The only things that VS Asmodeus & MEXE had in common at the time were the idea that they would follow the same format as the VS Sonic.EXE week, but beyond that our ideas on how to handle the character were significantly different.

Asmodeus was made to be a reskin of Xenophanes and nothing more. MEXE was made to be her own character (albeit a parodic, shitty one) from the very start.

Carof: Is Dan stupid?

A: MC is about as smart as he usually is in the original game, so to answer your question directly, yes.

Carof: Is Libitina still planned for the mod as a big/secret part of it or is it just a simple reference?

A: Libitina used to be a part of the mod while plans for the Full Release were still flaccid (her song was planned to have been directly set before MEXE's week in earlier drafts of the mod's lore), however she wound up being scrapped primarily due to a lack of actual content related to her as well as general interest (I think DDTO+ did her character better than I ever could have, anyways).

Due to it not being focused on that much during the time it was still in the plans for the mod's lore, not a lot of stuff was made for it before it got scrapped...only an early proof-of-concept of the song & these concepts.

Laden: Can you ask more questions after already asking?

A: Yes

Belts the Puppet: Exactly what WOULD MEXE do to MC if he were to lose in the song? As in, what does she...or it...plan to do to him in the first place?

A: Oh, he probably would have just died. What else did you expect?

Laden: What other characters are coming to OUTDATED?

A: It's going to be pretty mixed, I'd say. A couple of preexisting characters, a couple of original characters...I want the cast for OUTDATED to look fairly "together" in the sense that if I lined them all up most of them wouldn't look out of place right next to each other (which is admittedly pretty easy when you take into account the fact that half of said OUTDATED cast wear the same damn school uniform).

Checkin' It

A little gift before I go for the year! I feel as if this post would be even more severely underwhelming than it already is if I didn't have a song to show unlike last time.

Checkin' It is a scrapped song that our musician Mboi was tasked with making, unfortunately scrapped because of the lack of real support behind it (in all senses of the term). As for what it's about, well...listen to the song to find out. :3

We decided that for the Youtube visualizer we'd try our hand at pulling some more special visual tricks. Be sure to take a listen!

Conclusion

Aaaaaand that's all I have to show for today? Pretty cool, am I right? Eh?? Ehhh??? :D

...Sigh. Who am I kidding.

I truthfully feel as if I should apologize for the lack of things to show in comparison to OUTDATED's last anniversary, to myself if not to you all. With development having completely halted at this point, it's a little hard to be accumulate enough content to show anything off for these devlogs, which should hopefully explain why they've been so spare.

I decided to call this year's post just a post instead of a devlog because the truth is, this isn't really a devlog at all. It's a fun little event, sure, but I haven't really actually shown anything relating to development here; at the most I've shown off a song that's already been scrapped for a while now and that's it. It's not really anything.

I still don't intend to stop! Not now, at least. I want to keep trying. Even with how bleak things have been lately (if not forever), I'm still doing whatever I can to keep my head up, and this project along with it. Like I said before, OUTDATED's a part of me now...I feel as if I'd be doing an injustice in simply canning it after placing all of this effort into the project.

I'll find a way, I'm sure I will. But for now I suppose I'll just have to keep on pushing. After all, the world tends to work in chaotic ways...that's just life. I gotta keep on living.

I've been trying to push things back into movement again this week. I'll be sure to update you all once I manage to figure something out.

Until next time, Corthon.