I hope you all enjoy this holiday season and that you're able to spend quality time with some people you care about. Thank you for being a fan of Leaving DNA and a great big thank you for everyone who has supported me by purchasing the game on Steam this year! --The Impious Monk

Hello everyone. I'm sorry I didn't post a progress report in November. I keep thinking I am almost done with the episode and so my original intention was to postpone the report for just a short period so I could announce a release date. Unfortunately, these last few scenes I've been working on have just ended up being much bigger than I expected them to be, so that short postponement turned into a month, and yet I still can't announce a release date. While Episode Four has taken me longer to finish than I expected, I have been working hard over the last ten months. Episode Four will be big and will have significant story progress. I hope once it's released you will feel it was worth the wait. At this time I've finished over 3,300 still renders for Episode Four. Compare that with 1,896 renders for Episode Three, 2,536 renders for Episode Two, and 1,705 renders for Episode One. I've also finished rendering 45 animations and Sandem is hard at work on posing the last batch. I will keep you posted on my progress. Thank you for your patience. --Monk

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Hello, just a quick note to let you know I'm still working on Episode Four. At this time there are over 2100 post-worked renders and ten new animations. By my estimate there is over two and a half hours of new gameplay so far. By comparison, my estimates were 2 hours for Episode One, 3 hours for Episode Two, and 2.5 hours for Episode Three. I still have a lot of work to do before Episode Four will be ready. (The attached image is not an in-game render, just something I made for this post.) Thank you for your patience! --The Impious Monk

There is still quite a bit of work left to be done on Episode Four. At this time I've posed, rendered, and done post-work on roughly 1,450 still renders. I've been working on Episode Four for almost six months (since the end of February, 26 weeks ago) for an average of 55 renders per week. That's not as much as I would like, but there is good progress being made. I've also set up the episode's first lewd scene and I'm just waiting for the animator to get time in his schedule to pose the animations. Please keep in mind that I work on this game in my spare time--I have a full-time career and other personal responsibilities as well. In case you are wondering if I'm making enough money to quit my job and do game dev full-time, the answer is that Leaving DNA will never be successful enough for me to do that. It's a niche AVN with limited appeal, and frankly I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and already have a good career, so quitting my job to work on this full-time isn't realistic. If you're wondering about the financial success of the game, I've sold about 8,500 copies of the game on Steam and Itch and I've had Patreon and SubscribeStar pages up for two years. After those businesses take their cut, I've grossed about $7,500 from Patreon and SubscribeStar and about $52,000 from Steam and Itch. After subtracting state and federal taxes and my own financial investment in the game, including two high-powered desktop computers, thousands of dollars worth of 3D assets, paying the animator, and other smaller costs like an Adobe subscription, music rights, and energy bills, that number whittles away pretty fast. My best estimate is that I've probably profited maybe $10K at this point. So, $10K so far for over two and a half years worth of work, which generally takes place at night after I'm already exhausted from my full time job and on weekends. Based on the thousands of hours I've put into the game, that probably works out to something like getting paid $2-an-hour for my work. And I live in Los Angeles where $2-an-hour isn't jack shit. This isn't me complaining--on the contrary, I didn't make Leaving DNA because I thought it would make me money, I made it because I wanted to tell a story. Any money I've made has been a happy bonus, and overall I've been very pleased with the community's response to the game. I bring these numbers up first to emphasize that quitting my job to work on this game full-time isn't realistic. Even with the advanced progress I could make on the game by working on it full-time Leaving DNA just won't ever sell as well as some other AVN's, and I could never come close to a sufficient income replacement to quit my job. The other reason I bring it up is because some dumbass a few weeks ago called me a milker. Comments like that are based on a lack of knowledge and incorrect assumptions, so I'm putting these numbers out there to establish a few facts. I promise you there is no person on Earth more motivated and eager for Leaving DNA to be finished than me. I want very much to finish telling this story and to share it with everyone who has supported me over this period. When I started working on the game, I thought it would be a two-year project. It has been very disappointing to me that the game has taken as long as it has, but I remain very motivated to complete it. Progress is not as fast as I would like, but quitting this project has never entered my mind. I am very aware and appreciative of everyone who has pledged ongoing support on Patreon and SubscribeStar, and of everyone who has purchased the game outright on Steam and Itch. You have my word that I am still working hard on the game every day. I do give weekly updates to my Patreon/SS supporters and I can always be reached easily through Discord or email. No one should ever worry that progress on the game has halted or that I have stopped communicating about what I'm up to. As I said, there are approximately 1,450 renders finished so far for Episode Four. By comparison, Episode One contained 1,705 renders (and took nine months to publish), Episode Two contained 2,536 renders (nine months to publish), and Episode Three contained 1,895 renders (seven months to publish). I can't tell you exactly how much more work there is left for Episode Four, but I believe I am past the halfway mark. However, work on Episode Four will continue for a period of months. Thank you for your support, your understanding, and your patience. --The Impious Monk

