- Joined
- Aug 7, 2017
Most likely he is living off his parents, so don't hold your breath about this matter.I mean, he'll run out of money eventually. And we know what his spending habits are like.
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Most likely he is living off his parents, so don't hold your breath about this matter.I mean, he'll run out of money eventually. And we know what his spending habits are like.
Yup. Unless he actively puts himself into crippling debt, he'll be fine on that front. And he's one of the few cows that I'd struggle to see putting himself into true 6 figure plus debt levels that'd cause problems.Most likely he is living off his parents, so don't hold your breath about this matter.
Did Unity ditch that retarded 20-cents-per-game-install policy that they talked about enacting back in like September?Yup. Unless he actively puts himself into crippling debt, he'll be fine on that front. And he's one of the few cows that I'd struggle to see putting himself into true 6 figure plus debt levels that'd cause problems.
Yea Unity walked it back to my knowledge, since a lot of devs (including big game names, indie and otherwise) threatened to completely abandon Unity.Did Unity ditch that retarded 20-cents-per-game-install policy that they talked about enacting back in like September?
To be fair, I couldn't see Alex continuing the game's development with such a massive threat to his comfort (ok, I don't see Alex continuing to develop yansim anyway, because who even cares about the game at this point anymore?), but it would make for a funny arc.
Either him choosing to stick to his guns despite the monetary risks and finishing yansim, or maybe he'd switch engines and start work on his magnum opus, Lunar Scythe, using all the knowledgeTM and experienceTM gained by workingTM on yansim.
Honestly, at this point since Alex is only posting updates on Patreon and not the YanSim blog so who knows if he's actually still developing the game at all since we are all aware of Alex's track record with honesty. I'm unsure if he's released any builds or new gameplay videos at all since September before Sisefs 2.0 happened so it's entirely possible he's gone from LARPing as a developer to pretending to LARP as a developer. I'm not interested in making a Patreon or Guilded account just to find out, but if we go a few more months without any sort of public release then it's a not unreasonable assumption that development is probably over and done and Alex is just refusing to admit it.To be fair, I couldn't see Alex continuing the game's development with such a massive threat to his comfort (ok, I don't see Alex continuing to develop yansim anyway, because who even cares about the game at this point anymore?), but it would make for a funny arc.
Either him choosing to stick to his guns despite the monetary risks and finishing yansim, or maybe he'd switch engines and start work on his magnum opus, Lunar Scythe, using all the knowledgeTM and experienceTM gained by workingTM on yansim.
You also had to go past a certain amount of revenue for it to apply and the limit was significantly increased if you went for a "proper" commercial license. Alex would have to launch the crowdfunder, get a significant payout from it and actively avoid purchasing a higher end license (which he'd probably buy just to get rid of the "lmao look at this poorfag" splash screen) for it to really sting.Did Unity ditch that retarded 20-cents-per-game-install policy that they talked about enacting back in like September?
Damn, and that was the best incarnation of Ayano (mostly because she literally has no personality).Seems the Crush Crush developers have replaced Ayano in an effort to distance themselves from Alex, I guess not even his fellow degenerates want any parts of him
That's a nice hairstyle, kinda wonky though.Seems the Crush Crush developers have replaced Ayano in an effort to distance themselves from Alex, I guess not even his fellow degenerates want any parts of him
I seriously doubt Sad Panda redesigned Ayano to look like the protag of a failed clone game, who's dev is also a child predator. That's some bizarre reaching, and would be quite petty of them. A long ponytail tied back with a bow is a common anime hairstyle. Most people would probably think of Monika.That's a nice hairstyle, kinda wonky though.
Reminds me of the love letter protagonist, maybe that's intentional.
I wonder if other porn game devs who collabed with him would backtrack too.
Bingo, they just did something that fit 'well enough' with the existing writing and themes of the character.I seriously doubt Sad Panda redesigned Ayano to look like the protag of a failed clone game, who's dev is also a child predator. That's some bizarre reaching, and would be quite petty of them. A long ponytail tied back with a bow is a common anime hairstyle. Most people would probably think of Monika.
