Today, five years ago, I released my first game on ren’py. While technically not my first visual novel developed (I worked on my own engine and with Blade Engine prior), it was the first I made and released to the world. Today, I take a moment to celebrate being an active developer in this community for five years. No big contests this year, no new releases. I just wanted to take a moment and raise a toast to those developers we’ve lost over the years to the forces of the universe. There is almost nobody left of that generation still making games alongside us today. Even I feel the pull of the world upon me, having gone from an unemployed bum to an instructor engineer.  Yet, I fear for EVNs naught. I see the young’ins of today and have faith that the stories of tomorrow will be bigger and better than those that inspired me as a young, unemployed man years ago.

Cheers, mates, to the novels that have seen the light of day and those that await us.