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Hey, everyone.

I won't take too long. I got a rejection from Steam.  

I knew from the very beginning that it would be like this. It was pretty obvious that Steam wouldn't like Alice, and they decided to reinsure themselves. It's still very frustrating though. 

The reply from Steam came over a week ago, and all this time I've been trying to finally decide what to do next. 

I've already mentioned my situation in the last post, now I'll try to explain it in more detail, telling you what happened to me for the last year and a half. But before I do that, I'll make it clear that I'm not writing this to make you feel sorry for me, but to explain why I have to close the game.

After I took a break last February and froze the page for 3 months to regain some health and nerves, I lost about 45% of my support. That's when I decided not to complain about life, and just keep doing what I can to keep the game alive. That's why I hardly wrote any personal posts like I used to do. And every month after that, the support on Patreon dropped harder and harder. I had small savings, and I could live on them. But gradually they started to run out too. 

Then, in November 2022, Payoneer, the payment system I used to withdraw funds from Patreon, announced that it was closing all accounts for Russians. And I then asked those of you who had the opportunity to subscribe for a year, so that I could have at least some reserves. And a lot of people responded. Thank you very much again! I then raised $2,489, which I stretched over the course of 6 months. Obviously, I wasn't doing so well, so I started borrowing from people I knew and doing part-time work to keep afloat somehow.

In June, I traveled to another country to open an account there and withdraw my Patreon savings. I had to travel three times before I could receive them. As you can imagine, traveling to another country is not cheap, and to save money, I decided to take the bus. And that turned out to be a big problem because of my back. 17 hours straight one way on a bus with a sore spine is hell. It's been five months and I still haven't recovered from those trips. I withdrew $3,287 dollars from Patreon back then - that's what I had accumulated in a little over 6 months. Which would have been a good amount, but I was already in quite a bit of debt at the time, and I gave away most of that money almost immediately. And don't forget that to get that money, I had to travel to another country 3 times, pay for the trips themselves and the hotel. Now I have 2900 dollars saved up on Patreon again, which will barely cover my current debts accumulated over the last 5 months.

I realize a lot of you math doesn't add up, but this weird stuff from Patreon. Right now it says on the home page that I have $739 in support, but I'm very lucky if I raise that amount. More often than not, I raise $100 less. I never figured out how this counter works in so many years. 

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say about finances. Once again, I'll make it clear that this is not an attempt to make you feel sorry for me, I'm just trying to tell you about my situation in life. If you felt sorry for me and decided to support me after this, you should be very wrong. I'm just a guy on the internet, and my situation is far from the worst. There are millions of people in the world with much worse problems, help them better. Also, don't forget that the holidays are coming up and you'll need to buy gifts for your loved ones. And I'll pay off my debts myself, since I've already found a job. But I am still very grateful to you for helping me for so long!

In fact, that's the main reason I gave up. Because I feel worse and worse. 

As I've shared before, I took a break for three months in February 2022. And it really helped me! I felt normal for over a year, hardly ever thinking about my back. But after the 3 trips mentioned, it got worse than ever. Especially after the last one, when the bus got stuck at the border and instead of 17 hours, I sat on the bus for 28. That totally messed me up, and I still haven't recovered even though it's been over 5 months.

In September I had a very severe attack and for 2 weeks I basically couldn't work, couldn't sit, lie down or stand normally. I was in a lot of pain and no painkillers helped. That being said, I went to doctors, got massages, had a bunch of shots and lay under IVs with painkillers. It was because of this that I was not able to get the October update out in time. And now every day I'm afraid that I can break down again and go down for a couple more weeks, or possibly forever. 

It was after the October update that I decided to close the game. I realized that with my health, I wouldn't be able to release even short updates every month. And if I don't release updates every month, support goes down a lot.

As you realize, it's hard to develop a game with these inputs. It's hard to come up with dialogs, jokes and other things when you're struggling with your own health and financial problems. And the motivation is getting weaker and weaker every day. 

Also, of course, it's frustrating when you look at some new game that in the first 2 months gathers as much support as I've been gathering for 3-4 years. That's a lot of pressure. And I can't even understand why it's not like that for me. I mean, I really tried. I tried on every word, render, animation and everything, everything, everything. Is it just luck? Or is my game that much worse? I know it sounds pathetic, but it still hurts.

I'd like to add a few words about Steam. I've already said I was sure about the rejection, but some developers I knew and just friends urged me to try releasing the game there, as it could bring in enough for me to finish the game without worrying about money. That was one of the reasons why I started reworking the first chapters. But unfortunately, what happened is what happened. It's hard to blame Steam, since the fact that it releases adult games at all is already surprising. But it's so fucking frustrating!

