2026

Happy New Year!

2025 was an exhausting, but exhilarating year. After the back-to-back releases of Files 04 and 05, I felt pretty burned out and really struggled with getting the last two Hangouts finished. Fortunately, things picked back up once I began working on File 06. Even though it was difficult to write, it was much more interesting to work on, and towards the end of the year, starting to put the art assets together and see the ending in sight was very motivating. Now, finally, I can definitely say that it will be finished early this year.

Instead of my usual more in-depth round-up, I'll just go over a few small project status updates quickly:

• Prison of Lies — I've decided to no longer include voice acting in the project, as it was a bit too much to invest into what is ultimately a game I'm releasing for free. However, translation work has made good progress. Releasing after MTCF.

• The Art of Methods — I released Part 2 last year and the final Part will be finished and released after MTCF.

• Methods Score Update — On hold but still planned. Releasing after MTCF.

• Methods Japanese Translation — Has resumed but will come out very slowly (on mobile first).

My goal for 2025 was "re-ignition". Did I manage to figure out how to avoid feeling unmotivated while working on long projects?? Well, no. But I did discover some things with this goal in mind. For example, I took a few breaks last year to noodle around on other projects, and it was really exciting. I would actually leap out of bed every morning so I could get to work on them sooner, which is something I've not done for a very long time. So clearly my lack of motivation was just due to the current project taking so long, and doesn't have to do with my overall enthusiasm for creating, which I guess was obvious, but it was nice to confirm that. And my other "discovery" was... if I'm not having fun, to try to find a way to cut or reduce the thing that's dragging me down. I couldn't cut the Hangouts, but I did aim for way fewer words in those final two Hangouts, which helped.

My new goal for 2026 is "productive procrastination". What I've learned from setting these productivity-related goals every year is that there is actually no way to completely avoid procrastinating, especially as a solo developer. However, what if there is a way to procrastinate "productively"? For example, I know that I will inevitably spend lots of time watching YouTube, but I could reorient the algorithm's recommendations towards educational content involving the specific things I'm working on. That's what I'll be exploring next year. In addition to this, I'll also be more organized during the pre-production of my projects, attempting to plan things with more specificity based on what I know about my process from working on MTCF, where I was tracking a lot more than I usually do.

Until next time,

— LockedOn.