The hiatus is still ongoing - in fact, it might be a little longer than I thought it would. It might actually be permanent.
Yes, I'm actually considering retiring from development for Creatures. My interest in the series has been the lowest it's ever been in a while, for one - the last time I opened the game, in order to work on one of the genetic breeds for the CCSF, I did some really basic edits, hatched a test norn, went "bah!" and closed the game and kit.
Development in general has been getting rather tedious for me. I'm flat out of ideas, for one, and the ideas I do come up with on my own tend to be rehashes of previous things or stuff other people have done. Plus, given how much stuff I've made, I'm not getting much gratification out of development - it lost its charm for me a long time ago. This is the main reason why I'm nowhere near as prolific as I was back when I was starting out.
Secondly, real life has been demanding. My college classes, despite being few in number, have been really demanding (Creative Writing in particular). Plus, I've been struggling with a few health issues - I had to go to the ER last Friday because I thought I was having a heart attack (thankfully, I wasn't).
Finally, other pastimes have been far more interesting. I've been hanging around the TVTropes forums a lot and using the Character Development Threads there to hone my writing skills, a good thing since I'm planning on making writing a sort of career alongside programming. I also got into competitive Pokemon recently, and I'm having a blast with that (though I kinda suck at it). These things together make Creatures look incredibly boring.
Put it all together, and I'm finding it hard to do anything for Creatures even with the upcoming CCSF acting as a motivator. Even the Sea Garden is starting to look incredibly unlikely, even if I ditch the accompanying genetic breeds.
However, right now I'm only thinking about it - I haven't actually decided if I'm going to do so or not. For all I know, I could get my interest back within the next week or so. If I do decide to retire, I'm going to drop all my other projects and focus on finishing the Flesheater Grendels - since they are my magnum opus and I've been sitting on them forever, I might as well make them the last thing I ever release.
Either way, I am going to be contributing something to the CCSF - I'm helping Nev out with one of her projects, as some of you might have noticed on CCaves. Even if I don't get anything else out, there's that to look forwards to.
I'll let you guys know soon about what my final decision about the subject is.
Risen Angel's Creatures blog, dedicated to the various ways the games can be played, altered, and sometimes completely broken.
Don't stress to much mate. You've been an amazing contributer to creatures over the years, and that's just the years I've been aware of your projects. There's like, another 10 years or so of stuff you've probably done that I'm completely unaware of.
ReplyDeleteAnd who knows, C4 may perk your interest again, although admittedly that may be hard to develop for. If not, then I'm sure Grandroids will do wonders for your creativity. And then you'll be coding for a living language!