I already posted this on my devblog, and now that the situation is a bit clearer, I'll want to post it here.

There was a tragedy in my family; I won't bore you with a detailed rant, the general situation is that my aunt has suddenly fallen critically ill and was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.
This hit my mam very hard, I have been staying with her 24/7 out of fear that something bad might happen.
Although it looks like it's somewhat under control, I'm still unsure if I should involve a professional.

I had to suspend work to take care of her, and while I have resumed writing and coding for the past few days, I obviously didn't make it in time for the date I originally planned to update on.

The worry and stress took a bad toll on me, I'm rather ill myself and that kind of pressure is pure poison.
Working on this game takes my mind off things, but neither my health nor the situation per se does anything good for my ability to actually work on it.

To be honest, I'm quite surprised that I managed to do so much, especially the tricky coding.

Now that the explanation for the delay is over, let's get to the game.

What I've done

• Old code cleaned up again to eliminate (rare) errors
• Corrected various typos and phrasing in the game
• Finished all necessary variables for the rest of the prologue
• Restructured passages to properly implement branches
• Finished & added images needed for the update
• Recorded sounds needed for the update
• Wrote and made several passages + choices
• Did some variable work and restructuring for the chapter one update

As it stands right now, old saves won't be compatible with the update due to the implementation of new variables that keep everything tidy and easier to follow up on in later chapters.

Because I know how frustrating it is to start over, I will take some more time to pre-program everything needed for chapter one, which, hopefully, means new saves will be valid all throughout chapter one and maybe even two.

I can't give a definitive date for this update, and I don't want to make promises I might not be able to keep, that's why I can only say that it'll definitely be before the end of July.

Might be in a week, might be the 30 of July.

To add something personal,

I'm really happy about how much positive feedback I got, the amount of interest that goes far beyond what I expected, how kind everyone has been, and the continuous support.

This game is something I've dreamed of doing for years but always pushed back for various reasons, it's much more important to me than people would expect when it comes to a simple IF.

Thank you all so much for walking this road with me, for supporting my dream.

Stay safe out there.

- Moonlight Peddler