The games old, well into its long tail of "just keep the lights on" support on. The fact they went back at all and overhauled her is already more than realistically coulda been asked for. I doubt they put the effort and design into using an actual new, interesting character design to fill the gap yandev shoved into their product post-fact, this was quite likely the work of a bored friday afternoon from one of the artists who didn't want to pick up any actual work but still wanted to feel a bit productive.kinda wonky though.
If they're still active, maybe. I wouldn't be surprised to hear they're all dead or done, porn games do not have a long life span.I wonder if other porn game devs who collabed with him would backtrack too.
TL;DR: It's mostly more free labor from Mulberry that he was too incompetent to implement. I'm a tad surprised Mulberry hasn't leaked the concept art she made out of spite.I'm not too interested in combing this myself and it hasn't been updated in a few months, but kemono.party is a public archiver for patreon/paid access content and has a lot of YandereDev patreon-only content. Browse to your hearts content (the site is also good for fapping tbh).
December 1st Progress ReportOver the past 2 weeks, I've been alternating back and forth between two objectives. The first objective is the implementation of Custom Mode, and the other objective is something else that might not be at the top of your wishlist, but has been on my mind for a long time.
Alternate Timeline for 1980s Mode
It is now possible to access an "alternate timeline" for 1980s Mode! In this timeline, the Journalist never investigates Akademi, Ryoba never goes to court, and it's possible for Ryoba to confess to Jokichi underneath the cherry tree!
Instead of outright telling you how to access this new timeline, I'll let you experience the thrill of discovering it for yourself. However, I'll give you a couple of hints:
If Ayano snoops through her mother's belongings in 202X, she can find something very valuable from many years ago.
Previously, during the 1980s Mode tutorial sequence, Ryoba was denied access to any room that wasn't directly relevant to the current stage of the tutorial. However, one of those rooms is now accessible.
It might not seem like much, but those two tidbits of information are actually massive clues. I don't think you'll have too much difficulty accessing the new timeline.
Aside from the Journalist not being present and the courtroom sequence being omitted, there are also a few other things that are different in this alternate timeline:
The "Pre-Rival Cutscenes" have different dialogue.
There are nine rivals instead of ten. Sonoko is skipped entirely.
The student council does not get alarmed when you run in their vicinity, or shove you when you walk close to them.
Making certain choices can "doom" the timeline to become a "dead end" where a happy ending is no longer possible. If this occurs, your save file will be deleted. It might sound harsh, but that's the cost of messing with the time-space continuum. Don't worry; the criteria for save file deletion will be made extremely clear to the player.
This alternate timeline was made possible thanks to the mercy of a certain character who was introduced many years ago, but hasn't been utilized very much in recent years. Oh, and she has a lot to say - over 70 voice lines in total! I hope you'll have a lot of fun with this new timeline!
Senpai Gift Utility
For a long time, it has been possible to leave gifts on Senpai's desk. In the past, this feature was purely cosmetic, but now there is more actual utility attached to the feature.
It is now possible to build a relationship with Senpai as his "anonymous secret admirer." Leaving notes and gifts on his desk will slowly develop this relationship, causing Senpai to become more and more enamored with his mysterious benefactor.
After Senpai finds a note or gift on his desk, information will appear onscreen to tell the player what Senpai found and how he feels about it.
Increasing your Literature stat and reading romance manga will increase the effectiveness of the notes that you leave for Senpai.
The Gift Shop (which is where you buy gifts for Senpai) will now restock gifts every day. There is no limit to how many gifts you can carry at any one time.
Leaving a gift box on Senpai's desk will automatically give him all of the gifts that you've purchased. You could theoretically collect 5 gifts every day for 20 days and then give him 100 gifts all on one day if you wanted.
This feature is currently only meaningful in the "1980s Mode Alternate Timeline," but it will become meaningful in 202X Mode in the future.
Confession Scene
While implementing the "Ryoba confesses to Jokichi" scene, I realized that the cutscene I was creating could be used for the end of 202X Mode and Custom Mode, as well. I have given the Confession Scene a lot of utility; it tracks how rivals were eliminated, how Senpai feels about their eliminations, how Senpai feels about his "anonymous secret admirer," what he knows about the player's reputation at school, and any mental/emotional trauma he has experienced, such as discovering corpses at school. The game will use all of these factors to decide whether or not Senpai accepts the player's love confession. It's similar to how the game decides whether or not Ryoba gets a guilty verdict in her murder trial.
