August 2025 update on the game formerly known as "CyberAnima"

 

4 years of no work equals...

 

It has been a few months since I last gave an update on the game you may know as “CyberAnima”. 

Well, it used to be called “CyberAnima”. A recent announcement of some gacha game with a name that bears the “-Anima” suffix and sounds very similar got announced, and to avoid confusion or anyone getting riled up by it, the game will go under a different name in the future. As of right now, it’s simply referred to as “Project Millennium”, but there will be a proper final title once the game reaches its “palatable state”.

But after much thinking (even before the name situation), I think the game is going to go through a full restart very soon. Square one and all. I already mentioned it multiple times, but my game has been worked on for 4 years with little to no progress, mainly due to me being a naive newbie game developer, resulting in little work being done with no plans, tasks, or milestones penned out, everything mostly being improvised with little documentation. And as a result (and because I’m terrible at coding), the game is literally just a stupid walking simulator. No weapon system, no NPCs, barely any level ideas, and the code is an undecipherable spaghetti mess. 

 

With these lessons in place, the game you know as “CyberAnima” will return in the far future. It’s still on hold, but with tons of things happening and tons of revelations happening to myself, I think it’s time to take it more seriously and try my best to plan everything out. Design, concepts, and planning first, then prototyping, and so forth.

 

As long as it’s not an improvised mess and I’m actually building an actual game, I’m hoping things will be satisfactory. For now, I need time to think and plan, and hope this time I knock it out of the ballpark.

Sayonara, until ends meet.

 

- stixc 

CyberAnima - Important 2025 Update

I've been working on CyberAnima for nearly 4 years with little to no progress for my game. Despite being a first-person shooter, it's still somewhat of a crappy walking simulator (due to the lack of a variety of systems), and I've decided after all this time to put the game on hold for the time being.

Why you may ask? The main reason is in my skill in game development, specifically coding. Coding has been my Achilles' heel throughout my journey in game development, and I've learned a lot during my ventures into creating games. However, poor advice has caused me to lose morale on a lot of skills I'm very good at, and causing me to idiotically focus on code in a bad way. This is bad since CyberAnima, without spoilers, lacks any kind of proper story or game plan. It does have, for say, Notion pages, but the story and concepts are still incomplete because my brain was poorly rewired to focus on the game's project file instead of any other elements. I understand that coding up prototypes comes first before proper development, but in a lot of cases in game development, indie or not, I've felt worn out on focusing on nothing but the game on a project/coding perspective, and not within a design and story perspective. Without design documents and a plan, I can't really easily go forward executing those plans within the game itself.

And over the past 4 years, I've burnt myself out trying to figure out how to implement specific stuff without really writing down a tactical plan to do so. Stuff like weapons systems, NPCs, and other back-end stuff that is extremely important for what I'm making. And that's with and without AI assistance. Not to mention it's core focus has shifted over those past four years, which also hindered development. First CyberAnima was a simple boomer shooter, then it evolved into having more slower, cinematic Half-Life-esque elements (a "half-like" if you will), now I'm giving it even more fresh ideas at the point where it could have it's own identity. But this unfocused shift in style has caused issues and I want to stop with this form of feature creep.

Going forward, I want to figure out how to restructure my approach to CyberAnima in the future. I want to focus more on the elements I have more skill and passion in. Stuff like music/sound design, 3D work, world-building, documentation, etc. I want to take some time off to rejuvenate my passion on working on a game without being fed poor advice, especially so since it's summer now and it's hard to focus on game development once I'm bombarded by unfairly hot weather, among other things. I want some time to just relax and not worry about competition or drama. I want any of you to understand that I'm going through a lot in my life, and working on CyberAnima in this way will just cause more problems in the future. There's a lot going on in my life that's going to be exciting, but with me working on CyberAnima in this current state, it could probably cause issues with me on a mental level.

So no, CyberAnima is NOT cancelled, but it is on hold until I have the power to work on anything but the engine/code elements. Also alongside figuring out a plan to make development less stressful.

 I've learned a lot over the past couple of years trying to create CyberAnima. I started with Unreal Engine 4 back in early 2021 when I wanted to create a game, then restarted development in Godot in mid 2022 when I found out Unreal was too bloaty and un-configurable for what CyberAnima is trying to be. And as of right now, I'm still using Godot. I was at one point reconsidering using Unity, despite my disappointing thoughts on the engine, but someone random immediately DM'd me and begged me to NOT switch for a multitude of reasons. It didn't seem like poor advice, so I'm sticking with my guns regardless of what you think.

