As I’m sure you all have noticed, Gamocosm has not been actively maintained. Each time I revisit it, I regret not doing justice for what I think could have been a great project. Instead, it’s been “best effort” but still haphazardly managed. Each time, I think maybe I can do better, but that has not been the case. I’ve been unsure whether it is good/an appropriate place for me to talk much about myself, but at this point, I think the best I can do is be plainly transparent.

I began working on Gamocosm around 2014 February. In the summer, my mother passed away to an aneurysm (no warning), and my father (who has a terminal illness)’s condition severely declined, which added even more for me to deal with (they were also divorced, so two separate entities I had to take care of). It was a rough summer for me, but eventually I grit my teeth and finished the first release of Gamocosm around 2017 October.

There were many bugs and issues to be fixed, and at different times over the next 1-2 years I worked hard adding new features such as auto-shutdown. Meanwhile, longstanding and family + legal/financial issues overtime turned into personal issues. At this point, I don’t think it’s disingenuous to say I’ve been suffering with more than grief but also depression. Ah, depression. I have nothing against it; I believe mental health is an important (and often still overlooked) issue; I take others very seriously when they say or may have it. However, I’m always hesitant to mention my own state as others may not feel the same way. But at this point, it is what it is.

School and life and responsibilities have been rough the past 3 years. In addition, I’ve been suffering from chronic, nontrivial headaches since the summer. I’ve seen (still seeing) doctors and counsellors, but no breakthroughs yet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I can still clearly feel myself slipping away, further and further over time..

On the bright side, this year my academic work is lighter. Legal issues have slowly been dealt with. I’ve done a bit better staying on top of things the last few months, and with my latest revisit to Gamocosm, I want to extend that proactiveness to this project. I do think Gamocosm is much stabler now, but that’s not an excuse for the slower and slower/less and less developer activity, especially when things break.

So here is my commitment: I will have a weekly blog-update every Sunday. This may seem strange, but I think it will work out for the best. I may be “too busy” for development many weeks, but just a status/transparency update forces me to keep “seeing” the project so it is fresh in my mind and I don’t lose touch. It’s also simple enough I cannot excuse myself for skipping it. And by being involved in the project, it takes less effort to “context switch” from other work to developing Gamocosm. (But to be clear, don’t expect major development, just small by hopefully active tweaks/improvements and maintenance/uptime.) One reason I hadn’t done this sooner is because I take my commitments seriously; I wasn’t personally ready before. Hopefully, I will validate my words’ worth by keeping this promise.

Over the holidays, I hope to dip myself back into development by fixing miscellaneous issues such as all the “cannot connect” logs while starting a server. By the end of the holidays, I plan to have a larger roadmap of what is to come. Don’t expect anything major; it may only be backend improvements (stabilizing intensifies) since technology (and I) have matured. Regardless, there will be a plan, something concrete to expect :P

Finally, I would like to thank you all again for your interest in, patience with, and use of Gamocosm. It honestly surprises me every time to find people still looking at it; I’d half expect my poor diligence to have let the poor project rot away. But it touches me that people still care about a very “grass-roots”, open-source, “free as in free speech” project. Even if it’s just one person left, I want to keep pushing and give Gamocosm another breath of life. If I fail once more - it is hard to let go of my “child”, but I think it would be time to look for another maintainer…

Thank you all once again. Let’s hope I don’t disappoint you guys! Merry Christmas and here’s towards a good New Year!

PS: I am best contacted on reddit. I’m definitely on there; I may get scared to respond (running away from problems/work :P ), but just spam me to make me get on it!