Hey friends!

It's been a while and I hope you've been doing well.
Sorry about the silence. But I'm not very good at saying goodbye.

Especially when every ounce of my being wants to get back into TRACHI and devote my life to it. There's so many more threads to be told and so much misery to be observed. All in good time, however.

As you might have gathered from the nauseatingly melodramatic tone, there's change in the air. And I'll have to carefully prioritise the tasks I'm putting my efforts and time towards during the next few years.

But before I get into that, I want to pay a bit of recognition, first.

Credit where credit is due

To a person whose enthusiasm and encouragement has done so much to push me the extra mile and make TRACHI something that I can be truly  proud of. As if that weren't enough, she also lent her voice and time to commit herself to a full playthrough of AUTONOMY.

So please, take some time out of your busy schedule, kick back your feet and enjoy one of the most beautiful renditions TRACHI has ever been graced with:

The yingy collection
ProAgon + Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3

Thank you, yingy, from the bottom of my heart. Seeing other people play TRACHI is among the most gratifying things for me to witness. And I love the many different spins each and every one puts on it. Which, coincidentally, brings me to the second point of this post.

Post-Apocalypse

Now, I've teased this a couple of times. However, I want to make one thing undoubtedly clear:
There will be more of TRACHI. I've  already conceptualised the sequel and can't wait to get underway.

Though there's something else I need to take care of, first.
In the course of the next six months, I will be writing my Master's thesis and finally graduate. I've always had flimsy perspectives of what's going to happen, afterwards. Two weeks ago, however, I got a job offer at the institute.

If everything works out, I'm going to be a research associate starting June 2022. The project is set for a duration of four years, hopefully culminating in me writing a dissertation and earning a PhD. Obviously, it's hard to say whether that's actually going to happen. But for now, I do have a fixed perspective and something I can put my life towards.

Something that will not only feed me and pay my rent, but also give me the chance to contribute to research and humanity as a whole. And while that is all nice and grand, I don't really want to let go of TRACHI, either.

So with all that being said, let's have a look at a preliminary roadmap.

The 4 1/2 year plan

12/2021 - 05/2022: Conceptualisation of AUTARKY to establish technical requirements
05/2022 - 12/2022: Engine survey (Unity, Godot, UE4 etc.) to build appropriate framework
12/2022 - 05/2023: Prologue implementation and settling narrative cornerstones
05/2023 - 05/2024: Act 1
05/2024 - 05/2025: Act 2
05/2025 - 05/2026: Act 3, AUTARKY

As you can see, the schedule is rather lax as of now. This is by design to give me more leeway to focus on my professional work. But as we all know, things can turn out very differently, especially with dates set so far in advance. There is a scenario in which I won't get to work on TRACHI, at all. Or I might just fall over and die. You never know, right?

Contingencies

In any case, I want TRACHI to go on, no matter what. I'll try put a few mechanisms in place to ensure that someone - anyone - can pick up the pieces and make something out of it. Once I get the chance to speak to a copyright lawyer, I'll try to discern the situation and whether it's feasible to transfer the rights of TRACHI into the public domain, should I be dismissed from this plane of existence prematurely.

Now, before everyone gets all gloomy and such, let's take a look at another possible scenario. Say I manage to properly fulfil the requirements to earn a PhD. Regardless of whether AUTARKY is released or stuck in development hell by that point, I will once again have to make a choice.
If push comes to shove and I'll have to decide, it's very likely going to boil down to financial factors.

This is where the term AUTARKY comes into play. And even though I'm not a fan of dichotomies, there's really only two options there:
I can support myself through TRACHI, or I can't. In other words, I want to be self-sufficient. Without putting a price tag on the games, or succumbing to freemium schemes. If it works out, I'll focus entirely on TRACHI. With everything else in my life being secondary.

That is all much easier said than done, of course. And I've learned a lot of lessons during the course of AUTONOMY. However, with more than four years of time at our disposal and TRACHI gaining more and more exposure every day, it's in the realm of possibilities.

And I'm very eager to see whether the world deems this thing to be worthy or not.

So once again, the TL;DR: Please spread the word, if you can.

No need to be obnoxious or redundant, of course. Because honestly, I hate that kind of shit. If anything, carpet bombing advertising spaces with non-sensical phrases and amateurish wordplay is utter dilettantism to me.

However, if you ever come into a conversation with someone, and they're looking for a convoluted story that likes to keep people entertained and also miserable,  please don't hesitate to let them know about this little thing.

And if you ever need anything from me, feel like you want to write, draw, compose or do anything of the like, please let me know. I do believe that any other person's contribution to TRACHI is as much worth as my own. And I will make sure that everyone sees it that way, too.

TRACHI is my home, and if you'd like to live here, you're more than welcome in this place.

And with that, I'll come to a close.

I hope you have an amazing set of holidays and can look towards the next year with confidence and anticipation.
Once again, I want to thank everyone, including you, the person reading this, for your attention. It is to me the most valuable commodity, and I appreciate it greatly.

With that being said, I'm looking forward to see you again, next year.

Much love and the best of regards
Nory