I thought long and hard about sharing this piece. None of you signed up for personal drama, but since there is some overlap with the development of the game, and you can't completely separate the creator from the creation, I decided to go ahead. Feel very much free to skip this if you don't need to hear this kind of personal stuff.

I'm in a super weird place right now. The last couple of weeks have been kind of nerve racking, as the woman who graced me with the gift of her love for the past 25 years is jumping through the hoops of medical tests and consults to discuss inconclusive results and more medical tests, and while we figured out along the way she's a diabetic with a side of hypertension, and we're getting those under control, we're still not quite sure what's causing her abdominal pains in the area of her liver. Then, out of the blue and with no real warning signs, we learned that another important woman in my life, the one who gave me life, and with it the ability to love in the first place, has mere weeks left as the result of an aggressive growth that spilled from her lungs into her abdomen, where it's now ravaging her liver. What are the odds, eh?

It is super weird to sit at that hospital bed in the lung ward and look at the frail, barely recognizable face of the woman that was the bright and warm center of my childhood. Weird, to see her draped thinly over the sharp contours of her bones, as if Death in its eagerness to arrive is brazenly forcing its grotesque visage into our midst. I'm trying my best to listen to my mother and sister chatting over their tears, but I'm having a hard time understanding them, because from the room next door the desperate wheezing of another patient can be heard. As they're gasping for breath with all their might they sound like they're drowning. I think an uncharitable thought I immediately regret as I get up and close the door to the hallway, and the room grows noticeably more stuffy and warm. But at least we can hear each other now. I wanna say I hope the other patient made it through the night, but I'm not sure if that would have been a blessing or a curse for them. Soon, that same consideration may very well apply to my own mother.

Returning home, we learn that while they still haven't found out what's causing my wife's pain, it's not That at least. Not the thing that's eating my mother alive. That's something I guess, only losing one of the two women central to my existence to it. At least, in the immediate future, something whispers at the back of my head. Memento mori and all that. Oh, fuck you, brain. More tests will probably follow if getting the diabetes and hypertension under control doesn't improve my wife's condition, but for now it seems her discomfort is improving, ever so slowly, way too slowly for my comfort, but I'll gladly cling to that this week.

The hospice they moved my mother into is kind of weird, the entrance door to the ward located in a quiet, empty hallway in an out-of-the-way wing of a sprawling complex that is primarily a home for the elderly. But when you're admitted inside after ringing the little bell, it's sort of cozy. There's a nice outside terrace with plenty of green, connecting to the street, so you could take someone for a walk on a mild summer's eve like this, if they'd still been able to get into a wheelchair. There's a big TV screen in the living area, currently turned off, its screen dark, and a comfy looking couch and some sofas, and even an honest to god CD rack. I think I recognize the Queen double album that I also have in a box at home that I never bothered to unpack after the last move. There's some real classics on there, The Show Must Go On, and Who Wants To Live Forever, to name a few. There's a skinny man wearing a cap sitting there, talking quietly to family or friends. He is shockingly young, although you'd have to look twice to see. But we walk straight on through to the room at the end, on the right. She doesn't talk so much these last few days. Conversations tend to loop, and she loses the thread after a couple of sentences. Two weeks is an awfully short time for so much decline. She says to tell the doctors to start sedating her starting tomorrow, after some girlfriends have come by to say goodbye. They're gonna have a reading, some poetry, and someone's bringing crystals. And after that, it'll have been enough. She'll sleep through the last bit, sleep without dreams. I get that she wants that. Super weird, but I get it.

I am in a super weird place right now. It's familiar, but it's not any place you can get used to ever, I think. You may find me AFK a little more than normal during these weeks, but I'll continue working on the game, as there is real solace to be found in keeping busy doing something you love to do, as long as you keep in mind it's not a place to hide from it all. And creating something is a small act of defiance against old man Entropy, who is gunning for us all, the big equalizer that wants to turn everything to dust and noise. I've already decided to add him to the pantheon of the new game world. See, I'm coping through art. You're a pretentious shit, something whispers in the back of my head. Oh, fuck you, brain.

One final note: everyone involved is well insured, and getting the best care modern medicine has to offer, and finances are not an issue. So don't go subbing or tiering up over this, please. We'll pull through.

With the release of chapter 9 now squared away, it's time to quickly glance back, and then look forward. 

Overall people seem quite happy with this shorter format and tighter focus, and that's good, because I'm quite happy with it too. It is a lot less hassle to create, because there fewer moving parts involved, both story wise and coding. The release itself went surprisingly smooth too, so much so that it left me with time to spare to do a wallpaper, which would be unheard of during one of the big chapter releases or yore. So overall, a good experience, although I think there's a few quibbles that could be raised. Let's do an informal post mortem real quick, without over-analyzing too much, before moving on.

If you have other quibbles, I'd love to hear them in the comments, but for now, let's turn around and...

I've been spending a bit of time the last couple of weeks to read through all the little story notes and random fragments of dialog and ideas I've jotted down over the years, putting together an outline for the events I still want to cover in Light of my Life, and figuring out what works, and what doesn't make the cut. 

What it comes down to, is two more chapters and an epilogue. Each of those two chapters will be roughly comparable in effort to create to chapter 9, although featuring a little bit more story development. I'm not gonna spoil exactly what will be tackled in those last two chapters but I guess most of you will be able to take a stab. 

Apart from the regular lewd scenes to come in those last two chapters (with build-up, foreplay, pay-off, and pillow talk), there will also be a epilogue that adds a few lewd moments (which are much shorter than a full lewd scene) for some of the things that didn't quite make the cut for a full scene treatment. 

Not so fast. Before I start working on chapter 10, I first want to put together a little demo for The Next Thing (which is NOT what it will be named), thatis planned to be half of the first chapter of it (although I have yet to decide if it'll be the first, last, or middle half of it). 

I'll do some development blog posts about that as I'm working on it, outlining my plans and sharing art and previews. 

When I'm done with that, my plan is to come back to Light of my life to complete chapter 10, then continue with The Next thing, completing chapter 1 and put that out there for all. After that I'll come back again to Light of my Life for chapter 11 and the epilogue and wrap that up properly, before continuing on to The Next Thing. Or the Backup Thing if everyone including me hates The Next Thing. 

Dovetailing the production for the ending of Light of my Life and the beginning of The Next Thing makes for slightly longer timelines in releasing either, but it lets me keep the rhythm of production up throughout without falling into a black hole when Light of my Life is completed.

Coming up next.

So what can you expect next from me next? Well, for one, a new infographic with the planned production in the coming period, and some blog posts where I share some more information and concepts with all of you.