Dear Insane Children,
First off massive apologies for the delay since the last update. Things around here have been rather hectic as I’ve tried to sort out plans and strategies for how we might deal with this coronavirus outbreak both with regards to my family and our various projects.
After much consultation with family, friends and experts it was decided that I should stay in Thailand until this situation resolved itself a bit more. And that I should not try to return to China for fear that I might be thrown into quarantine or be unable to return to Thailand for the start of pirate Jam in March. After making that decision I needed to rush around to extend my Visa and make other plans and preparations for an extended stay. Hence the delay in updates.
Given that the virus seems to be spreading also here in Thailand and that there are a lot of Chinese tourists that come into contact with the marina where I keep my sailboat I decided to evacuate from the marina and head out onto the water where I feel I’ll be a little bit safer.
I’m currently on my way to a remote Northern Island where I think I’ll be able to settle down, get access to fast internet, and hopefully get some work done.
For those that are unaware this virus outbreak seems to be quite severe and possibly even growing in severity. Across China literally the entire country is on quarantine which means that families are locked within their homes and avoiding any sort of contact with the outside world. My family, Yan and Lucky and her mom are, like everyone else, hiding indoors until the government gives the okay to emerge again. The current official schedule is that people will resume work on the 10th of February. And that schools will reopen on the 17th of February. So you might imagine that in a country of 1.3 billion people the entire population being told they are not allowed to go outside or return to work until the 10th of February is pretty serious. And we’re now hearing rumors that that date may be extended by another 7 to 10 days in an effort to contain what appears to be a virus that spreads from person to person without any visible sign of the person who spreading it even being infected.
I won’t go into further detail here suffice to say I am very worried about my family and about my friends and about everyone back in China. I am uncertain if staying in Thailand is indeed the correct decision here but that decision has been made and there are no more flights for me to get on to go back home anyway. So I will be keeping an eye on the situation and updating everyone here as time allows. I expect to arrive at my destination in about two days time at which point I should be able to download new artwork from the team and provide you with some updates on Alice Asylum and our other projects.
One positive side effect of the situation is that I’ve had plenty of time out here on my own to ponder the story that were working on and the game design that we’re building. And so I’ll be collecting together notes and integrating that into the design and work that we’ve been doing so far. Just trying to find a little silver lining in the midst of all of this apocalyptic Doom.
And I don’t know whether it is a sign or what but I find it darkly amusing that the logo I chose to put on my boat looks very much similar to the shape of the coronavirus itself. I guess that’s what Carl Jung would have called synchronicity.
From Chaos with Love,
American