Concerning 2023

Hi there and long time no talk.

As some of you are aware, 2023 was a bit of a slow year for the development of the game. Since you are all people who contribute to the development, I figure it would be in your interest to get a somewhat brief (I say that, but this will probably be a fairly lengthy post - my apologies for that) summary of what happened during the previous year, so that you may get some insight into why things were so slow. Most of this is negative and related to my RL private life, so I will keep the content somewhat vague for the security reasons, but there were a few good things as well. I will type them in a separate post, however.

So, the year started out decently enough, with the only downside having been my employment being swapped from monthly salary to a salary based on how many hours I worked. So where I earlier had X amount per month regardless of how much actual work my employer could provide me with, starting February I would be getting paid for the actual hours I worked. This reduced my monthly economy to roughly one fourth of what it had been previously and made it difficult to even pay my rent, let alone any other expenses such as food and other bills. Still, I was getting welfare benefits due to having been hit extremely bad by covid a few years back and combined with that, I managed to just barely make enough money to survive. What little money I had left over, I then funneled into the development of the game. It was harsh times, but at least things were moving forward.

Then, in early spring, a friend brought me a work opportunity, a translation job that I could do from home and that would boost my economy quite a bit. I took it, got my payment and invested it into prepaying rent, to make sure I didn't have to worry about that for a few months. Everything was looking well, until my bank decided that the information I had provided about where I got that money from was insufficient and they launched an investigation. To make a long story short, while they were investigating, they locked my bank account so I didn't have access to my savings nor any bank account for my employer to put my salary into. I answered every question the bank had, provided all the documents I could get a hold of, and the bank still wasn't satisfied, so in the end they closed my accounts, confiscated all my money, and filed a report to the police, more or less accusing me of money laundering. The accusation will obviously not lead to anything, but it is still ongoing even to this day. I'm not sure I'll get the money back at the end of it, but whether I do or not, my lawyer has told me I can, at the very least, sue them for how they treated me. So I guess that's something to look forward to, once all this is over.

Anyways, because I lost access to my bank, my employer was only able to pay my salary in cash and as a direct consequence of that, I couldn't pay my rent (they only accept direct bank-transfers and the local banks around here do not deal with cash money) and thus I was evicted towards the end of summer. I got the notification in mid-june and had to be gone within two weeks. So, I stacked my furniture and stuff at my dad's place (I couldn't live there because it was already too cramped) and then spent a couple of months rotating through couches and guestrooms at friends and associates. I obviously searched for a place to live, and also kept working as best I could, and finally managed to find a new place to live towards the end of August. However, the landlord wanted me to pay the equivalent of three months worth of rent as a deposition in order to accept my moving in and so what little money I had managed to save up went to that. But at least I had a home, again. And just in time for winter, too. I had moved in properly, with furniture and everything, by the end of September. 

Things were looking good, with the one exception that there was no internet. So for a start, I made use of my company phone to have free internet. It was slow as hell, but at least it mostly worked. I then made arrangements to get a Starlink and once that arrived (mid-october), everything was golden again. Until I got hit by the horrible news that I would be losing my job. For reasons that I do not know, while the bank investigation was ongoing, I was unable to open accounts in any of the other local banks (security reasons, I suppose) and so my employer had been paying me in cash. This caused a lot of extra job for them when it came to paying employee fees and taxes and stuff, so they simply decided it was too much of a bother and fired me. Someone who can only take cash payments in a place that's striving to become a cashless society can't really keep their employment, so I was booted.

It was stressful news, but to be fair, it was for the best. I would be able to apply for welfare, which can be paid in cash, and the amount of welfare I would be getting was actually more than what my average salary had been during the year. So this, in one way, made it possible to put more effort into game development and in general made finances more stable and reliable. Again, things were starting to look up, until I got another piece of horrible news towards the end of October. My father was dying. It was expected, since he was old, but it still hit like a ton of bricks. Not only that, but I was the only close family left alive, so dealing with the upcoming death and preparations for the funeral and post-death ceremonies and all of that fell on my shoulders. This is why my updates concerning the game stopped in late-october last year. My father then lived a reasonably good life until he passed peacefully in his sleep roughly a week prior to christmas. It was probably the worst christmas I've had in many years, but at least it was peaceful.

As for me, I've sort of recovered mentally from the whole thing, but the funeral and the surrounding ceremonies will be very expensive, so it will probably be a few months still before I can properly dedicate money to developing the game (the money that I get here on Patreon will of course still go to the game, don't worry). Some of the crew will still work and let me put it on a tab, but for obvious reasons not everyone is able to do so. Hence the current stand-still. Anyways, that's it for the summary of 2023.

Let's hope 2024 turns out to be kinder.