The End of PVN

I come bearing bad news – due to unforeseen medical issues, we're going to be taking a break from PVN for now. Pan was hit with an unexpected illness, which has knocked him out for the past several months, and he needs to take some time to recover. This leaves us without the capacity to complete Free Use Intern or Quarantine Daze at this time, and all development will be paused indefinitely.

Months ago, I promised you we had the skills and the passion to make these projects. I feel guilty because this promise is left unfulfilled. I am torn because my reasoning is still partially accurate. We do have the skills, and our passion to make a great game that means something to you is still white hot. The preventing factor in this case wasn't talent or willingness, but the human factor.

As soon as the bad news arrived, we immediately decided the fair thing is to be honest about what is possible with our remaining capacity. It is best to pull over now rather than string you along until we crash into the station. Rushing a prologue for a game we would not complete would break another promise: always provide content we are proud of, even if that means failing.

You were great. Thank you for every piece of feedback, word of encouragement, joke in discord, download, click, and comment. You were an amazing public, and you deserve amazing games.

I can't make promises, but I do have one request: watch this space. If you loved anything about what we tried to do, we earnestly hope to provide it again, only faster, and cooler, if and when it proves medically possible.

For our final month of releases, we'll be sharing the source code for the custom graphic novel engine we created to power the game. If you had a chance to experiment with PVN Arcade, you're already familiar with part of what it can do. The version attached here also includes saving and loading functionality along with state-based interpolation. Our long-term goal was to release the engine complete with an editor app as an open-source project. If you're a TypeScript/React developer and you want to make a graphic novel of your own, or even interpret the assets we're sharing here, I genuinely recommend it as a starting point.

As well as that, please find attached the artwork we already had commissioned for Quarantine Daze. I hope you enjoy it.

-Socrates