Custom Mode Progress
Custom Mode is about customizing every aspect of the students at school - their appearances, their behaviors, their routines, their names, their profiles, etc. Most of the work I did on Custom Mode over the past 2 weeks was related to giving the player complete control over student appearances. Now that all of the superficial and aesthetic stuff has been taken care of, the next step is giving the player control over how students behave...but that's where I've hit a bit of a snag.
I'm finding it very difficult to design a user-friendly and intuitive interface for Custom Mode. Everything I try feels very clunky. Switching between editing a student's appearance, traits, and routine...it's not easy to determine what the graphic interface for this should look like and feel like. Also, a core aspect of the game is the fact that student routines are supposed to change from week to week to make it more difficult to eliminate the latest rival. The interface gets even trickier to design when you consider the fact that the player may want to give every student 10 different routines, one for each week. It makes me wonder if any player will actually invest that much time and effort into designing 10 weeks of gameplay. Will most players just go with the default routines, or maybe just hit the "Random" button instead of fine-tuning a student's every move?
And then, there's the case of figuring out how to let the player design events...
Making two characters stand in a specific spot and say specific lines of dialogue from a text file on the player's computer? Extremely easy.
Allowing the player to dictate what animations the characters should perform during the event? Well, that would be tricky. Some animations loop, some animations are not designed to loop. What if the player types out the name of an animation that a character does not possess? There needs to be some code for detecting that the animation name is unsupported, and to skip that animation. Is there going to be an interface for previewing all animations? Etc.
Allowing the player to sabotage an event? Now we reach extreme levels of complexity. Will there be a system for instructing the game to spawn a specific 3D object in a specific location, with a button prompt that allows the player to perform a specific animation, but only if specific criteria has been met, like possessing a specific object? What will the interface look like for this? How will the player test it and make sure it works properly?
Making the game display dialogue written by the player would be trivially easy, but anything beyond that point makes the feature exponentially more difficult to implement. There's a strong possibility that sabotaging events simply won't be an aspect of Custom Mode, unless players would be content with selecting from a list of pre-made events that have already been fully scripted, and only need dialogue.
If I keep running into serious "Uh, how am I supposed to create an interface for this?" problems while developing Custom Mode, I may have to reduce the scope of it somewhat. Currently I'm kind of dreading working on it instead of feeling enthusiastic about it, which is not a good sign. If it gets exhausting to work on, I'll probably shift my focus to another one of the pre-crowdfunding checklist tasks, such as the superior socialization system that I've wanted to implement for a long time. At least I have a clear idea of what that interface is meant to look like.
In Closing
Aside from the progress report above, I don't have much else to say at this point in time. I don't have anything to announce regarding voice acting, the crowdfunding campaign, the next time I'll actually release a new build, etc. I'm still committed to working on the game, and I'm proud of what I've accomplished over the past 2 weeks, but there are a lot of topics that I simply can't comment on right now. I hope this isn't too disappointing to you.
Thank you very much for your patience during this period of the game's development, and thank you very much for supporting the development of Yandere Simulator.
I went ahead and archived the updated checklist.I wanted to take a break from working on Custom Mode, so I turned my attention to some other things that I've wanted to work on for a long time. Here's what I got done over the past two weeks:
New Socialization System
When speaking to students, the "Socialize" option was kinda lame. You simply picked a conversation topic from a list of 25 topics, and chose whether to say something positive or negative. It was not very fun or engaging.
The latest build drastically changes the "Socialize" feature. Now, instead of simply picking a topic to talk about, you are brought to a new interface that resembles a visual novel, and presented with 5 options.
(While viewing the screenshot in the gallery above, you may recognize the general layout of this interface; it's the same interface as the Matchmaking minigame, but with a few adjustments.)
There are 4 parts to this new interface:
Friendship Bar: Each student at school now has an individual opinion of you (instead of every student sharing the same opinion, determined by your "Reputation" bar). You can "level up" your relationship with a student from "acquaintance" to "friend" by gaining "Friendship Points" through positive interactions. There are two ways to gain Friendship Points: Doing a student's Task and using the new Socialize menu to have a successful social interaction with them.
