Howdy Folks! お久しぶり, long time no see!

I'll start with some good news, which is that Dragon Drop Version 0.3.1 is finally out!

Even though the Unity security vulnerability likely wouldn't have impacted us too much, I wanted to be proactive and get a quality of life and bugfix update out there to help improve the game and show y'all that we're still serious. I don't have a full list of patchnotes here, but here's a few highlights:

- Brand new pico dragon select animations done by @sushigummy 

- Two new songs, including a remix by @whitetail 

- A first pass at audio balancing so that the music is a bit more normalized and less loud

- Multiple new achievements, including some in the Fall and Winter boards with new load screens, including work from @eyeseedee and @zitoisneato 

- New pico dragons, hats, etc.

- Many minor polish tweaks, like blocks slightly bumping upwards whenever they get lit up by a Pico beam, and some subtle visual changes to some menus

- A bunch of small bugfixes that had been in the community for a while on top of patching the big aforementioned Unity vulnerabilty

You might be wondering why it's been such a long time without an update, and the answer has been Moving to Japan, creating and running my own Japanese company, sponsoring my own visa, and jumping through all the legal and financial hoops to be able to stay afloat has taken up all of my time and energy over the past few years. I haven't been able to muster up the time and strength to be able to get things done, and I've been incredibly burned out trying to survive on my own in a country that has made it hard for me to stay here. Due to out-of-the-blue and unprecedented changes in the laws for Business Owner Visas in Japan this month, and despite fighting so hard for years to maintain stability and recently acquiring a 3-year visa, all of the work that I've put in to survive here on my own terms might be entirely undermined. I might have to climb yet another mountain in order to work towards permanent residency here when I'm already at my breaking point.

I've been missing working on Dragon Drop. It's been such a piece of my heart and soul it's been painful to have on hiatus for this long. I've felt guilty that I haven't been able to update because survival has been the priority for the past few years. I can't promise that I'll be able to get us back to a normal cadence for updates, but I CAN promise that I won't give up, and that even if it's slow, we'll continue to work on the game. This update, although seemingly small, is a really important milestone for me and the team; we're skilling up and trying our best to get into a place where we can carry this game as a team, and make slow but steady progress. We might have to cut back on platforms we wanted to release on, we might have to cut online, we might have to scope back, but we're going to keep going forward as best as we can. Dragon Drop was born of love, and it is a passion project; I ultimately want to make sure that whatever we release, you can feel our heart in it.

As I've mentioned before, this project has been self-funded to start, and we've been getting other funding from sales of the game, merch, and our wonderful kofi supporters; I am doing my best to avoid investor or publisher money or anything that could give up creative control of the game or put us on a timeline where we couldn't deliver the best game to you all. Since we need more help, we'll also be doing some more interesting things to help slowly fundraise. For example, we've worked with the incredible @davilos to create a Pico Dragon VRChat model, and we'll be trying to find ways to cross-pollinate the game with the audience there and on Roblox (our game Abyssal has an incredibly loyal fanbase who already love Pico Dragons!), so please stay tuned for more news upcoming.

Finally, I just want to thank you all for your patience and understanding. This has been the hardest time of my life thus far and I haven't ever had to fight so hard each and every day to make ends meet. Life in Japan has been hard but incredibly satisfying, and I've made a ton of incredible connections that could hopefully get Dragon Drop more popularity as we gain momentum. I apologize for the radio silence up until now, but I had been hoping to have an update that really showed something incredible. This update might not be that update yet, but we've got enough in the works with the stage editor (that you all will be able to use too!) that can get our gameplay ball rolling once again. 

From the bottom of my heart, I am grateful to each and every one of you for everything you've done. This community has given me hope and perseverance in spite of how hard things have been, and I hope to be able to make you all proud, or at least smile while dropping some dragons.

With all that I am,

SunkenCity and the Dragon Drop Dev Team