I congratulate all the users and followers of the Depression on the first anniversary of Deep Russian Depression!

Despite the hardships and doubts that constantly hover over all of us, the development of the game continues thanks to your belief in our cause. The second year of Deep Russian Depression begins today, and it will bring new perspectives for many of us. Stay tuned for updates so you don’t miss what awaits us this year.

As promised, today we will answer the questions that were asked.

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Such things happen in life — it's the human factor. I miscalculated the time Valve would need to review Deep Russian Depression, which is why the full release of the game on February 24, 2024, was delayed. Since I’m a bit obsessed with beautiful numbers, the next beautiful date for the game’s release is February 28, 2028.

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Yes, possibly. If the long-awaited cessation of hostilities on the territory of Ukraine happens soon, Russian banks will be reconnected to SWIFT, which will allow receiving money transfers from Valve for game sales on Steam.

However, I'm not entirely sure whether the agreement to avoid double taxation between the US and Russia is currently in place. If this agreement has been suspended, I’ll have to pay a 30% tax on the game’s price in the US and 13% in Russia, which is unacceptable. Having such an agreement between the countries is a mandatory requirement for Deep Russian Depression to be sold.

Therefore, if both conditions are met, the game will quickly be available in Early Access on Steam. Otherwise, the game will be released on February 28, 2028.

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Such an opportunity is available to the forty-eight people who received activation keys for the game before the event Bissextus (2024). This giveaway was an exceptional event and my compensation for all those who eagerly awaited the game’s release and showed activity in the community hub .

Such giveaways will not be held anymore, but not because I’m reluctant to give out keys, but because I need people to buy the game through Steam, thus bringing us closer to the most important goal — deleting the "Limited Features" tag, which will allow adding Steam cards, emoticons, stickers, and backgrounds related to Deep Russian Depression.

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Of course! Against the backdrop of recent news about the success of the $TRUMP coin and the meme Belarusian bank "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated" I’ve been casually thinking about the prospects of creating Deep Russian Depression Coin.

However, I and many readers are far from the world of cryptocurrencies and don’t really understand it, so don’t expect any coin to be released anytime soon.

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You probably know that our modern youth is obsessed with anime. Obviously, games in the anime style attract more attention than similar ones made in a photorealistic style. Two years ago, when neural networks were just starting to infiltrate our everyday lives, I, filled with interest in this new technology, decided to experiment with Stable Diffusion and was pleased with the results. Since the previous cover images for the game in the store seemed a bit dull to me, it was decided to create new ones using Stable Diffusion, but this time in the anime style.

The community had mixed reactions to this change: many of the loyal users unsubscribed from the game’s updates, but in their place came new ones — the very anime lovers I mentioned earlier. I believe I made the most successful decision: the game started attracting more attention, which positively affected important metrics on Steam. Also, the cover image was added to the collage on the game’s main page during the Steam Next Fest: February 2024 Edition, which further confirms the correctness of this decision.

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The main issue is that I don’t have a talent for music and visual arts, but I also can’t trust someone else with this. I still have some free time to master the necessary skills, as well as neural networks that can help me create quality images and audio files.

I have a few advisors and testers, but they are not directly involved in the creation of Deep Russian Depression.

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No, I didn’t have to take courses or read hundreds of articles. Of course, I read some thematic guides, but they were far fewer than a hundred. It’s important to note that Deep Russian Depression is not my first project on RenPy, so the mistakes typical for beginners are a thing of the past.

Writing code for a visual novel is not that difficult, considering I have guides created by the years of effort from the RenPy community, as well as two assistants: ChatGPT and DeepSeek. Writing the actual novel itself is much more challenging, given my high standards for any text I plan to publish.

Sometimes, I get this obsessive thought that I have no right to tarnish the Russian language and this genre with my mediocre writing and the equally mediocre meaning embedded in it. My dilemma is that I have a huge aversion to my own prose, yet readers and like-minded people find it excellent, and at worst, just "not bad."

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No time to answer this question.

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No, at the moment all information about Deep Russian Depression is published only in the game’s community hub, as everything is in one place, which is very convenient for both users and me.

There’s also another important reason: I don’t like online platforms that require phone number registration, including Telegram.

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