So it's been just a few weeks since release, and I want to take the time to look back and say thank you. (Warning: I may ramble on about personal life experiences, so feel free to skip to the end if you're here for the competition) I started working on Nepenthe over a year ago, and didn't expect to take more than a week on this weird idea that I had. Oops. A few months later, and I had a growing story, enough to start looking to share it. Nobody outside my family had seen it yet, so I did what every new game developer does: eat a pancake. After that necessary step, I emailed Toby Fox (the developer of Undertale), asking for critique. To my surprise he responded (If you're reading this, thanks for being awesome!), and gave some great advice to boot: make your own art. I was using the default RPG Maker assets at the time, and his criticism was enough to decide to go full-out artist When drawing the art for Nepenthe, I used a single box of Prismacolor Watercolor pencils,a felt-tip pen, and a standard pencil--all on normal printer paper. That's all. I still have the box, and it's only half used up. Make of that what you will, I guess. I scanned the art in, then used Photoshop to edit it for use in-game. A few months later, and the art was all set. I now had a working demo, and wanted to share it with the world. I was sort of broke at the time though, so I set up a Kickstarter project to fund Steam and advertising costs. To my surprise, not only did I get funded, but I made over 600 percent more than asked! This let me focus on getting the full game up and running, and so that's just what I did. I think you know the rest of the story. So now here we are. Without your support, encouragement, and critique, I would never have been able to do this. I would name you all, but that would take up too much room to type in this already giant post. ;) For those who supported financially so I could make this, thank you. For those who found bugs, and told me about them (even if it took a few months to fix), thank you. For those who messaged me, saying how much you enjoyed playing, thank you. For those who messaged me, telling me I'm utter trash--really? What were you thinking? Thank you for caring enough to message me, though. So yeah, um... thank you! As a small way of giving back, I have included a little ARG Alternate reality game ) in the last update. The first person to reach the end of the ARG, and message me the final link (you will know when you find it), will get a free copy of Heartbound , an awesome upcoming RPG by Pirate Software . (Warning: the out-of-game content may be PG-13) Enjoy hunting! :)