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 and Geoff "Dorito Pope" Keighley's multitude of gaming conferences (or not-E3) to peer through. 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. I now have a part-time job (for the very first time) and I'm getting promise that I'll get proper education on driving. 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. I heard the recent success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 did this, along side a smattering of successful and critically acclaimed indie, mid-budget and AAA games. 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. Like I said, I just got my part-time job, and I'm not getting paid much, but even then I really don't know if it will help with CyberAnima's development. 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)