In an industry where some adult visual novels never seem to release, staying in an infinite development cycle on Patreon, I'm proud to say that Animus Non Grata has not fallen into that trap. Instead, me (FlimsyLegs) and the fantastic Daz3D artist Synthetic Rush have worked in our spare time, for almost 2 years, to finalize Animus Non Grata. The release is just around the corner, and with it, the end of an amazing journey that led us to this point. I'm truly thankful to Synthetic Rush for joining me on this wild ride - without his stunning visuals, Animus Non Grata would not be as fantastic as it is!

It's less than two weeks away. The official launch of Animus Non Grata, on Steam and Itch December 3rd 2024! The fact that our game is even on Steam isn't something that I ever envisioned when starting this project. But where there's a will, there's a way!

But none of this would've been possible without your support, the fans. Thank you! You, who downloaded the game or wrote to tell us that you liked the story. You, who gave a positive rating. You, who stayed with us even when we no longer published the game for free. (Which was around the time we realized we'd actually made a bloody brilliant game! And wouldn't it be nice if we could get a cup of coffee for our efforts? Or a new graphics card to render images faster?)

And of course, a special thank you to those who provided much needed feedback on the game. Your input shaped the game enormously, making the whole game more coherent and polished. The fact that we re-wrote the entire defiant path of Animus Non Grata was a daunting prospect, but it turned out to be the right call. The game is infinitely better in its current form, and this is owed purely to the fans who played the game, and shared their honest thoughts on what worked and what didn't. It just goes to show that a game built without any external feedback seldom shines as brightly as a game that goes through an iterative process of some kind.

Well, the road the release has certainly been long. Or so it feels. But at least it's not as long as The Elder Scrolls 6, eh? And now that we're at the end of it, I feel strange. Good strange? Maybe. I'm filling the void that writing Animus Non Grata left with another project - Taru's Infernal Pledge. This close to completion, I find myself looking back at where it all started. In the beginning of 2023, the working title of Animus Non Grata was AAIA-#27167. Short for Advanced Artificial Intelligence Android #27167 - Which is Amanda's manufacturing number in the game. An absolutely terrible title for a game, right? That first version, published on April 19th 2023, was a pure text-based version of the game with only Sequence 0. So much has changed since that first draft. A whole story, set in a surreal alternative reality. Which could in just a few short decades be our reality. Will we find ourselves waking up in a dystopian future like that? Let's hope not... But hopefully Animus Non Grata makes us all think on the kind of future we want, should artificial life some day be possible.

But anyway... This is getting out of hand, and I need to stop writing. After all, there's still work to be done! A Steam pipeline doesn't build itself, you know? But as they say in software engineering:

Ship it!  

December 3rd, we're ready for you!

Yours,

FlimsyLegs