Looking back at the previous posts that we've issued over the time we keep working on Until I'm Gone, I have to admit that this post is so far the most important since the very beginning. The most important one in a good way that is, so that no confusion arises... I mentioned it in advance in one of our previous diaries. At that time I didn't want to (and couldn't really) talk about it publicly outside the team even though all of the internal (graphic designers, coders, animators etc.) and most of the external team members (translators, correctors, VAs etc.) were already celebrating the good news. But today everything changes and a time has come to reveal the secret... But before we give you the astonishing news you need to know the context - why we decided to take this step. I've mentioned it already several times in previous entries. If you've read them you know there are many reasons that lead us to this decision. Enough to make you think that we have to make things up... Sadly, the worst thing is that it's unfortunately all true. All these problems have riddled the project since the very beginning. After all if it wasn't true this diary entry would never have been written... These complications were responsible for all the delays pushing the release date to 2009 (we won't make it till the end of the year as you could've guessed from the info we've been releasing lately). But I don't want to talk about that, todays developer diary will speak about something else, something a lot more positive... Our project as well as any other project has got its major issue that slows down the development and makes people angry- in our case it's the programmer issue. It would be untrue to say that this is the sole reason of delay. The release dates were set quite unrealistically from the beginning and the deadlines couldn't have been met even with a fully professional and well paid team. We weren't able to set a realistic deadline as we've grossly underestimated the amount of work that the project demands as we had little experience with the schedule. But we're talking about the programmers now and that's definitely the issue that has set the project back the most. Simply put: the gravest issue of UIG = the programmers... If I recall it correctly, 8 different programmers have been part of the team (that's 8 just for a freeware adventure game!) and we thought about every single one that he was going to be the lead programmer, the final one that will help us complete the project. That's eight and we talked with a bunch of others, we did some entry tests etc. and those were activities that over and over again took up time that could've been spent on the development. When a graphic designer or an animator hands over his work, it's final and if needed, it can be modified anytime (by anyone else...). But we are talking here about a programmer that should code the whole project and give it some basic structure that the project can be built on. Every person is different and that rule also applied to our programmers. Each one of them coded the project in a different way according to his own code structure and when he saw the code written by his predecessor, he always decided to start all over again. The code of the 1st chapter alone has been re-written about 5 times. And this situation has repeated again and again as the programmers came and went. We tried several times to build upon the code left by previous programmers but each one of the new programmers always decided to start all over again in the end. This is quite common even in professional teams but on the other hand, they probably don't have to deal that often with programmers leaving (or not responding - that's even more unpleasant) before they finish a part of code big enough that the project can be build upon it... An then you have to find out why he's unable to go on with the project (that is if he didn't go dead silent), try to convince him to put aside his other things or to try to do both at the same time (which is usually impossible if you've got a job, you're doing some house repairs and you've got a newborn child to take care of), try to find out when he'll be able to work on it again etc etc. And of course you have to get a new programmer that will be able to fully concentrate on the project. And so the search continues... Several applicants sign up, there are entry tests that have to be done, you choose one applicant just to find out he cannot make it (I didn't even count those in the 8), so you address the one that came second, let him get to know the project better, then you're waiting for something (graphics usually), then he goes away for two weeks, then someone has to take the school leaving exams, the project slows down, then there are some development issues that have to be solved before you can continue, then the programmer has got some college exams, then he decides that it's impossible to build upon the previous code, so he starts all over (see above)... Well... then he stops responding for some time, then it goes okay for some time and finally one day he leaves :-)... And here we go again. And I have to stress that we do all this in our spare time, we don't make a living out of it. In the meantime the other team members are working on the project. But... It's nice to have the graphics, music, voice acting, translations and whatnot ready, but when you're unable to see it all together and working (because the programmer still hasn't put it together yet), it will hardly give you the right and real work motivation... And then the new programmer comes... And it all starts again. Believe it or not, I, as the project leader, really care about the project and all this crap around really gets on my nerves and drains all my energy. And it's me who's supposed to lead and shield the whole thing... I won't write about it any more, simply put- we went through hell and I've already addressed this matter in previous entries. I suppose we can all agree that this was simply too much to bear... That was the context and that leaves us to a question: how do we solve all this? I couldn't watch the project stand still any longer and over time I saw one real solution even though I wasn't that excited about it. Simply put I became fed up with going through the same situation over and over again... Hiring new programmers, solving again and again the same problems and dealing with these annoying problems, complications and delays... If you look at the title of this diary and the described problem, maybe you'll slowly understand what crucial news we're about to announce. If you can imagine yourselves in our position and you can guess how much work and effort is being put into the project and you've got some imagination, maybe you've already guessed the news: the project will receive funding! However, it's not the money that we would receive from fans, ads, publishers or donations (those wouldn't even cover the hosting expenses currently). Simply put it's not money that the project has earned, quite the opposite, someone's going to lose money over this... The money comes from my private funds as the leader and founder of the studio. And believe me, I'm far from being rich and I'm definitely going to feel the absence of the money. But as I've written before I want the project to continue without further delays and I think I should be the one to act. The final sum that'll go into the project will be somewhere around $2000 and the whole sum will be used only to pay a genuine programmer who will sign a contract and have the project as a regular job! And finally just to make sure... We've always said that the project was and always will be free, regardless of the interest of publishers and other circumstances. We've repeated this about a million times (and yet we still receive CVs from people interested in joining the project, asking about the salary and working from home... ) but we will repeat it once more, just to be sure: the project remains free and after it's finished it will be available to anyone free of charge without ads, annoying spyware or any other catch! Now the only thing left that's standing between us and the release of UIG is time... We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!