Plus even when I do get back into the engine/code elements of CyberAnima, I want to figure out how to use templates and tools and modify it beyond repair to fit it within CyberAnima without it being an asset flip. A lot of successful and critically acclaimed indie, mid-budget and AAA games did this, so it got me thinking. So I definitely want to make things easier by having some systems already within the game, then slowly modify it to be more unique and so forth. And then for coding by itself? That's still up in the air. If things hit the fan with my coding skills again, I want to get someone on board to help me in regards to coding, but even then I feel afraid due to the lack of budget on CyberAnima. I did have thoughts on creating a Kickstarter, but that's still up in the air. The budget for my game is still a mystery. Unless a funding group finds my wicked ideas for CyberAnima amazing and decides to give me a budget with no strings attached, the game will pretty much be budgetless until time changes.

In the mean time, I want some time off. I want to feel good goofing off for a while during the summer, and I need some time to rejuvenate my mind working on CyberAnima. It will return when it reaches a presentable state. I was just naively steered off course and my mental health diminished from this philosophy. I care about this game, I want to make it the best as possible without issue. But hopefully I'll figure out a proper plan, and hopefully I'll work on the elements that don't seem too daunting once my creative juices and motivation picks up.

And in this period of meditation, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.

- stixc (Charles)

2024 Wrap-up

 

Stock image I found in relation to this post. Just for the hell of it.

NOTE: This post was written in a text editor and posted to my socials around Thanksgiving. I have uploaded it here for convenience.

21st Birthday: An elucidation for an decaying one, now ingurgitating alcohol

Today is a big day today. I am now 21 years old. I'd never thought I would reach this age, even though it's normal for most to reach this age. I'm just amazed at how my life changed and expanded as time flys by. I was born with low functioning autism, later diagnosed with high functioning autism (Asperger's), alongside ADHD and other neurological issues. And from the start of my life up until the late 2000s or so, I suffered with the inability to speak, loss of function, auditory sensory disorder, alongside a plethora of other problems. But a good chunk of these are gone, some still persist (like the sensory issues), but for the most part, I am much more stable human being that what I was when I was young. Yes, it's terrible that I still suffer from a lot of these issues, but the fact I'm still alive is just wild. And since I finally reached this age, I can finally accomplish something that I was unable to do due to laws: drinking.

I'd admit, alcohol was something I kinda feared for a while, but at the same time, I was mystified by what exists. Beer, wine, whiskey, bourbon, vodka, gen Z seltzers (i.e. White Claw), stuff like that. I had some sips here and there when I was underage, and I thought it was fine and I still stand by that to this very day. Not to hate alcohol or anything, it's not all bad, but it's not at the point were I would be an alcoholic. But hey, if someone offers me a drink, then I'm all down for it. Yes, I know it's bad for a lot of cases, but it's probably more tame than cigs, hard drugs, or any other form of toxin out there. But it can still be very bad if you abuse it, which is something I'm not going to steer into. I prefer sodas, fruit juice, and stupid stuff like that; hell coffee and water already fills in those gaps if I'm being honest here.

And as for the future, that's something I'm really wishing would speed up. The 2020 was already bad, last year was fine, and this year wasn't exactly the best with what's going on, but I'm really hoping things can change. I still lack a job, driver's license, or anything to get on my toes, but like I said, hope is something I should look out for. And since things are clearing up, I really hope the pandemic can settle down and I can get a job out in public, but only time can tell.

Despite the ups and downs, I'm still glad I have reached this far into my life. And for the projects I'm working on, CyberAnima is still being worked on, but don't expect much since it's still somewhat of a walking simulator. I'm trying to implement a lot of stuff, and hopefully a lot of things can be shown by 2023, but again, time can only tell. I'd rather take my time than crunch for this. Aside from that, things have been pretty well lately, and hopefully I can improve on myself physically and mentally sooner or later. This year wasn't exactly the best, but I'm hoping by next year things will be different. To those who are still with me, thank you for sticking around, and I hope the future is much brighter out there. To all my friends and followers, and family as well, I would probably be fucked if weren't for you guys.

Thank you all,

stixc