Allow me to tell you where the hell I've been, what the hell I've been up to, and who the hell I think I am coming in here at this hour reeking of scotch and goat semen.
Oh, this is long, so here's the tl;dr:
tl;dr = Sp0nge's website stop working, nobody could fix. Sp0nge fail at moviemaking. Sp0nge stop caring. Sp0nge forget comix. Sp0nge start make videogame. Sp0nge still alive. Now Sp0nge make comix AND game. Sp0nge care again. Website still borked, but at least Sp0nge have Twitter.
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And now that the plebs have gone, here's the juicy, sexy, gruesomely-detailed version, because yeah I know there's at least 1 or 2 people who asked about this!
In 2017, NSFW-Comix.com became inaccessible from a lot of ISPs, which in many cases meant entire countries, including my own, were unable to load anything on my website. This coincided with the final nail in Tumblr's coffin, where the website effectively banned NSFW content, driving away creators such as myself... and also plenty of creators unlike myself, whose SFW content was also not getting the traffic it deserved anymore, with so many regulars leaving.
It seemed like the web was noticeably becoming an increasingly unwelcoming place for my unrepentantly filthy comics to gain more readers (or keep any readers), and so my interest in continuing to make such artworks dwindled along with the demand for them.
My website was showing its age (coming from a time when it was still cool to make your own website from scratch, lol), and with Flash due to be unsupported by browsers with no feasible successor offered, many of the interactive/animated comics would soon be unable to be experienced as intended, if at all.
My long-awaited MLP parody had also been showing its age since MLP jumped the shark, and the more I'd worked on it, the more it'd seemed like it was no closer to completion, while it sapped away time and creativity that could be better spent on making comics that people would actually see.
If they still wanted to see my comics.
Did they?
Approaching 500 comics, NSFW Comix started to seem like less of a fine artistic legacy spanning 12 years than an obligation, and half of the comics I'd once been happy with were now obviously garbage (well, the ones I made. I can't speak for the guest comics in the same way, since those didn't represent my artistic growth) as always happens when one looks back over one's older work, especially when so much of one's work is based on whatever fleeting lulzy maymays are roxoring people's boxorz at the time.
Continuing to add to 12 years' worth of comics is a lot of pressure for one little sp0nge who also has his long bishie fingers in other pies. It was easy at the beginning because I had nothing to live up to. Now it weighed on me. I cared about my comics and their audience, but it was so much pressure - self-imposed it may have been, but pressure nonetheless.
So I just... cared less. And less. Not caring lifted the weight. I got distracted by other things that I did care about. Like my job and other such boring middle-aged dude stuff. Safe-for-work things. Game development.
Wait, "game development"?
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Yeah. At some point in 2017, I started contemplating the idea of making my own comedic "dating simulator" game. And in early 2018, I got to work coding it. Sure, I could've used an existing visual novel template but where's the challenge in that? Well, there is a challenge in that, of course, but I wanted to build a minigame in it that - as far as I know - isn't in any other dating sims.
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Throughout 2018, I wasn't sure if I was going to release it as a Cybersp0nge game, or something else. Was I even Cybersp0nge, anymore? Making a paltry three comics per year for two years? Dare I show my face around this neck of the cyberwoods after failing all my talented voice actors and eager supporters who had been so pumped for the MLP parody video? Instead of addressing these insomnia-inducing questions I buried myself deeper in game dev...
In 2019, Cybersp0nge made not a peep. Well, a couple of tweets in January and nothing more but assets and code for a dating simulator set in a cartoony Stone Age. That was what gave Cybersp0nge life during 2019. It was still fun to work on and play with. But I wouldn't tell anyone. Not after disappointing them with the failed MLP parody. I would wait until I was sure the end was in sight, this time. And it wasn't taking time away from NSFW Comix, because... well...
...there was no NSFW Comix.
There was no website, no social media, no comics. Nothing. Just some guy who used to go by Cybersp0nge, quietly tinkering with his secret gamedev project.
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Aaaaaaand then 2020..... uh, well, it 2020ed. It 2020ed like no year had ever 2020ed before. Need I say more?
When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit, and a considerable proportion of people who took it seriously spent more time at home - or at least spent more time not being able to socialize as much as before - turned to the internet for more human interaction. And with them they brought not just their concerns and reports of how fucked their world was, but they also brought more "caring" to cyberspace.
It was - and still is - a time when, more than ever, people wanted to make sure others were okay. Or at least surviving as best they could. (Also I noticed that my website started to work again, and although it still fails to load in most browsers most of the time, it seems to work just fine in Firefox for some reason. Knock on wood.)
It was a bright little island of positivity that seemed all the brighter for being surrounded by a lake of pure feces.
Twitter was where I resurfaced, with just a little note to tell people that I wasn't dead - not entirely jokingly, mind you; it's a legitimate concern in these difficult times.
Their response was... welcoming! And I made some more comics.
Eventually I decided it was time to reveal that I'd been making a game that I think has now definitely passed the deepest point of the dreaded "Development Hell" river that many games fail to swim across, and is headed for the river bank.
There's still a lot to be done - there's a lot of placeholder assets & text, which may portend at least another year's worth of work for all I know - but the majority of the coding is done and the guts of the game is playable!
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Over on Twitter these days I sometimes give little previews of Your Cave Or Mine? A Stone Age Dating Simulator (Working title). So far it's been mainly art assets, and I've introduced my readers to two of the dateable characters via NSFW Comix comics. Eventually I'll reveal details about the gameplay itself. I hope to see you over there and find out what you think about it!
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So yeah, that's what my deal is.
What's that? Ohhhh, the thing about reeking of scotch and goat semen? No no no, that's disgusting! I was misquoted. There's no goat jizz here - I said scotch and Goatse Man.
Stay thirsty, sp0ngerinos
-- Cybersp0nge
