Glad You Found Your Way Here
Who am I, you ask? Jan – Kitsunaki – Kitsu. Take your pick! My two great passions are Game Design and Virtual Reality, and here I'd like to share more about them with you. I've been living in the Ruhr area for years, though I originally come from the Hanover region. But to me, home is wherever there's a good wifi!
This website first came to life in 2012, took on a more streamlined, lilac tone in 2017, and saw a full relaunch in 2025 with the start of KitsuCraft. KitsuCraft is my own little studio, a space where creativity thrives.
Coming
Demonhour
Major update about the future of that spooky VR project...
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Childhood on the Run
Raised on a farm with 400 animals and 160 acres of land.
Much of my childhood was spent at my grandmother's house. Fridays were special—my favorite aunt would stop by for grocery shopping, and we'd dive into gaming marathons on the Game Boy Advance, SNES, or GameCube. My grandmother didn’t understand those “button boxes,” but Aunt Karin loved them as much as I did. I was a shy kid, often escaping into virtual worlds. I’d dream of them, sketch level designs, and even compile tip guides to improve my playthroughs.
The family dynamics were... complex. My father tried to raise me as a farm boy, while my grandmother pampered me, shielding me from much of the family drama. My mother was the complete opposite of my father—chaotic, free-spirited, and unpredictable. She moved out as I was still in daycare and then moved around a dozen times. Sometimes I needed to do detective work to find out where she was living now. She lived in a camper on a nudist campsite for years, and taught me to embrace rebellion.
Fathers side
With my father, things are simple. There’s always been a Köster living in a farmhouse in the countryside of Lower Saxony. The Kösters were known as reliable people, fond of alcohol like most in the village, but that was just rural life! They were honest workers who labored in the fields and knew how to celebrate.
When I went through my family and did some research, I found that my father's side of the family dates back to the sixteenth century, while my mother can't even remember her own grandmother's name. The farm of my ancectors business was dated back more than 300 years ago.
My father took over the upbringing, but my mother accused him of malice. She constantly incited me, and Grandma's protective hand over me also ensured that deep rifts formed. Granny and Mom both agreed on one thing. My father's changing girlfriends were not good at all. In Grandma's opinion, a real country woman belonged on the farm and not a city beauty. My mother simply hated every woman she saw on the farm and picked fights with them. I myself simply did not want to accept a woman in the house who was not my mother.
All of this led to intrigue, violence and madness. Every woman left at some point. Meanwhile, I was so distracted by all the drama that I didn't make friends during my youth, and fled to the Internet and the PC in fantastic worlds. Psychologists have accompanied me since elementary school, sighing at seeing me taking emotional headpats from just computer games.
When I turned eighteen, my behavior drove my father crazy and after a nasty argument I moved in with my grandmother for a while. At that time I simply didn't tell anyone what I thought or felt because I was always afraid that they wouldn't want me around anymore and as a child I was sometimes punished for showing my feelings.
At some point my grandmother got sick and I stayed with her until she passed. Then I had to move out. I moved after my first love, whom I met in internet forums, after many fake relationships online only ended in failure. But the person I fell in love with was having ten affairs at the same time and so I ended up alone in the big city with a broken heart and an empty wallet. I screamed my hatred out on the internet, which is why I remained friendless for more years to come.
Mothers side
While my father and his side of the family were traditional and disciplined, my mother’s side was pure chaos. She introduced me to punky clothes, a fiery attitude, and a knack for defiance. Though her intentions were good, her own troubled childhood always casted a long shadow over her ability to parent properly. She was kicked out at the age of sixteen herself, after a youth of abuse and alcoholic parents. My mother loves pranks, alcohol, swearing, and farting at her husband just to burst into roaring laughter afterwards.
My parents met in a village pub and somehow my mother and her sisters were often visiting the farm afterwards. I have no idea how fire and ice got on and how I came up in the end. I don't know much about the time my parents spent together because both of them just insult each other when asked. I would guess that my father saw something in my mother that she wasn't and she was just his type of woman. My mother was just escaping from her childhood, but a farm is the opposite of an escape. So she found a man who hated society and was also escaping and ran away with him.
Her new boyfriend was a cool guy for me as a child. He had rude sayings, showed me how to pirate films and games and worked as a DJ, did handiwork for neighbors in exchange for pocket money and as a child they even took me to their construction sites, for which they secretly gained black money. Since they lived out of the caravan for over a decade in between, some of my mother's furniture was stored at dad's house. My father always had space. I treated these pieces of furniture like shrines because they were mementos of my mother, who always seemed to be on the go and unreachable and who I always missed, even though she sometimes didn't answer the phone for months at a time. It turned me crazy.
At some point I tried to get to know my mother's aunts and her own mother. My father cursed this endeavor and forbade me. He said he would shoot this woman if she dared to enter the yard. I spoke to my aunts on the phone and even met one of them on a walk, where she told me something about the terrible circumstances of their childhood. My godmother refused to contact. She didn't want to feel responsible for me. I began to understand some of the backgrounds.
Torn between moments in which my mother threatened to commit suicide and said that I should look after her when she was lonely in old age and moments in which she kicked my travel bag out of the moving car after she had another mud fight with one of my father's girlfriends, I grew up so eccentric that the lax childhood friends slowly evaporated and I only lived on the internet.