Active Bonuses: There are 5 things that can increase the number of points you get from interacting with a student; the panties you're wearing, whether or not you've used the Gaming club's benefit to give a bonus to your social interactions, the Persona you're currently using, how high you've raised your Seduction stat, and how much you've increased your Psychology stat. All of the currently active bonuses are visible on the left side of the screen.
Interaction List: On the right, you'll see the most important aspect of this screen: the different ways you can interact with the student that you're currently talking to. The option to "make a positive/negative remark about a topic" is still present and available. "Compliment" brings up a list of 18 possible compliments to give the student. The correct compliment depends on the Persona of the student. (For example, a Teacher's Pet would want to hear you compliment their intelligence.) "Show Off" allows you to impress the student with your knowledge of one of the 5 school subjects - Biology, Chemistry, Language, PE, or Psychology. Choose the one that you've leveled up the most. Your last option is to simply give the student some cash and tell them to buy themselves a nice treat. Ideally, this would be replaced with a "gift" system where you have to give students gifts based on their specific interests, but that would require a lot of additional work and assets, so it's probably not going to happen.
Student Reaction: At the bottom of the screen, you can see the student's reaction to the last thing that you said to them. For example, if your compliment totally backfired, you'll see a bored and lukewarm response down there.
Most students will become your friend after you've surpassed 50 "Friendship Points." Doing a Task for a student gives you 50 points (plus a bonus). So, in most cases, all you need to do in order to befriend a student is simply do their Task. However, for a handful of students, the criteria is slightly different.
In one of my old YouTube videos - "Yandere-chan's Childhood" - Ayano was shown socializing with Midori and Kuu Dere when she was younger. Since this video has established that Midori and Kuu were acquainted with Ayano as children, their "criteria for friendship" is a bit lower. You can befriend them after earning a mere 25 friendship points.
All rivals - after the first rival - will have a higher "Friendship Threshold" than normal students. For example, Amai will require you to surpass 55 friendship points, and Megami will require you to surpass 95 Friendship Points.
I feel that this new system has the potential to be used in a lot of different ways: Perhaps, if a student sees you misbehaving, you should lose Friendship Points with them in addition to losing Reputation Points.Perhaps friendly students will have a lower threshold for friendship, and grumpy students will have a higher threshold for friendship.Perhaps a student at 100/100 Friendship Points will refuse to gossip about you or damage your reputation, even if they see you splattered with blood.Perhaps asking a Student for a "Favor" will cost Friendship Points, which means that if you want the student to do another favor for you, you'll have to score some more Friendship Points with them.After a successful social interaction with a student, your reputation goes up. Perhaps the exact extent that your reputation goes up should be determined by the Friendship Points you have with that student, rather than factors such as your panties/persona/seduction/psychology, etc.Perhaps the game keep track of which students are friends with which other students, and your interactions with one student should impact your relationship with that student's friends. For example, if Student A and Student B are friends with one another, and you have a successful social interaction with Student A, you'll gain a few Friendship Points with Student B. The ideas written in the bullet-point list above have not yet been made to the game. However, depending on player feedback, changes like this might come to the game in the future.
Updated School Exterior
Over the years, various fans have created "New School Environment" mods that significantly improved the exterior of the school. I was extremely impressed with these mods; they inspired me to make various additions and adjustments to the school:
Dreams
- I'm no longer over-relying on that "small pink tree" model and using it absolutely everywhere.2. There is now a lot more variety in what kind of props you see throughout the school.3. The "hedge archways" now appear all throughout the school, rather than just in a couple of locations near the south side of the school. This turns it into a visual motif of the school, rather than just a novelty that is only found on one side of the school.4. There are now a lot more "big pink trees" spread throughout the school.5. Some parts of the school interior - the plaza, the stairways, the library, the faculty room, and the announcement room - also got some additional props and feel much less empty now. It's refreshing to see so many changes throughout the school environment! It almost feels like a completely different place now! I really hope that everyone is going to approve of the changes!
Have you ever played a sequence in a video game where the protagonist is walking through a black empty void and seeing creepy visions and hearing creepy voices? Like this scene from God of War 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LCvdUPEl1g I've always been a big fan of these types of sequences, perhaps because they felt "attainable" for me; they felt like something I could actually achieve myself, despite being a solo developer, because of their relative simplicity.
