Welcome back everyone, it's been a long time since the last dev log!

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the dev logs falling off and me not updating in a while, this was due to a variety of factors such as work, attempting to post dev logs elsewhere, the "CTRL FREAK" slump (which I will mention more below) feeling like the game wasn't coming out how I wanted and always feeling like I never had enough to REALLY post something, and of course that ended up creating a spiral of not posting even when I felt I could again, due to how long it has been. But that ends today! Today's dev log has a very big announcement, as I felt it was appropriate to come back with something good to say after all this time.

Next month in April, "CTRL FREAK" will be releasing, come heck or high water! :D

And since it'll be coming out, I thought it could be nice to talk about the history of "CTRL FREAK's" development!

Honestly dev logs for future games might follow this set up more as I found monthly dev logs... weren't great for me. I might just stick to these looser dev logs from now on!

Things Begin!

As you might know, "CTRL FREAK" started as the visual novel stress test for me and my game partner, which meant we were finding out how everything worked as we went and finding workarounds to make things look good. Things like creating positions to put characters on a lower part of the screen, figuring out GUI, we barely knew anything at the start so it was genuinely shocking how well everything turned out in the end.

That was the initial rush though, just the demo creation, so things still needed to get done, like adding in outlines, getting the rest of the script, background, just... a lot. And that was obviously less exciting but crucial so we tried to push through very quickly which, now that I think about it, may or may not have contributed to stressing out over nothing since everything felt like it needed to be PERFECT.

Then programming needed to happen, and things went further into stress, especially since programming is less "visual" so I had less to show in my progress at times and, honestly, my newness at programming started to show, making things feel like I could be making things look better, but I just didn't know how.

Unfortunately, as more and more needed to be done on the programming end, things started heading towards...

The Slump!

Horrible time where I felt like I wasn't doing "CTRL FREAK" justice on my end! :D

But really, this was not a good time in general, not only was it stressful as I had gotten it into my head that I NEEDED to create a monthly dev log and thus NEEDED to have something to show every month, but I'm pretty sure I accidentally burned myself out? I'm uncertain, but it certainly felt that way, where I just couldn't get things done even though I wanted to, no matter what.

Thankfully, I was able to work on another project during this time, but I suspect that this actually contributed to the slump, as I would look at the improvement I gained in the new project and just not feel good enough for "CTRL FREAK", things like programming improvements and such.

So that is the main reasons for why dev logs slowed, then stooped and why info took so long to get here, I know the reasons can sound silly, but thankfully, despite what happened, I was...

Suddenly Back!

And then suddenly I was back! Back with motivation, back with the want to make sure "CTRL FREAK" was released in a state I was proud of... everything! So what did I have to do? Improve "CTRL FREAK" even if it killed me, because if I wasn't satisfied at how it felt I'd MAKE myself satisfied with it!

So! New music was made. New animations were added into everywhere, even the segment that comprised of the demo. Some new sprites were added and CGs redone. Just so much stuff! But now when I'd see "CTRL FREAK" I'd believe it was worth it!

This was absolutely needed, not only to give you all a game I feel is worth it, but just for motivation's sake, as part of the burnout was feeling like the game wasn't getting where it was supposed to be.

In Conclusion...

Somehow. Despite all this, CTRL FREAK will finally be releasing despite it being a bit of a roller coaster for me, and I am feeling like it have made it to where it was supposed to be, despite all this time. It is surreal, but it is finally happening!

Thank you for reading!

And I hope you will enjoy "CTRL FREAK" once it is here. :3