Hi everyone! Just wanted to wish you all a season’s greetings as we start to wrap up the year. Since the holidays are upon us, I wanted to release this post now before that awkward time period between Christmas and New Year’s lol. This will be a bit of a more sentimental post rather than an update, so feel free to skip if you’re not as interested! 

As we’ve gotten closer to the end of the year, I’ve started thinking more and more about this little journey as a game developer. Some of you may know Alaris is my first game I’ve ever developed. And when I say first, I mean first. This is the first story I’ve ever written (and also my first venture into creative writing), these are the first characters I’ve ever drafted up and designed myself, and this is the first game I’ve ever developed. Every single aspect of Alaris has been filled with first’s, and as someone who can have perfectionistic tendencies, it’s been an incredibly terrifying journey. Imposter syndrome has basically been my partner through every stage (to the point where reading comments and receiving feedback is an absolutely terrifying experience for me). But even through it all, this has been so unbelievably rewarding in ways I never would’ve imagined when I first started.

During these last couple of months, I've:

• Completed and Submitted to multiple Jams (i.e., SuNoFes, Devtober, Crunchless Challenge, and Winter VN Jam)
• Drafted up an entire story for Alaris (most of which is still to be released)
• Created my own unique OCs as love interests, supplementary cast, etc.
• Learned how to code in Renpy for the first time ever (???)
• Built up my marketing skills on Twitter and learned how to write things like "devlogs" 
• Connected with so many of you on Twitter, through private messages, etc.

And maybe the two biggest accomplishments:

1. Created and Released a full and official First Chapter of Alaris (and not just in my mind, but actually released and put out into the world??)
2. Released a supplementary DLC, Season's Greetings, for the game

I started Alaris largely on a whim - while I’ve always loved otome games and thought it would be a cool thing to make one on my own, I never actually thought I’d commit to a project and create something tangible and real. But even being around for just a couple months, I’ve learned so much about myself and really pushed myself in ways I honestly didn’t think I would for a side project. Outside of this project, I’m a full-time PhD student, which is incredibly time consuming since it includes responsibilities outside of just school - I have to balance research, other projects for resume building, teaching, etc. on top of extremely vigorous academic classes. My days are often spent basically working on PhD-related things from 8AM-5PM, like a full-time job. And at the end of my day, I’m usually exhausted. But even then, I’ve always found myself so excited to come back to Alaris and work on little pieces, whether it’s tinkering with the code, writing the script, or anything else. 

Basically, I’m largely inexperienced, and I often feel like I’m way in over my head, especially given my other responsibilities. I didn’t expect much going into this project, but I’ve gained so much out of it. The support I’ve received from developers and other people in the community (i.e. players, voice actors, etc.) has been so incredibly heartwarming, whether it’s little messages, comments, reblogs, and more. I’m so thankful for anyone who has been part of this journey with me, and I hope I can continue to meet your expectations as the game develops <3 I anticipate it will hopefully only improve from here as I gain experience, but thank you for sticking through it all with me and being so kind and supportive. Words really can’t express how ~warm~ the support makes me feel, but I hope you all know I appreciate and notice every single action. It would probably be awkward and overwhelming (and maybe after a certain point, borderline facey for me) to thank every single person who likes, shares, or comments something, but please know I do thank you all mentally and it always makes my day :’)

Anyways, this will probably be my last post for the year as I plan to take off some of the pressure to constantly develop and update for these last few weeks, but I plan to come back into 2022 strong and full speed ahead! Thank you again, everyone, and I hope you have a great rest of the year <3