Hello, hello, Text-your-lifers! 🩷 You might be a bit confused, as we’re posting this devlog before the end of the month. But we’ve made some important decisions, and we wanted to tell you about them as soon as possible 🫡
As we mentioned in our previous devlog, our lives took an unexpected turn at the start of the year and we’ve felt a bit overwhelmed trying to get things back in order while continuing the development of Text Your Life 😔 After all, we’re just two people handling every single step (and there are maaany steps) to get each chapter ready within a reasonable timeframe.
However, we no longer feel we’re in a position to handle the massive workload that comes with maintaining that pace. We love TYL, and our greatest wish is to finish it so you can all enjoy a complete game with the highest quality we can offer. That’s why, with that goal in mind, we’ve had to make the following decisions:
1. TYL will no longer be updated by chapters; instead, we will work on it until it is complete and ready to be published as a finished game. Until now, TYL content has been released chapter by chapter. The problem with this method is that, with every new chapter, we need to repeat a series of steps that would only need to be done once if the complete game were released. We’ve decided to make this change so we can develop the game at a steadier pace, without the constant pressure of deadlines for every single step. This will also give us the flexibility we need to balance the game's development with our personal lives.
2. The total number of chapters in the game will be reduced. We can’t give you an exact number yet, as it may vary during the rest of development. But what we do know is that making this decision was necessary if we wanted to turn TYL into a more manageable project. It’s better to have a slightly shorter but finished game than a longer one that ends up abandoned because we tried to take on too much.
3. Our Patreon will no longer offer paid tiers or shop products starting in March. We believe the most responsible thing right now is to stop accepting further support for the game’s development since, with these new changes, we can’t guarantee when it will be finished.
We thank all our patrons from the bottom of our hearts for the support they’ve given us so far, as the three finished chapters wouldn’t exist without them 🫶🏻💕 For now, we prefer to cover the development costs of the rest of the game ourselves. With the new changes, the process won’t be as transparent, and we wouldn’t feel right if our patrons couldn't see exactly where their money is going.
This decision also got us thinking about whether the game should be free or paid once it's finished 🤔 We aren't dwelling on it too much for now, since there's still a long way to go, but we'll definitely keep you posted once we decide.
👉🏻 If you are a paid member on our Patreon, we will send you a private message on that platform to explain how this change affects you and if you need to do anything.
4. We are shutting down our Discord server on March 1st. This was a very sad decision to make 🙁 But from now on, we won't be able to provide the level of supervision we should on that platform, and it would be unfair to leave that work solely on the shoulders of our lovely moderators. Furthermore, we believe Discord is taking a worrying direction regarding user safety and privacy, so we’ve decided to withdraw completely to ensure no TYL player runs into issues just for wanting to join a gaming community.
👵🏻👵🏻 Guys, here’s some advice from "old millennials" who lived through the dark early days of the Internet: your privacy must always come first. Stay vigilant.
We know some Discord members have become good friends and have posted content and fanart they might want to save. So, we’ve decided to give them until March 1st before deleting the community so you have time to find other ways to stay in touch or save the content you want to keep.
5. There will be no more regular devlogs, only when we feel we’ve made significant progress or when we need to communicate a decision. We want to focus all our attention on development and getting our lives back on track. But remember, we have social media where you can reach out whenever you like.
That’s all for the moment! We wish we could tell you exactly when the game will be ready, but it's difficult to estimate at this stage. We also need some time to focus on ourselves and resolve some personal issues. But don't worry, we’ll be back to work straight after that! 💪🏻
If you have any doubts or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. We also want to thank you all for your support, your encouraging messages, your constructive criticism that has helped our project grow, and for giving TYL a chance even though it’s still a "baby" game 🥰🤗🩷
And we’re not saying "goodbye," but "see you later"! 💃🏻 Have a wonderful end of the month, and don’t forget to smile!
Alma and Vera <3