The Plague Post

What’s up everyone?

It feels as though every company that’s ever obtained my contact details has sent me an email recently entitled ‘our response to the Covid-19 crisis’, acknowledging ‘the strange times we live in’, so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon!

Welcome to the ‘Sentenced VR’ ☢️-- C o v i d - 1 9 --☢️ update.

I write this to you from my flat in Battersea, London, where I’m currently under lockdown along with the rest of the world. It’s just me and my flatmate, day after day. My computer is now the center of my life, though this statement was arguably true even before I was confined to quarters.

I’m still working full time from home at Framestore. As a result, I don’t have a huge amount of extra free time, aside from the hour or two I used to spend commuting. But I’m still getting paid, so I know I’m one of the lucky ones. My days consist of working, playing video games, painting miniatures, and cycling around Battersea park, which is beautiful this time of year as the Cherry blossoms bloom with the start of spring. My social life consists of movie dates, phone calls and online roleplaying games.

Since my last post I’ve been diagnosed with a heart condition called HCM (Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy). This involves my heart muscle being thickened in the left ventricle for no apparent reason, allowing less blood to enter the heart and therefore less to be pumped, causing a variety of unfortunate symptoms such as heart failure. As such I’m making extra effort to isolate myself, as I’m at a somewhat increased risk from the virus. I’ve got a big heart, what can I say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Game-wise, I’ve spent the last nine months working hard to save up funds for developing Sentenced. I’ve enough now to hire voice actors, but I’m waiting to see how the situation evolves with the pandemic before actually taking the financial plunge. No new films being shot means no new VFX work down the line, so it seems pretty likely that there will be a dry spell with work later in the year. Therefore I need to plan carefully to make sure I have enough saved to see me through potential hard times.

So, like much of the rest of the world I find myself twiddling my thumbs and waiting to see how things turn out. It’s my hope that some good will come from all this, and people will recognise the value of the public institutions and key workers who are keeping our civilization from collapsing right now. I sincerely applaud the NHS, health workers, care workers, service staff, civic employees and others from the bottom of my heart.

Until next time,

Keep it weird (and stay indoors),

Samuel