Hey guys, sorry once again to be writing a post like this, but it’s been another week where I just didn’t get much time for AFV. I wasn’t able to take off work on Thursday, but I did take off work on Friday. Unfortunately at the same time my wife’s brain decided it was a good time to go into severe depression mode, so I’ve spent most of the weekend trying to protect my wife from self-harm while simultaneously trying to protect my kids from psychological damage of having a parent that can’t stand them. If anyone reading this has close family with major depression, or have it yourself, you know what I’m talking about, and I’m sorry to you, cuz it’s really rough! Luckily she started coming out of the depression this evening. 

The update is so close to being finished, I’ve just got to find a little more time to make it happen. I’ll probably try and take another day off work this week. Maybe even tomorrow. I’m so anxious to get this update completed I can’t think of anything else.

I’ll try and keep you all informed about anything new, but let’s all cross our fingers that this week will be the week. 

Thanks everyone!

Hey guys, Sorry that I don't have better news about the update tonight. I really wanted to release it today, but as per standard operating procedure, I didn't have as much time to work on it as I was anticipating, and what I did work on took longer than I expected it to. 

Here's the plan moving forward. If it's not ready by Wednesday this week, than I'm going to call in sick for work on Thursday. It it's not ready by Thursday, I'll call in sick for work on Friday. I'm pretty confident that my spare time, and if needed, two full working days will ensure a release before the end of this week. 

Thanks for hanging in there!

Hey all, just a small update. I had a really frustrating weekend after a program on my computer botched an installation and corrupted a bunch of files on my windows and powershell. I basically lost Friday to Sunday trying to figure it out and get everything running correctly again, at least, I think it's running correctly again. So, I'm pushing the release date back from Wednesday this week to probably Saturday or Sunday. 

Today while taking inventory of my time and what's left to finish up the update, I think I can say with some degree of confidence that I should be able to release the Alpha build in two weeks. So two weeks from today being Oct 15th.

In the past this much time between updates would mean a pretty big update, but unfortunately I can't say the same about this one. This amount of content in this update should have been able to be completed in two months time. I'm sorry for the circumstances that almost ground my production to a halt, and for my emotional state that I couldn't just keep working through it. I'm sorry that those circumstances made communicating with all of you almost as hard for me as developing the game. I'm especially sorry to Strenif, Most of you probably know that he's been more of the face for AFV than I have for a while. He renders images, writes scripts, storyboards, and all of this is just volunteer work. He's been out there on discord, F95, and elsewhere, trying to defend me as a developer but has been almost as much in the dark as all of you.

I wish I could say that everything is better now and everything is going to go back to how it was, but the truth is that I'm still kind of recovering from the emotional trauma I've recently gone through. Most of those elements that caused that trauma are still present in my life (you can't escape family), but for now they seem to be moving in a more positive direction and I've been figuring out how to deal with them in a healthier way. So I have reason to feel hopeful that things will stabilize and my production can go back to normal again. 

I know people think I'm just getting burnt out with AFV, and for a while I thought maybe I was too. But really I think I was just getting burnt out with life in general and AFV was the casualty of that burnout since it's production lives in my free time. It's really hard to make free time productive when you're down and feeling depressed. So, I'm not burnt out with AFV. I still love AFV, and I love where we are in the story and I'm so excited that we're finally getting to the best parts that we've been working so hard to lay the foundations for. 

I can only ask that you guys keep trying to be patient with me. I'm doing everything I can to get things in my life back on track and I'm starting to see some positive results. As always, thanks for your all the support and I promise I'll do my best to keep AFV going forward. Have a great week!

P.S. Strenif recently made some really great fan-arts that you can check out on Discord. I'll post them for everyone here later tonight as well when I'm in an environment where I can pull those kinds of images up on my computer screen.. 

Hey guys, just another quick check in to let you know that I'm still here and still working. I've finished scripting, and now I'm just trying to add everything Strenif and I have scripted to the code. This involves some spelling\grammar checking, after which point I can start play testing the build. After I get it working well for me, I'll release the alpha and hopefully it will work well for all of our play testers as well. Sorry I haven't been active on the Discord lately or anywhere else. I'm just focusing all of my time and energy on fixing some hard stuff in my life, and working on AFV. I know communication is super important, but it's also really time consuming, and I apologize to you all that I'm doing less than the very bare minimum. I promise I'm doing everything I can in my free moments to get this build done and released.

I know I've been on the receiving end of all your generosity for a while now, and there's been a major imbalance in what you've donated versus what I've developed. All I can say is thank you so much for giving me so much grace and support in words and monetary support while I've been working through this hard time for me and my family. Without it, I would have abandoned AFV months ago. I truly love making this game and the characters we've developed feel like family. It would be a tragedy for me to lose one of the few things I truly love and enjoy right now, so thank you all so much who support the game, or have supported the game in the past! I hope one day soon I can shift the imbalance the other way. I hope you all have a great week!