1.
Are you still alive?Yeah. Somehow. You feel like you got closer to ending it than you did last year, but you survived and I can say you've also grown a bit more mentally resilient as well. As for your concerns about your academics, they're technically better. Still not great, but you'll be able to graduate relatively soon. With that end in sight, you've realized that it's not really about the grades, but it's about becoming a good programmer. That is its own issue though...
Long story short. Life is still a mess, you have no idea if you're gonna your shit together, but you're hanging on anyway.
2.
Is that internet person you admire still alive?Yeah. Saw proof of life early in the year before they disappeared again. You're not worried though. They may be gone, but you're pretty sure they aren't dead.
3.
Do you lose her?Yes, you do.
She isn't technically gone, but the feelings you had for her are. Before that happened though, you managed to find a way to see her one last time. It wasn't on your list of new year's resolutions, but after the latest heaping of bullshit you decided to treat yourself. The trip itself probably wasn't worth the cash you spent, but it's hard to put a price on closure. Looking through your previous time capsules, it's surprising just how much time you devoted to thinking about her.
You thought that without the exhaustion of work getting in the way, the two of you would be able to talk to eachother like you used to, but it seemed like being busy just turned out to be an excuse. The real truth is that you simply don't have that much to say to eachother. She is an empty person with no dreams, no aspirations. She unironically told you that she doesn't have any hobbies. Could you imagine saying such a thing without any shame? As a man, you'd be crucified! One time, you thought you could make up for that, but your tastes in women had changed enough that you didn't have any interest anymore.
You can't help but feel like a fool after all of this. The theme of this year was learning to accept reality in place of wishful delusion.
4.
How does The Coffin of Andy and Leyley turn out? It's still in development. You had a prediction that the story that's currently set up would take more than an episode's length of content to wrap up, but it turns out that you never wrote this down anywhere. When the capsule was unveiled you were looking forward to reading this correct prediction and saying I CALLED IT!, but you can't so let's talk about other surprises.
You ended up developing a more thorough understanding of the game this year. You found out what really happened with the dox, and you are now convinced the
game's writing is on par with Shakespeare (DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU WANT SPOILERS!). Even most people that like this game don't truly understand it. This feeling is similar to the one you had when you realized that you were one of the only people who didn't misunderstand Watchmen.
Oh well. At least it's something to look forward to next year.
5.
Does war ever change?Seems like it is. Frontlines are starting to ossify. The days of losses and counteroffensives seem to be over. There was a bold attack in Kursk, but it's hard to know what the final results of it are going to be. It's hard to imagine a Ukrainian victory though.
Worryingly, Donald Trump has been reelected and Elon has somehow joined his side. Elon is 100% a Putin puppet, ever since he flew to Russia and did a complete 180 on his stance on the war, while Trump is a proud supporter of a fellow dictator. My roommate has a cope that maybe Putin will insult Trump's ego and he'll start to support Ukraine just to spite him, but I question how much free will Trump has to carry out this scenario. We are talking about the man who, as president, leaked classified documents to Putin "just because" so I don't think he's that far from being a puppet either. People may call this a conspiracy theory, but the West has been ignorant about how Russia operates for a very long time. They are long overdue for a wake-up call.
There have been some mutterings that the Russian economy may collapse at around November 2025, but the key question is whether Ukraine will last for that long. Maybe Europe will pick up the slack once America retracts it's lifeline, but the problem is not just money, it's the physical lack of industrial capacity to wage ware! The West collectively does not have enough factories to manufacture shells, or tanks, or guns, to keep up with a hostile opponent. Once America withdraws aid, I believe Europe won't be able to keep up because they relied on America to protect them for so long to the neglect of their own defences. Switzerland may be
able to do something, but they didn't fight the Nazis, so I have no reason to believe they'll fight the Ruskies.
Long story short, CONGRATULATIONS! They're gonna let a genocide happen on their doorsteps!
You blame on a lot of this on the media for not making this very basic fact clear to the public. It's like they don't want them to feel bad about their failure.
6.
Do you finish any of your long-term projects?Not the ones you're thinking of, but you somehow managed to find the time to finish digitizing a short story. You started this the previous year, but it ended up being a lot more work than you expected. You didn't want to throw away all of the work you invested into it, so you finally finished it a few months ago. And man did it feel good! You felt in control of your life for once. It's been so long that you had genuinely forgotten how that felt. It's concerning, but it was a valuable reminder about what's important in life. It's ironic that you ended up reading about this feeling in the time capsule again.
You can't allow yourself to forget this again.
7.
Any notable works of art?The anime Dandadan was good, but the main thing you want to talk about is the game
SANABI. You have written about this extensively in a steam review, and you also tried to shill it at the Annual Bay12 giveaway (which you ended up running btw), but nobody was interested. It's cause you didn't do enough to describe what the game was about stupid! You just found varying ways of saying "It's very good!".
I'll try a quick summary. You play as a cyborg ninja with a grapple hook who fights robots in a cyberpunk city while trying to solve the core mystery of how the city's millions of inhabitants managed to spontaneously disappear. Also, you try to deal with the grief of losing your dead daughter, which is what the story is really about. It's very good!
If a random reader is interested, they can PM me and I'll send them a humble key. More people need to play this game! The fact that the game is as underrated as it is a crime! I'll edit this message to remove the offer once someone claims it so if
you're still reading this one year, then know that this offer is still on the table.
Last of Us comparisons have been made, but I haven't played that game, so I can't judge how well a small indie game measures up against a AAA blockbuster. What I will say about SANABI is that there is an emotional honesty to the story that I rarely see in games. The main characters feel human, even though Mari can act larger than life sometimes.
Anyway, I wish I could devote more words to SANABI, but the holidays are over and this entry is long overdue. This game seems to be cursed to be unappreciated. I wish I had done the capsule sooner, but a shitty New Years party set my life ablaze and I spent the last two weeks putting out the ensuing wildfire. It's over, thank God! But man am I exhausted!