Hello all,
Apologies this isn't a release, as I'm sure most are hoping for. Hopefully I can at least give a little more information to everyone and at least say that a release is on its way.
As per the last post on Patreon, you probably know that I was ill with COVID. As some may know from Discord, both of my parents passed away. Dealing with that has taken a toll on me in a number of ways, while I was still recovering, and is the reason I have not been communicating. I do apologise for that, leaving everyone hanging is something I didn't want to do, but I'm sure you can understand that, while I value your support of the game hugely, it simply couldn't be my priority.
I am now largely on the other side of my experience with COVID and while I have some lasting issues, I am relatively healthy. I have, however, been struggling with mental health during this time and I was quite frankly not up to doing much of anything, let alone being able to write for Sculptor.
I am now feeling like I am coming out on the other side of that, to whatever extent I can. I'm still finding it hard to sit down and write, and the ideas are not coming to me in the same way as before, but I hope that will come back as I try and get back into the rhythm of it.
My plan going forward is to try and get the release from before in a state I feel I can release it, and where I feel I can follow it up. I'm sure people must be eager to just get something, but the last thing I want is to release it, start taking money again and then be unable to follow it up.
As such, the Patreon will remain paused until I release the update after the next one, once I feel I can hit a consistent schedule again. This will likely still be slower than the old schedule, but the aim is more consistency, and then hopefully getting back to speed can come later.
For now, the focus will remain on writing, I have a lot of systemic changes I would like to make to the game, as it has a lot of rough edges, but being able to write the core story comes first. The one upside is that I do have some artwork stashed, ready to be used in at least the next release after the current one.
I can't commit to a timeline, attempting to do so would no doubt lead to disappointment, but hopefully on the scale of weeks rather than months, and I will aim to put out at least monthly updates like this letting you know how things are progressing again.
Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who reached out to me. I received countless messages of support and concern during all of this, too many to respond to them all in the state I have been in, but I did read them all and they offered some comfort during an extremely hard time. Beyond that, the fact that people continue to remain with the Patreon and that not a single person asked for a refund (when I offered it because I genuinely believed it was reasonable for people to ask for one, especially during the current moment in time) astounds me.
I hope that this post marks the beginning of a return to normal and, while I do feel a lot of pressure to produce something when sometimes I sit down to write and just can't, the fact that so many people are hanging on and clearly care a lot about seeing Sculptor continued keeps me trying and reassures me that once I can get the words down, there will be people to read them.
Thank you all again, and best wishes during these trying times, as so many of you have extended to me.