I am back! Infos and upcoming changes

Hey everyone,

before I begin this long post...I wanted to thank everyone who stayed with me through the development break. Sorry for the all the concerns I may have caused but it was desperately needed. This whole thing had also something positive...it showed me that my community is full of beautiful people who are truely understanding. It warms my heart to know that people do actually care about ME since, YES...after all - I am just an human. Not a emotionless robot nor a company who's exchaning "broken" people like underwear.

Infos:

First thing - did it help?

Yes it clearly did! I am feeling much much better now. I needed some distance and taking care of other important things beside Symphonic Love improved my quality of life - a lot.

Will the project continue?

Yes, the development of Symphonic Love will continue with some slight changes to prevent burnout, unhealthy work mindsets and depression. 

Time and financial situation?

Lets drop my big honest ballz here - I mainly lived from my own saved money during the last months, to invest the most time into this game and its development. This meant, I could develop full time. It was a bold move, sure...but a needed one otherwise the game would be in a whole other state. I tried as long as I could to minimize/reduce my costs (food/entertainment/not mandatory stuff) to keep this full time development cycle going but eventually over half a year development...my savings nearly dried out. But what does this mean? I have to get a part time job to sustain my life - means - less time for Symphonic Love. Less time = not as much content + interactions and so on. Don't get me wrong I am not regreting the step I took by going full time nor the "loss" of money. This should make clear that it was never about the money... instead it was driven by passion of one dev and his community.

Will the project stay transparent? 

Yes, the progress will still be updated daily on the discord server. Showing the community the progression on the update and talking about it, is important to me. Giving everyone a glimpse and a voice in this project leads to a unique experience on both sides. 

Changes:

Scheduling - one of the most important points on the list of changes. I realized that this was one of the mayor causes - who lead to forcing myself and feeling guilty. I totally understand that someone who pays hard earned money wants to see something in return (myself included). Sure, the most easiest thing for me as developer would be - NO ETA but honestly it's...predatory...or at least that's how it feels to me. Hooking people with words only - just to keep the money flowing, isn't my cup of tea and never will be. SO, to keep a schedule safety for the supporters and the community, I came to the conclusion to make ONE update a month. The update itself will probably be bigger than a simple one of the older scheduling but probably smaller in consideration of both. 

Time - as mentioned on the Time and financial situation Info it's not possible to develop Symphonic Love full time anymore (at least for now). That means my response time will be much more delayed and the updates smaller. Also to prevent overworking there is a fix daily maximum amount scheduled, exceptions are build release hotfixes to some certain degree. (Last point - so that something like the Halloween Event release won't happen again).

Numbers and competition- one of the points I talked about in previous post. After thinking for about a month on how to properly deal with this, I honestly won't care anymore. That doesn't mean, I am not happy to see new people joining the discord server, supports via patreon or talking to regulars in the community about whatever. More...that I won't focus daily on the number counter to go up and the urge to be "perfect" to please everyone. I am not perfect and never ever will be. Same goes for my game, the only thing I can do is trying my hardest.

Thanks for reading all of this! AAAAND I am back?

Love

Indie