hello. it's been a while. i wanted to post an update to let you guys know how things are going!

summary

• chapter 8 will be released in 3 parts after all... (i wanted to split it in 2, but it's too long.)
• i'm working on it for the rest of this year, with the goal of releasing part 2 in late december (or early january if necessary).
• i'm not going to give an estimate for when the rest of the game will be done because i don't want to keep disappointing everyone with the delays ;o;

so... the next update will be coming relatively soon! my patreon is paused at the moment, meaning new members can't join... but i will be posting the early release version there as soon as it's ready, then the public release will follow shortly after. my patreon will unpause on december 11th, meaning you will still be able to join in time to play it early if you want (please don't do this if you can't afford it!!!)

the next section of this post has a lot of stuff about my personal life. lonely wolf treat is a solo project, so whatever's going on with me has a pretty big impact on production... that's why i'm sharing it, but feel free to skip reading the rest if you don't want to know those kinds of things.

the detailed version

chapter 8 is really long. like, really really long. it's a little ridiculous to call it one chapter, that's how long it's turning out to be. from the story outline i wrote, i could tell it was going to be the longest chapter. but scripting all the events, drawing all the new characters and everything... i don't want to cut some of these plot beats short just for my own convenience. i want to put in the work it deserves. and i don't want to keep everyone waiting another year with no updates. thus, chapter 8 is 3 parts now.

when i said i planned to finish the rest of the game during 2024, my life was structured very differently. i was still working mostly in isolation, on whatever i felt like working on. i was starting to flounder a bit in this structure, feeling like every week i wasn't getting something done i was letting everyone down. this is my own issue, and not something anyone was doing to make me feel that way. i'm just an anxious person, and sometimes i get crushed by that anxiety and stop being able to make games. it sucks, but i always go back to normal after a while.

from mid-may to early july i was on an extended vacation visiting japan. i got to have a lot of fun and do things that were very different from my regular everyday life! but i was also having panic attacks. i would get so overwhelmed that i'd just start crying for no reason... clearly this wasn't something i could think my way out of. when i got back from vacation, i saw a doctor and started on some anti-anxiety meds.

i say all that because... I'M FIXED NOW... there's really no other way to put it. everything that used to derail my day, i can now just easily shrug off. it's amazing. people live like this normally? no wonder they have energy to do things. i can't believe i have energy to do things!!! i can make games again!!!!! god, it rules.

in early september, i made moxdonalds (thanks to the contributions of many fans!). soon after, cohost (the only social media i was on) announced it would be shutting down on october 1st. since then, i've put a lot more effort into my website, and i've been in the process of archiving a lot of my posts from cohost and building a new ask blog. this has been time-consuming, but important to me. the timing isn't ideal, but when would it ever be, i guess.

on october 8th, my dad died. there's too much to say about that... i miss him a lot. i traveled to see my family for a few days. the memorial service was really lovely. i wasn't really able to do much during october because of all that... i couldn't send out a letter from trick either. i'm going to try to write one this week.

i put my patreon on pause last week because i didn't expect to be able to follow through on any of my commitments. and also because i've started to really hate using patreon because of all the new features they're pushing. i'm working on backing up all of THOSE posts to my website too. i'm not going to delete it right away of course, i'm just in the process of moving away from it. financially i'm doing well for myself, so i feel awful taking people's money when i'm not offering much in return. that's mostly what it comes down to.

anyway... it's november now. and i hadn't worked on treat since april. so i can solidly say there's no way i will be able to finish the rest of the game before 2025. but there IS a way to still release an update, and that's to finish the next chunk of chapter 8. and hopefully a little more of the alternate ending content too :) i'm pretty optimistic, but i know i'm going to be busy over the holidays, so... we'll see how things turn out.

my life is really different from what it was last year when i was making all these plans, so i expect the rest of the game to still take a long time after this. i'm not going to abandon it though. it's ridiculous that the game has taken this long to finish, but as some commenters have said... peak needs time ;) i think it'll be worth the wait.

thanks everyone as always for your patience! i'll have lots of new content to share next year!!!

<3 nami