02/17/2024

bit of a different update this time around. I haven't updated since last december and I have made a little bit of progress in friend collector since. I won't share this progress with you today, but instead share some context of what's going on with the future of the game.

I've been in a bit of a slump lately and I honestly haven't been finding as much enjoyment in making friend collector as much as I used to. which is kind of a drastic change from my last update where I declared that nothing would stop me from working on this game lol.

I haven't been sharing friend collector for very long--this is only my fifth update--and I know that honestly very few people even look at this site. but maybe there's like two of you out there who are interested in knowing how this game is going, so I feel like I should provide some kind of update.

lately I have been questioning what worth friend collector will bring to people. friend collector is really a non-political game, and none of you really know anything about me but I will share that I'm a very political person so friend collector not being so is kind of an anamoly for me. I've been feeling kind of existential about it.

I have other ideas for future games that are vastly different than friend collector--games that are explicitly political and theoretical--and I find that my mind tends to wander to those worlds instead of to friend collector. when I sit down to work on friend collector, I get little work done, and I find myself asking myself what it is that I'm working towards. I try to answer this by saying that finishing friend collector will give me the experience I need to move on to bigger projects. but I just can't really muster up that motivation anymore.

this all sounds very pessimistic and not good for the future of friend collector, and it does make me sad that something that used to bring me so much joy and excitement doesn't really stimulate that anymore. that being said: I don't want to give up on this game. for the time being, I will let it take the back burner and I will most likely pause future updates on this site until I figure it all out.

I'm very firm in my stance that I won't work on another project when I already have one going, so I'm not about to abandon friend collector to hop on these new ideas for other games that have been stewing in my brain. I really do want to finish friend collector at some point. this is my third year since its creation and I would hate to just let all the passion I poured into it die like that. but I'm also not sure where I want to go from here--I don't know if I have changed so drastically from when I formed the idea for this game that it's even possible for me to seriously work on it now in the way that I used to.

so these are all the conflicting feelings I've been having lately. honestly I don't know if this kind of update is even warranted because I have truly shared so little of friend collector that to you, friend collector probably looks like just a mishmash of screenshots and amateurish art styles. I haven't even gotten to sharing the core gameplay with you all. I know I started this by saying that I won't share the progress I've made since my last update, but I do want to at least list some ideas I have incorporated into the game and what I have envisioned for its future:

• a notebook system that updates with each new character you meet and tracks relationship progress/status
• endings that differ depending on how many friends you made
• mini games that allow you to gain money through part-time employment or rack up tickets at the arcade
• hidden characters
• relationships between other characters that also depend on your own relationship to them
• minor story/gameplay differences based on who you befriend
• a mail system
• a reputation system that affects some player behaviors or character behaviors towards the player
• and soooooo much more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so that's about all I have to say today.

p.s. I'm sorry for the awful web design; I usually try to break up these posts with images so that the text isn't just dumped in there and isn't too horribly eye-straining, but I don't have any images to share today. I will try to get around to redesigning this site someday.