Actually, the most annoying thing about this whole situation, in my opinion, is that the game has enough content for a fully finished game. About 200,000 words! That's more than in two full-fledged novels. Over 6 thousand images! Most of which are well done. Cool animations. Yes there aren't many, but they're good. So good, in fact, that several developers have offered to let me do animations for their games for money. 

Now that I think about it, I'm really surprised at what a gigantic job I did. And how frustrated I am that I never got around to finishing it....

Oh, okay. Stop feeling sorry for myself, I already look like a whiner after this post. Let's summarize.

I have neither the health nor the financial ability to continue The Intoxicating Flavor. Therefore, I am permanently closing the game.

I am very sorry. I apologize to you for not being able to bring the story to the promised end. 

I have already taken an official job. I contacted a former boss of mine who we worked well with for many years, and he offered me a position with him. It seems to pay a good salary. Now I need to work at least six months to get back on my feet, pay off my debts and make at least some savings. But what will I do after that?

I really want to keep making games. I think I have pretty good skills for that right now. At least I have a good renderer, and the animations are getting better and better every time. I'm not so sure about my skills as a screenwriter anymore though. TIF was too unpopular... But, I still have hope to make an interesting game. 

I originally wanted to remove the pages on Patreon, Boosty, Subscribestar and all social media related to the game, as well as the Discord server. To completely disappear as PixelsLab. After all, even if I decide to create a new game, I'll still have the shadow of an unfinished project on me. But on the other hand, I've heard so many words of support in the last two weeks that I just don't want to part with you. Besides, many of you have become, if not friends, then at least good acquaintances whose opinions are interesting to listen to.

So there's no way I can decide how I should proceed. I'm still leaning towards closing the page, since even if I start a new project, it will be very different from TIF. But for now, I've decided to freeze the page until the new year so Patreon doesn't charge you, and closer to the end of December I'll either extend the freeze or delete the page for good. 

Unfortunately, there is no way to freeze the page on Boosty and Subscribestar. So you'll have to unsubscribe on your own. Anyway, at the end of December I will remove the support levels on these sites so that those who forget to unsubscribe will not be charged.

P.S. Would you like to discuss the reason why TIF never became popular? I'd really like to hear your opinion. I wanted to write a separate post about it myself, but more than anything I want to hear an outside opinion. I'm very interested.

Delayed writing this post until the last minute. At the end I will explain why.

Unfortunately, I made a few mistakes when releasing this update.

I apologize for the inattention. I was in a hurry. Still, the idea of small monthly updates doesn't really work because of my health. When I can get sick for a week and a half, and the update must be released. So now I'm thinking about reconsidering the concept of releasing updates.

Funny how I was only informed of the problem when the game came out for Tier 1. Seems like most people are just waiting for more content to come out.

This is an update that comes out tomorrow.

As you can see, it's even smaller than the previous one. All I've managed to do in 11 days.

In the last update we finally finished with Alice's memories, and now we can relax a bit.

This is where the complications start. The update is in the works and already has 28 images ready. But I'm unfortunately not sure if the update will even come out.

And here's the news I've been procrastinating for 3 months.

A lot of people have probably noticed that I've been inactive for the last 2-3 months. Less communication in Discord, less posts on Patreon, Boosty and so on. And as you've already realized, I've been preparing a game for Steam during this time. (Well, and I was still healing from another attack for a long time.)

As it happens, I've been in a bad situation for the last year and a half, my Patreon support has more than halved, my debts are piling up, and it's getting harder and harder to pay for housing and medical procedures. And a release on Steam could help me get back on my feet somehow.

And that would be good news if the game actually got released. But it looks like I'm going to be turned down. I've been waiting for an answer for over a week, although it's written that the game is checked in 2-3 days, maximum 5. I read the forums and it turns out that such delays are only for adult games and only before issuing a rejection.

So my last hope to finish the game now is burning out. I'll wait a few more days, after which I'll write to support. And if I do get rejected, I'll close the page in December and go get a job while my qualifications are still worth something.

But until then, I'll keep doing updates and hope for a successful outcome. (I'm still updating my resume, though. 😅 )

Whatever Steam's response is, I'll still write a more detailed post in late November or early December.

P.S. And it's also worth adding that this post is for information and information only. I am in no way asking you to increase your support! Quite the opposite. Keep in mind that the page could shut down at any time. And even if my support increases two or three or five times next month, but I get rejected by Steam, I will still close the page, as I can no longer afford to depend on Patreon.