On this day five years ago, the first public version of My New Family released for everyone to play. I think I said this in every anniversary post, but I still remember how extremely anxious I was before the release. And it's actually still the same feeling when I release a update for any of my games - there is always that anxiety that builds up shortly before its out, mainly because I'm always afraid that what I'm delivering this time might not be as good as the chapter before. Thankfully, you guys have proven me false regarding that every time.

Another year has passed, though, and I guess it's fair that I start with the negative stuff. Exactly one year ago I was already in a pretty bad spot mentally - I got mugged in August and was still dealing with the PTSD regarding that and since it happened in front of my apartment, I had to find a new place to live ( which I already had at this time, I just didn't move then ). I thought that after I got the news that I'm going to be able to move soon ( in september 2023 ), life could go on and with the help of therapy, I'd overcome this shit that happened to me. But you all know what then happened in the middle of september - I got raided by the cops and they seized my equipment to this day, all based on allegations made by a person that fled to thailand shortly before their trial started.

The fact that it has been almost a year still baffles me. One year where one person in the german police basically is keeping a essential SSD hostage, not because of the initial allegiations but because she thinks that character files on this harddrive ( 91x91 unrendered thumbnails of daz3d scenes ) might not be legal in her eyes. One person is basically keeping my lifelihood as a hostage, purely because she has no way of catching the person who commited horrible crimes, because that person is living a good life in thailand. She wants to portray me as some kind of predator now, a terrible person that has to be monitored closely. As you all know, none of this is true and neither My New Family nor My New Memories contain anything illegal - The games are freely availble all over the internet, with My New Memories even being buyable on Steam, a platform that is very strict with certain things.

It's insane that this has been going on for such a long time. I looked into similar cases in Germany and sadly, that is the reality. The expected time for them to check your harddrives is 6 months alone - Or rather, thats the time they need to just make mirrorred copies of your harddrives, since they dont work with the originals. And the thing is, as long as this police woman thinks that there is anything illegal on the crucial SSD that contains all my daz3d characters, she won't give it back to me unless the state attorney or a judge says "No, those characters are fine". The state attorney didn't respond to my lawyer yet but if she sees it as the police woman, there are other ways we can probably try to get it back. For now though, there is no news. And in this case, no news doesnt mean bad news, because apparently if you are a suspect, no news can also be good for you. We'll see. I'm getting more and more impatient.

But I feel like that's enough of the negativity. While my life has been overshadowed by everything that has happened last year and while all of these things are constantly on my mind, there has been one reason that kept me sane. One thing that kept me going, made me get up each day, boot up the PC and start working, either in daz3d and honeyselct or just coding/writing stuff for my games. And that reason is you guys. Ever since this shit happened to me you guys were there. You kept supporting me throughout all these months, voiced your concerns when you noticed that I wasn't feeling well mentally, voiced your anger that this shit is taking so long and reassured me each and every time that you will stick to me, that I should take care of myself and that no matter what, you are there.

I think if I didn't have you guys, My New Family would have never been finished. My New Memories: The Beginning would not have been a thing. I would probably buried myself in despair, not getting out of bed except to survive, and just left the internet as a whole. The fact that I was able to release something, anything, is only because of you guys. There are not enough words in this world to express my gratitude that you are staying with me in these absolutely awful times. To not be overly corny, you guys keep me going. The prequel is happening because you guys were fine with me doing it and I absolutely love each and everyone of you for this. I think without the prequel I would just be... I don't know, forcing myself to work on MNF2 even though I needed a break from MNF after the rather emotional ending.

So yeah, this last year has been pretty extreme. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know how long it will take until I get my assets back, and while I miss all of the My New Memories characters extremely, to a point where I almost feel physical pain ( especially characters like Lina and Yukiko, who are so fun to do renders with ), I have the prequel to work on. The prequel is something that, thanks to you guys, "just fits", because of the amnesia trope in the main game. We talked about this a lot of times already, but I wanted to point it out again. A lot of things you experienced in the main game will be explained in the prequel, to show you what kind of character the MC was and how he developed to the husband and father he is in the main game.

So... Five years of being a game developer now. I think I said this in other anniversary posts before, but before I started to work on My New Family, I was basically doing... Nothing. Just wasting away every day. I had no idea how much enjoyment I would get on working on these games, how much fun it would be to build a community that keeps growing to this day. I really hope I can do this for at least five more years, especially with all the hurdles I had in front of me these last 12 months, but I think that is something that can be achieved, thanks again to you amazing people. Working on these games always has been some kind of therapy for me as well, to deal with past shit that has happened in my life, self inserting things and then solving them in the game in a way that I would have preferred for my life back in the day too.

This post has been pretty long already so if you stuck around to read until here, thank you so much. Thank you to everyone who has been here since the beginning, since the first alpha of My New Family, for people that joined after My New Memories released and for people that maybe joined today - Each and every one of you mean the world to me, like I said above, it's thanks to you guys I can keep going, that I can keep hoping and that I can keep fighting the injustice that I'm currently facing. I... I mean, we will get through this together. I have the best community in the world and I know that once I have my assets back, things will become one million percent better again instantly. Chapter 4 for My New Memories is a dream I have been dreaming since the game released in 2021, and I will do my best to show you how much it means to me to finally have it out. Like I said, the only thing that is missing is one crucial ssd. Maybe there will be a point in time where I will ask you to guys to make your voices heard, like I said a few months ago, so that even the police woman can see that what she is doing is wrong, no matter what she thinks I am.

Until then, people, stay awesome. If you have any questions, any comments, anything you want to share but not in public, don't hesitate to write me a message here or to add me as a friend on Discord - My name there is just Killer7. I love you guys, thanks for five years again, and heres hoping we get at least five more, right?