Introduction

Episode 51: Kingdom of the Flies is the final mission of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain that was unreleased as Hideo Kojima - the developer of the Metal Gear series departed from Konami. It was left unfinished and only cut content such as concept art and unfinished footage was shown to the masses.

Parallel

The time has come for me to depart from Android. I’ve spent the better part of 6 years working on Android. It has indeed been a wondrous part of my life in terms of the learning experience and the general fun that I have had with it. I started with working on kernels, then the device side of things and even a touch of platform. It was indeed invigorating and I’ve met a lot of friends along the way as well as enemies.

When I started doing this (and till date), it was by following a single motto: I do what I do because I love doing it, not because I’m paid to, or forced to. This kept me going for the past 6 years and I have always stood by my motto. However, in recent times, Android development has stopped being fun to me. It has become more of a responsibility than something I do in my free time what little it may be. How can I love doing something that feels entirely to be forced? To be perfectly honest, the responsibility was not burdened upon me by the community or anyone else. It was all on my own. I burdened myself with this responsibility partially due to my narcissistic tendencies.

What was originally supposed to be fun, to be treated as a plaything and to help the community became something more. It became more of a job and I simply cannot continue on this path any further. It extracts a heavy mental toll as well as a physical toll. I have to stay up at hours on end, till up to 7AM, 9AM and hell even up to 11AM to do things on Android. It leaves me being exhausted for the rest of the day.

I’ve worked on primarily 3 devices till date. hotdog(g) (OnePlus 7T Pro / 7T Pro 5G McLaren Edition), sunny (Redmi Note 10) and cancunf (Motorola G54 5G). I had a good amount of fun working on hotdog(g) as it was my daily driver at that point in time but sunny was where I learned a lot. I spent the better part of 5 years perfecting sunny. I had a lot of free time 5 years ago to spend on Android. However, I am simply not able to spend as much time as I want to like I did back then as of now. This is essentially due to the fact that I have gotten older and I have been very busy in real life. I do not have the luxury of time to spend on Android anymore. I can’t afford to spend another five years replicating what I did for sunny on cancunf.

I know that I am going back on my word that I’ve said to both sunny and cancunf’s communities where I will support both devices till I die. I suppose I simply did not expect to stop loving what I do. Such is life, I guess? You never know what may change another day.

What happens now?

I will continue supporting sunny, albeit at a much slower pace than before, until perhaps Android 18, after which I intend to archive all my work on it. It has been a great run, but the time has come to move on. I will never forget this community, nor the competition that continually challenged me and pushed me to greater heights. For that, I am immensely grateful. Whatever comes next, a part of me will always remain here.

As for cancunf, Android 17 and fenrir by me will never see the light of day. I refuse to release unfinished work to a community that has been waiting months for it. This is where the parallel with MGSV’s Episode 51 gets resonated: much like the unreleased mission, the community will only ever get a glimpse of what could have been, through the screenshots of Android 17 and fenrir on cancunf shown below.

Phantom Other

What’s next for me?

I intend to work on myself, improve my sleeping schedule, complete law school, play a few games along the way and maybe get into something new or get back on something I used to do before. As Nietzsche once said, You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes? Thus, it is time for me to move on from Android as a whole.

I suppose I have said all that is needed to be said, and I guess this is farewell until the next post.