The Endless Road

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I guess the time has come...

I've been working on The Year of the Cat for around a year and a half, on and off. During this time, I had a clear idea about the story I wanted to tell, the characters who would inhibit my game world, and the different paths that they would take. None of that has changed.

Unfortunately, stuff happens sometimes. I began creating Cat in the RPG Maker XP engine, but the laptop on which I had installed it (and which also contained all the game data) gave up the ghost in the middle of 2015. Undeterred, I began working on the game afresh, using a new computer and RPG Maker VX. The new version of the game had stronger characterization, better maps, and better plot-lines for the different political factions involved.

Unfortunately, Murphy's Law struck again, and for reasons that are still unclear to me, the game project file has been corrupted and is now unusable.

I suppose I could pull an Isaac Newton and start from scratch (a third time!) but there is a further, if small, additional reason why I won't be doing it.

When I began The Year of the Cat, I created a world which, while entirely fictional, was inspired by events and currents of thought in the world of 2013. Using my imagination as well as my common sense, I made certain extrapolations (I won't call them predictions, because they involved a fictional world) about how things would play out. Unfortunately, reality outstripped even my fevered imagination. If I were to proceed with the original plot of Cat as it was written in 2013-14, it would sound like a corny parody of current world affairs. And there is nothing more boring than a "topical" game, even if this occurs unintentionally. I suppose I could rework the story significantly, but that would take time, and at this moment (for various reasons) that particular resource isn't readily available.

To those who subscribed and were looking forward to this game: sorry, and thank you. I will certainly return to this story someday. Just not in the next year or so.