For years, I've wanted to implement playable dream sequences in Yandere Simulator that would provide information about the game's backstory and lore. However, it felt like an unnecessary addition to the game, so it sunk down to the bottom of my priority list. Well, over the past couple of days, I just couldn't stop thinking about it...so, I set aside some time and finally implemented a "dream" system into the game!
At first, I considered the idea that dreams would be random. Maybe there would be a 1% chance that, every time you go to bed, you have a dream. However, this might annoy players who are trying to do a speedrun and don't want a random event to interrupt their playthrough. So, I decided that dreams would have to be something that the player deliberately instigates. But, how do you induce a dream? As far as I know, there are no guaranteed methods to elicit dreams in real life...
I've heard that the food you eat before bed can affect the quality of your sleep. So, perhaps making the protagonist eat a specific meal is the most logical way to let the player deliberately induce dreams. And, as it turns out, there just so happens to be a restaurant in the street scene with no functionality associated with it. So, I made the decision to add some interactivity to the ramen shop in town: It is now possible to order special meals that result in dream sequences.
(Please forgive the A.I.-generated artwork for the shopkeeper; it's a placeholder while I wait for an artist to create real artwork.)
There is currently only one "dream" available. It focuses on the earliest parts of the game's lore - events that pre-date the Aishi Condition. Stuff that the player really has no realistic way of ever learning, unless it's revealed within a dream sequence. Putting it into the game was an experiment to determine if dream sequences were even feasible, but I actually had a lot of fun making it! It only took 1 day of work to implement, so I feel confident that adding more dreams will be easy!
I was originally going to include dialogue in the dream (subtitles at the bottom of the screen explaining what various characters were saying and thinking), but I was afraid of the dream giving away too much information and completely killing all potential for fun speculation and theorizing, so I decided to not include any voices or words in the dream. I'll look forward to seeing players try to figure out what events the dream is depicting!
Miscellaneous Improvements
Aside from the things mentioned above, I've also been making a lot of miscellaneous improvements all over the game. For example, I've made improvements to the 1980s Mode rivals' diary entries. Do you remember what they previously looked like?
"My friend asked to name my 5 favorite things. I decided on Art, Cats, Cooking, Cosplay, Nature."
Yeah...that was boring. I've made an effort to update those diary entries to sound much more natural and be more like real statements that a person might actually make. You can see an example in the image gallery above.
I know that this isn't the sort of thing that fans have been clamoring for - "OMG I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE DIARY ENTRY UPDATE!!!!!" but it's the type of thing that I really wanted to take care of before moving on to the next phase of the game's development. I suppose you could call it "tying up loose ends."
What Remains?
By checking the "Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist" page, you can see that there is barely anything remaining: https://yanderedev.wordpress.com/2023/06/06/remaining-pre-crowdfunding-checklist-tasks/
The only things that are left on the list are finishing Custom Mode and implementing some new hair models for 1980s Mode students.
For years, "The Checklist" was this nebulous, ambiguous thing that was always changing...and now it is something short and simple that looks very easy to complete. It's almost surreal to see it in this state!
There is a possibility that, over the next 2 weeks, I might work on a few things that aren't written on that list - like implementing Tasks for some of the 202X students who don't have Tasks. Aside from miscellaneous little things like that, there is almost nothing else I want to work on before I move on to the next phase of the game's development.
I feel like there's a very good chance that the Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist will be finished by the end of December. This means that, during 2024, my focus will finally shift to implementing the 202X rivals!
Before I close out the progress report, I want to acknowledge that I'm aware there are a handful of topics that I haven't addressed yet. "What will you do about voice acting?" "Are you still going to try holding a crowdfunding campaign?" "When will you return to making YouTube videos?" I'm very sorry, but I'm not ready to provide definitive answers to those questions yet. I think that I'll have the answers by mid January at the soonest, and early February at the latest. I'm sorry for keeping you waiting.
As always, thank you for supporting the development of Yandere Simulator!
From an ex-supporter on Guilded who brought up that minors can sign up to the server using their Roblox accountHello! Today, I've decided to show rather than tell. This is a 9-minute long video showcasing the progress that I've made with Custom Mode so far.
It would be redundant to list out every feature that is currently functioning, since I already did that in the video above. Instead, I'll just describe what remains to be done:
1. Creating a "Rival Event Editor" where you dictate the time and place that each Senpai/Rival event will occur.
2. Giving the game the ability to grab player-defined text from a specific directory and display that text during Senpai/Rival events.