Hello Steam. My plan is to post a quick update once a month-ish just to let the community know I'm still working on the game. It's not possible for me to give you an ETA yet for Episode Four, unfortunately--it am still months away from being done. But I am working hard on the game. Here is a cool render of Future Samurai Malena saving a Japanese village from some alien invaders.

Did you know that as of Episode Three, Leaving DNA has six lewd scenes? That's right! I thought I'd mention that since I'm still seeing lots of reviews either on Steam or elsewhere saying there are no lewd scenes in the game. Four of those scenes happen in the story, two of them are available through the Extras menu. Of the four story scenes, three of them involve the MC and an LI, while one of them is a solo scene for one of the LI's. The early lewd scenes in the story are a bit controversial, as they aren't exactly handed to the player on a silver platter. Unlike the lewd scenes we'll get to in the later chapters, which can mostly be reached by normal AVN choices like simply showing interest in an LI, the earlier scenes require the player to make certain choices by correctly predicting how an LI will react. If you've played through the game and you haven't unlocked any of those scenes, check out the free "Official Guide to the Love Interests" which is available both on the game's Steam hub and under Guides on the community page. Fortunately, even if you miss the game's early lewd scenes, this won't prevent you from unlocking the lewd scenes that come later in the game as the MC forms true romantic connections with each LI. There are also a total of three bonus Dream scenes, two of which contain lewd content, which are accessible through the Extras menu. If you haven't clicked on the Extras menu (from the main menu screen) you're missing out on the Dream scenes, which you unlocked after each of the first three episodes, and a bunch of special renders you've unlocked. Plus you can watch replays of the story lewd scenes you've unlocked. Thank you to everyone who has purchased the game! I am still several months away from finishing Episode Four, but I have about 800 renders finished and I am working on it every day. --Monk

Hello, just a note to let you know I am still working on Episode Four. There is still a lot to do and it will be several months before it is finished. This render of Malena was a scene test that I didn't end up using, but I liked the render enough to share it with you here. --Monk

Hello Steam community! Leaving DNA launched in early access one month ago. Thank you to everyone who purchased the game! And an even bigger thank you for those who left nice reviews! A lot of you will be wondering about how long until Episode Four is released. Episodes One and Two of Leaving DNA were each in development for about nine months. Episode Three was in development for seven months. So you should expect that it will take several months to release Episode Four. I do work full time at another job and work on Leaving DNA in my spare time. I work very hard on the game, but I only have so many hours in the day, so I will ask you to be patient while Episode Four is in development. So far I've rendered the first couple of scenes of Episode Four, and also Sandem is in the middle of redoing the animation of Jamie and the teddy bear from Episode One. That's the only animation in the game I did myself (before I hired Sandem) so he's going to improve the motion and also expand the animation a bit. If you ever want to reach out the best way is through my Discord! --Monk

Hey everybody, just a quick message to let everyone know that I am on schedule to release Leaving DNA on Steam in early access on March 7th. This early access version of Leaving DNA will feature Episodes One through Three (eight episodes planned) and feature 75,000 words of dialogue and over 6,000 renders for seven hours+ of content. Leaving DNA is an adult visual novel with dark themes. It is story-driven with a mature, engaging plot supported by strong dialogue and character development. In-game choices impact both the main character's relationship with the people around him and his own internal journey of growth and change. It does contain some graphic sex scenes, but the adult content in Leaving DNA is not the primary focus of the game. Thank you for wishlisting the game, I really appreciate your interest and support! --The Impious Monk