Hey everyone,

Chris here, lead and writer of Sparks a Tale of Ink.

There haven't really been any updates recently and I'd like to shed some light on that.

The short of it: We are taking a long break. 

"But your updates have been annually anyways so far." Yeah I know, but production is fully halted for now.

Why?

Well there are multiple answers for that so let me start with the easiest ones:

1: I recently moved. 

Moving changed my general budget I have available as my cost of living shifts, compared to me living with my family.

This is a good change for me personally but not a good change for my hobbies.

As I am additionally not allowed to have a Patreon because of tax reasons, I would have to keep paying for anything Sparks related out of my own pocket.

Which brings me to point two.

2: I recently lost my job.

Two weeks ago I got a very surprising call that I will lose my job next month, after being promised stability with the new company until at least the end of the year.

While the state will give me some support for a while, I don't want to spend that money on my funny animal people story. I would rather spend that money on more important things.

3: The entire thing went much different from what I expected.

This is probably the one most of you were waiting for.

Yes, I obviously overtook myself. Wanting to write a bespoke Visual Novel with complex characters, themes, illustrations, sprites, background and music?

Who would have thought that this stuff isn't easy?

I never expected all the work to be so excrutiatingly painful and drawn out.

Everyone working on the project gets basically paid peanuts. 

I had like, maybe 10 actual fans, which is fine, I love everyone who left a comment, a rating or just read it and though it is kinda neat. But this obviously shows that I didn't have the right vision to stand out as much as I hoped I would.

The truth is that this was just too much.

I can't make my first project something that is this complex.

So I decided to take a step back. I need to not stress about everything for a while and see where to go from here.

I'd love to do a few smaller works first, simple stories with 3-4 chapters.

I have, after all, worked out a bunch of worldbuilding for the universe this story plays in and would like to at least explore some more settings!

Once I am done with that, got a new job and steady income, feel more comfortable working on a higher scale project, Sparks will return. It is not canceled, just on an indefinete hiatus until I feel comfortable continuing working on it.

There are also a bunch of done assets for chapters 3 and 4 of Sparks by the team that I'd love to at least share to the world as they won't see the light of day anytime soon.

Thank you, everyone, until next time!