My father's siblings saw me as a parasite because I didn't fit into family life, I was defying my father's will. I remember that my favorite aunt's husband wouldn't let me stay at auntie's place anymore as long as I continued to resist my father. I felt unwanted and was told so. Even my grandmother - my main caregiver - said that my father and mother should never have met because she was never the right one for him. But then I wouldn't be there either.
Well, and my mother ran away from us when I wasn't even in elementary school. My eccentric behavior also meant that as a teenager I didn't go to parties, didn't have relationships, didn't do the classic things that teenagers do. Feeling unwanted and on my own was my constant mojo throughout my youth.
Come to my Twitch!
On mondays and fridays I usually stream roleplays, spooky things, VR or whatever comes onto my desk! Usually I stream in German - my native tongue. That doesn't stop me from talking in English whenever I am adressed in English!
You can also take a look into the header. My social media is linked there!
Moving out!
Finding who I am in the city.
When I finally moved away and settled in the Ruhr area, I slowly began to rebuild. I didn’t spiral downward. Well, on the long term. I vented my frustrations on YouTube, which led to massive drama within subcultures I slipped into, quickly turning me into a questionable local celebrity. So I withdrew again and turned to psychotherapy after quitting an apprenticeship amidst depression and family conflicts.
Every weekend was a party, and I rarely knew whose bed I’d wake up in the next morning during that time. Meanwhile, the overwhelming flood of negative emotions from my childhood covered my sense of self and the light of the world turned into a dull, gray veil of fear and ash from the battlefields of my childhood. It took a few years, a broken sleeping schedule, some drug experiences...
I tried various paths, including some frustrating experiences with government job programs and lots of internships, but my passion for game design remained a constant. Eventually, I caught the attention of a game studio that recognized my talents. What had once been a hobby and escapism became my profession and my purpose.
During an internship, I attended the Frankfurt Developer Days, where I missed a talk by Björn and Jenny. However, we ended up meeting at a small local convention and got to know each other. Over the years, we became friends. We sang karaoke together and often hung out at the local creative network or in gothic bars. The community of creative friends we built there remains close to this day, and we organize annual short vacations together. Björn and Jenny are still good friends, and they were the ones who guided me into the industry.
Unfortunately, the creative hub was restructured during the pandemic, and we never felt at home there again, which caused the group to drift apart a bit. However, new people joined us over time, through Twitch and connections at industry parties, and the core stayed close to this day.
At first I was too dangerous for them to hire. I was a loud, cheeky hobby streamer who attracted drama. That's how I must have seemed. So for that reason they didn't take me on at first and instead I spent three years studying to be an IT assistant and also traveled to Scotland and Greece for further training. All of that grounded me a little.
Topics on sub pages
Homecoming
Living live.
I moved out of my dumpy apartment to a nicer area and used the money from my first job to finally reach a point where I had everything I wanted. I digged into Virtual Reality as Corona time hit us all and as another partnership crashed in drama, I rather concentrated on job and hobbies from then on. Maybe the turmoil of my childhood made me unsuitable for a relationship? That what was I thought.
Then, the studio I worked for shut down, and a new chapter in my life just began. It ended ugly with false promises, mutiny and sad drinking nights while we waited for the takeover that never came. I don’t know how the plot of this chapter will unfold, but I definitely have better starting conditions than I did in previous ones! Where the employment office once blocked me when I pitched game design, they now support me with courses in game engines and 3D artistry, after they witnessed me working there for years now.
The subculture I once turned to in order to fill my emotional void has welcomed me back. People still remember the drama from nearly a decade ago, but I’ve been rehabilitated and have made friends there. We all grow up eventually. Through my works in VR and my large presence in many communities, while also being involved in some projects on a voluntary basis, I have created a far-reaching international network in this subculture.
Over the last years I also found new stability in my hometown. After more than a decade we finally had a Christmas dinner with family at father's place again. My father is single again and no longer believes in relationships - what unites us. I haven't visited my hometown as much as I did last year since I moved out and no serious drama has outlasted to this day.
A big argument in my childhood was that I wouldn't take over the farm. I would break tradition and our legacy would be buried with me. But while my stepmother left my father, her son stayed and now lives in Grandma's former house. He will take over the farm and we get on well. He's a brother now. Thanks to this outcome and years of distance and relaxation, peace has been restored. We certainly don't agree on everything, but everyone lives their own lives.
I visited my mother five years after my childhood in a new wooden hut that she lived in at the time. At that time, I already felt a certain separation and that I had outgrown her philosophy of life. It has been almost seven years since that last visit and the pandemic has put a stop to our contact. Now we are stuck in an uncomfortable silence that no one can break. I have slowly come to realize how much my mother played a role in the rifts of my childhood, but I am not angry. I just don't know which foot to move towards her first to avoid tripping.
Today
Today i am a freedom-loving nerd with a curious mind and a drive to create. While the scars of the past remain, I’ve found my way, found peace and also thive in the worlds I build and the stories I tell now. Through KitsuCraft, I’m bringing my dreams to life.
Our past makes us what we are today and today I sit back and am, all in all, a steeled and joyful person. That's why I nod and make piece with my past, however absurd the individual anecdotes may be. The craziest stories are written by life itself.
My story is certainly not the happiest, but what exciting story begins with "And everything was fine in the beginning?" (except Old Testament) Who has always had everything perfect? I could have had it worse, I could have had it better. Nevertheless, we can all blossom as adults and all of us beautiful flowers in the field; our roots are all in the dirt somewhere, aren't they?
