Hello, dear players, funders, past players, past funders. Take a deep breath. This might be a messy read, but I promise, I just wanted the best for you and me. Okay? Okay. Because regardless of whatever project I ever did and how they ever went, I just wanted there to be a feeling that it mattered. That it was a meaningful, handcrafted creation, even if it was a rocky road to get there. Kemoverse is no exception! In fact, it's the most chaotic project I've signed myself up for, but also the one I've put the most heart in to. I'm proud of it, no doubt, but also worn out. Who wouldn't be?

There was a point in the middle of college - a few years after I had started experimenting with game development, back when the game was still on Unity and settling on its identity - where it dawned upon me that no matter how much I tried in earnest to co-operate and work together with other humans, that it didn't go anywhere that made it all worth it. In fact, the realization left a big scar on my mind as the isolation and loneliness kept me company then; and no matter how many parts I cut off of myself and how much I tried to align myself to other people's values and what they liked, that it had hollowed me out in to a different person. And yet, I had to keep going like that and ignore myself.

What I didn't understand at the time is that, that was how I mistakenly thought to survive, with a background of a messy life story that I don't want to type out here. I'm not going to trauma dump and lay out my life story for sympathy, my point is to explain why the game even began a life. And it was because of that. I was hurt, alone, I was different, I was myself, I had imagination, and through mentally turbulent experiences I was taught that I was incompatible with humans. That was about 7 years ago, it feels like such a long time, and yet so much happened; I fell in to a state of repression and self-neglect and turned to the game to provide a sense of home and purpose.

The game became a virtual oasis of peace and something I became fixated on materializing for the purpose of giving this peace to myself and others that also could've needed it. I did this through character, world, environment, story design, the purpose of it being to escape from the real world. And I do have something tangible to show for all that effort - it has materialized and grown, and become beautiful and unique; but on the flip side, I hadn't grown or cared for myself, and now that can't go on forever, right? But again, it was rewarding, and I'm proud of where it is today, but at this point I'm just exhausted.

I'm really tired of neglecting myself in favor of imaginary pressure, be it financial, social, or whatever. I've worked really hard on the game just to prove to myself and others that I was more capable than I was, trying to utilize the social aspect of this game as a way of proof, for whatever reasons that happened in the past that were still stuck in my head. I understand now that I don't have to do this anymore. I was simply caught up in the currents of the past. They were too complicated to handle by myself, and I chose to bury and replace them with productive work.

Yet, I still feel passionate and like I want to keep working and publishing it. What gives? The game still got its core... it's a comfortable game of existence with a passiveness that never changes. The story (as much as I've managed to write for it) is its own thing, it has its own intention of pulling you in the Kemoverse casting you as a mindless animal person that's still cared for.  It doesn't demand or ask anything from you. That's what Kemoverse roughly meant to me, a peaceful oasis that stood still to forget about real life. In other words, simply, a coping mechanism, perhaps even one for traumatic reasons. But I don't think that's bad, it's also its strength and identity. I can't let it go...

And then this year started. And I lay there thinking, recovering from a surgery, what did I do all of this for, what did I go through all this pain for, why do I make the game, why do I want others to play it? For my life, it resulted in me digging deeper and deeper in to denial of real life and becoming a stressed and fragile being, but it also provided a lot of creative and emotional relief and a lot of ambitious fulfillment that I'm proud of. Pros and cons, I suppose. Best thing of all, the game has probably helped others that were in a rough spot. I think that's the part that I really treasure.

I don't know. All of this is messy, just like life. I just feel like I'm growing and changing, and that I want to do things differently from now on. No more online coping, no more pointless online features, no more avoiding story writing. No more community management, no more discord server, no more big event planning. And actually, I want to be recognized for my hard work, I want hugs in the game, and I want to make friends who care for me to keep going. I want you to read my devlogs and understand that I'm not much different than you. I also have feelings, I also have limits, I'm also a human that coped in substandard ways but also created something beautiful from it.

So that's why I want to call it a Metamorphos. I want Kemoverse to change somewhere better for me and for itself, because I would like to keep working on it.