Hey everyone.

A few months ago now we changed the order in which we develop our routes. Details on this change and how it would affect development going forward were given and added to our FAQ at the time. Regardless, this is a question I'm still receiving pretty much every day at the moment and I'll be honest... I'm really tired of answering it! The information you're looking for is contained within the first question in our FAQ and it's been there this whole time. That's what FAQ stands for - frequently asked questions! The hope is that with that resource available, I won't get asked those questions so frequently, but alas, here we are.

I'm going to take the time now to provide a more detailed and long-form answer to these questions in the various forms they take as a "be all end all" response so I don't have to keep answering that same question. And to be clear, I won't - I know I'll still get this question constantly even after posting this devlog, but know I will not be answering them. At best, I may choose to link to this post.

Now before we get into it, I'd once again like to remind you all that we have an FAQ! It's constantly being updated to reflect changes in development and to include new questions as they become common. I am more than happy to answer questions that aren't covered in the FAQ, but please check it for your question before asking. The vast majority of questions I receive are things covered there. Think about it this way - you save time by not having to type out your question, I save time by not having to type out a response (or link you to the FAQ as I have often been doing), and you still get the answer you were looking for! That's a win-win if I ever saw one! The FAQ is present both here on Itch as well as a mirror copy on our Discord. The URL faq.sileo.vn redirects to said FAQ as well as an easy means of accessing it.

With that out of the way, let's address the matter at hand.

We've been working on Sileo for two and a half years now. It's been a hot minute or two since we started doing this, so it's understandable that after so much time and hard work, a degree of burnout might begin setting in. Another factor is that I suffer (believe me, suffer) from ADHD which makes it much harder to remain focused when working on material that I'm burnt out on or isn't progressing well due to some snag in the process. Both of these factors have played key roles in why our content releases aren't as large and/or frequent as they once were. And Sileo's success going forward requires that we manage both of these things in a way that allows ongoing development to be sustainable.

As such, we made the decision to no longer stick to our one route-at-a-time style of development and instead have chosen to work on multiple things side by side. This helps to keep development (for us) fresh and interesting as we're getting far greater variety in the kinds of content we get to create. For one, this helps to address with aforementioned ADHD issue - it's much easier to remain on task when I find the task fresh and interesting. This also helps with another issue, being that sometimes I'll go in to write a scene, and just doesn't work out. There could be any number of reasons why, though they usually boil down to our plans on paper not quite coalescing as an interesting and entertaining piece of content. This sucks when it happens, but worse yet is that continuing to work on something that just isn't quite working saps my motivation and usually results in delays. Thus, when this happens, the best possible course of action on my part is to put that piece of content down and work on something different. While I'm doing so, I have time to consider solutions and new strategies to tackle the problems faced with that content so that when I return to it, I can do so from a new angle and hopefully make that attempt a success.

This is what happened on Day 19 Chapter 6 of Tai's Route. Despite having some good moments, the scene flowed horribly from moment to moment and felt all wrong. My strategy when I return to that content will be to skip ahead to what would have been the following chapter and address the necessary plot events via brief flashback segments and via dialogue in this new setting. This allows these good moments to shine while completely removing the need for those moments to flow. Suffice it to say, I am ready with a game plan and intend to return to that content fairly soon to hopefully knock it out once and for all. A similar issue arose with Day 1 Chapter 4 of the Intro Remake, though the problems varied somewhat. This is why in our latest update, we've now dropped the opening scenes to the Axel/Dom route. It's something I've been eager to start on for a while, and rather than waste countless time battling with a sequence that isn't quite working out, it's better to maintain as much momentum as I can by transferring it to something else and using that time to reconsider my approach on the problematic sequence and concoct a new strategy for when I return to it.

So, now you understand the necessity of these changes in our focus, so let's specifically address where we're at now and how these changes have impacted those plans.

First and foremost, yes, Tai's Route will be finished. Plans can and will change frequently, but my current plan is to return and tackle that problematic scene with that new strategy as soon as we've released the completed Day 5 of Axel/Dom's route (which we're aiming to have done by the end of the year.) Once this specific chapter in Tai's Route is done. only 4 or 5 chapters remain in the entire route and with any luck, it'll all be smooth sailing from there and we can have the entire route wrapped up fairly quickly.

The same of course goes for the Intro Remake. We'll be going back and forth between this and other content until it's finally completed and worked into the main game. It will probably be quite some time before we finish it, but we want to focus on all new content as well as doing remakes of our older, shall we say, less good material, and of course, we want to take the time to ensure we knock it out of the park. As such, there'll be no rush - it'll be out when it's out, as they say. 

Our current plan is to introduce Lukas' route sometime in the first half of next year. This will likely be once Tai's Route has been finished as I don't want to be juggling too many different things all at once. I intend to develop this alongside Axel/Dom's route, it's simply that the latter is getting something of a headstart here.

We had also planned to do a Tale that acted as a short expansion to Diego's story. Originally this was to be developed once Tai's route wrapped up. With how plans have changed, that's not necessarily the case anymore, however, make no mistake, it's sitting in my 'arsenal' of new content that is writing-ready and will appear when the time is right. In the grand scale of things, it'll be sooner rather than later, though this is all relative. 

With all that said, please bear in mind we'll be working on whatever content is right for us at any given time to hopefully ensure good quality frequent updates with minimal unnecessary delays. Plans can and will change. Be sure to keep an eye on our release announcements as we tend to provide updates on where we're at and where we're going via those. Also consider I do a lot more long-form-type posts such as this over on our Patreon, so if you're interested in reading more of my ramblings, you know where to find them.

Now, this was a lengthy write-up, but hopefully, it answers all your questions with regard to this topic. I'll link to this topic in the FAQ as well for additional context on the info given there.

If there are any specific questions you have relating to this that haven't been clarified here, feel free to ask below and I'll address them. 

And as a closing statement... please read the FAQ! ...please?