3. Creating an "Ending Cutscene" where you see your custom Yandere confess to your custom Senpai.
4. Playtesting Custom Mode to confirm that it's possible to complete a full playthrough without any weird bugs stopping you.
It's definitely possible to complete those objectives within 15 days! However...
There is something important that I need to prioritize over the next two weeks. It's not related to game development, but it's directly related to the future of the game project. I'll just say that it's something that has to be handled with extreme care, and it will be my primary focus for the remainder of the month. I hope that the 4 goals above will be completed by January 1st, but it's difficult to predict exactly how the next two weeks are going to pan out. We'll just have to see.
In January, my "90 days of developing a healthier lifestyle" will be complete. When that happens, I plan to return to posting on Wordpress, return to releasing new builds of the game, and return to uploading videos to my secondary channel.
Thank you for supporting the development of Yandere Simulator.
Just like the rest of the game.Please forgive the A.I.-generated artwork for the shopkeeper; it's a placeholder
Now that I have released a video apologizing for inappropriate behavior (but also clarifying that I never attempted to “groom” a child), maybe some of those voice actors will decide to return.“A lot of your voice actors have resigned. What will you do regarding voice acting?”
There are numerous ethical concerns regarding the use of A.I. to generate assets for video games. I believe it’s something that I should avoid.“What about using A.I. for the voice acting?”
If the Internet has been convinced that I’m a child groomer, then there’s no longer any point in holding a crowdfunding campaign; it won’t get any support. Hopefully, my response video up above will change that perception of me. It’s too early to make a meaningful decision on whether or not to plan a crowdfunding campaign.“Will you still hold a crowdfunding campaign?”
I am not convinced that this is an option. I am not aware if there are any companies interested in purchasing the Yandere Simulator intellectual property. If a company contacts me and makes an offer, I may be willing to negotiate with them if I believe that it’s in the best interest of the project’s future. However, I find it difficult to determine the likelihood of this happening.“Would you be willing to sell the game to a company?”
On October 3rd, my Discord account was disabled. Discord did not send me an e-mail explaining why. I submitted several support tickets asking for help, but Discord did not respond to any of them. I didn’t know if it was temporary or permanent, so I decided not to make any public announcements about the situation until I had more information. After 30 days, my account was automatically deleted.“What happened to your Discord account?”
You’re about to get deja vu, because the Twitch story is almost identical to the Discord story.“What happened to your Twitch account?”
Yandere Simulator became the type of game that is regularly updated with new content. I decided that developing an ever-expanding, ever-improving game would be more meaningful than implementing 9 specific characters, so I chose to prioritize releasing regular updates instead of working on the rival characters who were announced in 2016. I’ve written a lot of words about this topic.“Why has the game been in development for 9 years?”
January 5th.“When can we expect a new build to be released?”
“What’s coming in the next update?”
Over the past 3 months, a lot of people reached out to me to extend words of encouragement and support. I’m eternally grateful for that. Despite everything that has happened, there is still a significant number of people who understand that I’m not a bad guy, remain fans of my work, and want to see the game continue to grow. I can’t express how much this means to me; it gives me hope that I still have a future. Those are the people who matter the most to me, and those are the people who I’m going to focus on from now on.Closing Thoughts
Here we go again.Alex said:There was only one thing holding me back from making progress on the rivals: I wanted to hold a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to pay voice actors and animators. But, if I commit to implementing the 9 remaining rivals without any new voice acting or animations, then we can just skip straight past the crowdfunding campaign and implement the rivals immediately. In this scenario, the game would almost certainly be complete before the end of 2024.
There wasn't much point in holding a crowdfunding campaign before Sisefs 2.0 either and Alex knew this, which is why he kept delaying it.Alex said:If the Internet has been convinced that I’m a child groomer, then there’s no longer any point in holding a crowdfunding campaign; it won’t get any support.
The only thing potentially of value is the name recognition; everything else is utterly worthless.Alex said:I am not aware if there are any companies interested in purchasing the Yandere Simulator intellectual property. If a company contacts me and makes an offer, I may be willing to negotiate with them if I believe that it’s in the best interest of the project’s future.