G'day Scrappers!
It's been a while since the last update and I am sure many of you are wondering what is happening with Scrapping Simulator.
First off I would like to sincerely apologise for my lack of communication toward the community and I agree this should have been announced a lot sooner, though as it stands I am still uncertain of what is to come for the future, however the least I can do is make the community aware of the situation.
Some of you already know, but it seems most still believe this game is being developed by a somewhat mid-sized well established Game Development firm, however this is not the case, this is an entirely Solo Project, meaning I took on the role of everything to do with the Game Dev business from being my own publisher, to Model Designer, Sound Designer, Graphic Designer, Coder and Marketer and the list truly does keep going, along with the aid of quite a few Paid Assets to make my job easier and less demanding, never the less this was a challenge I was more than willing to take on back when funding wasn't really an issue.
This is something that is not commonly done by game developers discussing finances and personal problems and such, however I feel that the community deserves an answer as to what is going on and why nothing is being done, as it is starting to become a common question, which is completely understandable and I regret not sharing my concerns and issues earlier.
One main reason that Scrapping Simulator came to fruition and became a public project rather than just my initial plan of just a private hobby of making a Game of a Topic I felt strongly about, was that I had a medical issue of a Collapsed Lung back in Sept of 2020 (which is unrelated to COVID), I have had this happen numerus times in my past as a young fellow though this last one was the worst of them all and was almost the end of me, I was required to have surgery as my right Lung had completely caved and all the air I was breathing was being trapped inside my chest and unable to exit.
I was in a local hospital for 7 days on a vacuum machine that constantly removed the air that was leaking out of my lung into the chest area which was suppose to aid the lung in healing and to seal up the leak, though the leak didnt stop and just became worse and worse each time I was taken off the machine, I was then transferred to a Hospital a few hours away from home, which was more capable of dealing with this condition as they had specialists that specialized in this field.
It was later discovered when I was in for my first operation that 1/8th of my lung was diseased (which the doctors and surgeons still to this day refusing to elaborate on what this actually means and what the disease actually was) long story short that 1/8th of my lung needed to be chopped off and removed to avoid further problems which I was told there was some complications with that surgery (which I am still refused answers about that to this day).
After the first surgery being both a success and failure at the same time (meaning they successfully removed the diseased part but am left with breathing capacity issues, constant discomfort, dead and damaged nerves around my lower ribs and chronic pain on my right chest doing many menial tasks) I then had to wait for that portion to heal successfully before they could do the initial required surgery of a Pleurodesis, which pretty much means to rough up the inside walls of my Ribs and apply a powdered glue that 'should' force my lung to stay attached to my inner chest and not fall away and collapse like it has done many a time in the past.
I was in hospital for a little over 4 weeks, which being in the hype of Covid it was hard not being allowed to have visitors, being so far away from home with no one allowed to travel.
With the Chronic pain and loss of upper body strength I had to leave my job at the time as I could no longer do the tasks required which is exactly what turned Scrapping Simulator from a hobby into a Full-Time Commitment as all my prior working experience was labourers jobs and had come to the realisation that employers would be hesitant in hiring a liability, which besides my large passion for anything Computer related and especially game development was the only job type I thought I could grasp.
Since then I have come to the realisation that my living arrangement and finances are nearing an end and with this in mind I took a gamble on making a Game Server a few months back both to expand the community and to try keep the business (and myself) alive, with Scrapping Simulator being in the quad digits negative (with 6+ months of failed payments from steam due to a change on their end paying to Outside US partners) and the Game Server breaking even, I have decided to put mostly everything on hold and set a new goal of securing Full-Time or even Part-Time employment in some sort of Office/I.T. Related employment, doing this I hope to bring some light on a dull looking future for both myself and Scrapping Simulator.
Again I do hate to discuss personal problems in a public/online environment though each passing day I felt horrible about just letting things go without discussing with the community about what was going on and each and every time I opened up the project to continue working on it, just brought me so much stress and I just kept thinking 'why the heck am I doing this to myself?'
I do not intend for this to be a sob story or a cry for help, this is all my own fault and its my own personal problem that I have to overcome, however I felt that the community should know what is going on with myself which adversely affects what is going on with Scrapping Simulator as no one else is working on the project but me.
I still personally don't know what the future holds both for myself and Scrapping Simulator (which is why I've held off on discussing the matter as I just don't know), though I know for a fact I couldn't live with myself knowing that I gave up on something that I am so passionate about, I really want to get the game to a point where I can say, I am finished with it and am glad to say I've completed one massive milestone in my life that has now been over 3 years in the making and still has a very long way to go.
I want to thank each and every one of you for your support along the way even though I've kept my personal life issues out of the equation until now, I hope and pray that the future of DefectGaming starts looking a bit more brightly and hopefully I can secure some type of stable employment that will keep my dream alive of making a one of a kind, unique title that also brings some awareness about the 'throw-away' world we live in.
I wish you all the best and please stay safe,
Kind Regards,
FuryFight3r