Holiday greetings to all! A new year is coming, and the Shadow Portal team already has new successes and experiences ahead. But let's pause for a moment to thank all our fans for their support in a difficult year and look back at the events of 2022. This is the New Year's Shadow Portal Team, let's go! 🤟

Think back to how this year began: with the success of the 27th update, which gave us the strength and confidence that we can do more. We quickly announced the next version of the game, which was supposed to be released in late February, but then something unexpected happened… To be honest, at first it was scary and it was hard to take it all in. We could not have imagined that we would encounter so many unforeseen challenges on the way to releasing a new update. Let's not describe how it all happened, although it's not over, but we survived those first two months. And although with a long delay, update 0.28 has seen the light of day.. 

Yeah, you could say it was the hardest update of our lives.… There have never been worse conditions to work in than now - so we thought. At one time we were able to announce a release date and release an update on time (well, almost, hehe), and now, because of communication disruptions, power outages and much more, deadlines are constantly shifting and it's hard to predict anything in advance.. But even in such harsh conditions we found our hope - it was you. Without your support we would not have made it through... Thank you for that. 💗

Two weeks later, we discussed the next update - update 29 of SlutCraft,which would be the result of our desires to create something new and interesting for fans. We had a lot of time to think about it, and we fully committed ourselves to it, knowing exactly what we wanted to see in the next version. That update's creation was no easy path, as we worked in harsh conditions, facing various obstacles, but our team was united and determined to create something great. We knew our fans would support us and look forward to new updates. And we did it! You always stayed with us by responding to our polls and teasers, sharing your ideas, and supporting us in our difficult moments. We feel that we are on the same page with you and we understand each other. Together we are stronger.

Six months into the year, we managed to add some new animations, a bunch of cool scenes, a music room, a couple of character sprites, and other technical improvements - but that was just the beginning. Mid-summer, we announced dramatic changes to our walkthrough, which are still in progress. The main problem is that the changes are very comprehensive, affecting all chapters of the game, and in order to make them, our translators need to completely check the text from scratch, and we are still working on this task, to make the walkthrough more exciting and, of course, more convenient. However, such global changes required us to rewrite more than 70% of the walkthrough which made our work very difficult. But now we can say with confidence that sometime after the New Year we will finish this task. The walkthrough will be available to everyone in PDF, and we hope it will help you get even more into the game. We'll tell you about it later.

Our next task was to add “Sai'mon hints”. For this and other huge tasks we started looking for a new programmer to help implement all of our wishes, and since at around the same time we passed the milestone of $5000 on Patreon, we decided we could afford it. The search was successful, so a new team member joined us at the end of summer. He, of course, had a lot to learn, so the anniversary patch was a little delayed, but it came out very succulent!

Update 0.30 was grandiose - there's no other way to describe it. We added the "1000 Zerg" scene, which everyone loved. We updated the menu with some lively animation, introduced a couple of hot scenes and started working on saves, but then something went wrong… We wouldn't wish to lose their little and faithful friend to anyone, having gone through the experience.. At the end of October, Arthur (head of Shadow Portal) lost his faithful friend - a cat named Zhan. After that, all work stopped and we couldn't get our act together for a while. It's one of those feelings when you realize the players are counting on you, but you just don't have the energy to keep going, you're just shattered…It took us a while to come to our senses, even though it was hard. We announced the next update and continued to work with the understanding that life goes on.

Mid-October, we unveiled a new team logo to "freshen things up" - and guess what? It helped! It turned out to be exactly the medicine that gave us back our fighting spirit and mindset. At the same time we started working on translating our game into several new languages, and on Halloween we presented an incredibly cool art with Sarah and the Zergling, which was highly praised by our fans. But not everything was rosy behind the scenes..

Autumn is a time when we let go of summer and prepare for winter, but for us this fall has been extraordinary because of the constant blackouts. Because of the endless power ourtages that accompanied us throughout the development of 0.31, part of the team was "stunned" and unable to work, but our spirits were strong. Even though we once again matched our record for the number of patches released in a year, we again had to put it off for a short period of time. There was too much at stake and we couldn't release the patch as is.

During these months we worked really hard. We fixed a number of technical problems, reworked the trigger system, improved the save system, updated the main menu, added many scenes and animations. And that's far from everything! We had time left and decided that we would work to the bone, so we began developing our fifth update in a single year. If we manage it, this will be a new record for the whole team.

Update 0.32, the fifth update this year, is coming out in the next few days. We can't express how happy we are to be here and to be able to continue our creativity. Thanks to your support, we were able to surpass ourselves by doing the impossible - stay afloat in all this chaos, and most importantly, achieve unprecedented success. We hope this new update will be the cherry on the cake for your 2022 and compliment your holiday spirit.

Happy New Year, dear players! Soon we'll be coming back with a New Year's present just for you - the 32nd update! 🎄

Dearly yours,

Shadow Portal Team