Hey, friends! Hope you're all doing well this week! The holidays can be hard sometimes. It's a time for reflection, when we all take stock of our year and wonder what we could have done differently. For some people, including myself, this time of togetherness can be a reminder of the people who are no longer in your life, for one reason or another.

No matter the type of holiday season you're having, I hope you're taking care of yourself, and finding things to celebrate. All that said, let's get to it!

The upcoming chapter is now, officially, the biggest chapter I've done so far -- at least in terms of image count. I should do a word count, but I suspect it wins there, too.. And I'm still working on it. I know I'm a broken record at this point, but I'm closing in on the end, it's just.. Taking me longer than I'd like it to. I had to go back and fill in some details for the other endings which I'd initially neglected. I made more work for myself, for dumb reasons that I couldn't possibly begin to explain. But in spite of all that, I'm really happy with how this update's looking.

The plan has been to get the update out for Christmas Day. I personally love Christmas, and I love the idea of being able to share something with everyone. But, some of my supporters lovingly reminded me that, maybe, I'm being an idiot and shouldn't kill myself trying to get everything done by Christmas. Especially when a lot of people are going to be preoccupied with.. Christmas. I have to (and hate to..) admit,
they make a good point.

So, I'm going to tweak my plans a little. For Christmas Day I'll be putting out a teaser for the upcoming chapter, which will be available for all supporters, containing roughly 1/4 of the final update. Then the alpha will follow before month's end for $15+ supporters, before rolling out to the other tiers and public. I feel like this will satisfy my desire to release something for the holidays, while giving me enough time so
that I'm not frantically scrambling to get everything together. Plus, it'll be kind of a soft-launch to test the save migration feature from Season 1.

Like I said, this time of year is good for reflection and taking stock of your successes and failures. I think I've had some successes this year, but this last dev cycle has been, for me, a failure. I stretched myself too thin juggling the Season 1 remake and the Season 2 debut chapter. As a result I failed to realize my plans for merchandise and tutorial videos, didn't get to edit and serialize my spicy fantasy novel, and plans I had for mini-games, short fiction, and comics fell to the side. It sucks!

And yet, I'm still happy with the year. The Chapter 1 remake was well-received, as was the additional/edited material for the following eleven chapters. The Blue Valentine mini-game didn't get a ton of love, but the people who liked it really seemed to like it. Plus, I enjoyed it -- I think it had one of my better endings. The prose pieces I wrote for Isabella and Madison went over well. I roughed out a novel that a few people read and really loved, and I look forward to sharing eventually. Plus, the S2 premiere's test build has gotten good reactions and feedback, which is always gratifying.

And I grew the community of folks who enjoy my work. I've got an amazing Discord community that I look forward to chatting with every day. I've got new readers/players showing up all the time to tell me how much they enjoy my work. And I've got people who tell me how much my work has lifted their spirits when they were feeling a bit crummy. All that meansthe world to me, and it wouldn't be possible were it not for all of you.

So, until next time -- take care of yourselves, thank you for your support and.. Happy Holidays!