Nominations are up!

Whats up?

I understand the game isn't released yet which is why I don't expect many of you to vote on the game or nominate it for an award but I'm posting an announcement for two reasons, first I wanted to remind others the game still exists in-case it's been forgotten and secondly, I wanted to update on what's going on with the whole demo build for all. I wanted to start off by apologizing about the lack of recent progress as life is getting extremely busy. Today I have an essay to write in social studies and 10 chapters of a book I was supposed to read a week ago, like you all, I sometimes forget I'm just in highschool myself.

WHATS TAKING SO LONG!!

My mind tends to torture me when I don't get as much work done as I'd wish to have most days and in result I stay awake at night thinking what outlash the community will give me when December 14th comes and the game isn't exactly out. I promise you the game will come over time and it's certainly not going to be cancelled, but I do believe in the past I mentioned that school was going to slow down the process a ton when it started back. Come the second quarter I've found myself swamped in all of my classes and work. When I'm not at school I'm attending an FTC Robotics team (Bondbots 8527) as the lead programmer which even there comes with thousands of challenges. Again, I want to elaborate on this game is CERTAINLY not being cancelled. I'm going to delay the game until I have an accurate understanding on how much work really needs to go in to the game.

So whats the goal

My goal is to have a triple A title under the name of a 15 year old child. A title that I can brag to about colleges showing how accomplished and determined I am. However what I need to work on is balancing my time between both. As a normal sophomore student I tend to need a break from life and watch tv or work on side projects to clear my mind. I'm not going to lie, even doing this I feel as if I'm letting a lot of you down. However I'm afraid to tell you that at this point I don't have a full game ready to be released by December. What I will have by December is a decent beta test for all of you to know what you're getting into before you play the game. The chances are it won't be what you were expecting, but it'll give you at least an idea of what to expect. In all honesty, I would have a lot more done if I didn't spend as much time simplifying and easing out the game in a way in which everyone could just pick it up and play it. A good few months were used in making the game more obvious than long and I'm still working on that to this day.

Whats up with the beta?

I've had a set date of releasing the beta build sometime around December 1'st, this friday. However at this time I thought I'd have more done. What you'll all be seeing is what I've shown many of my private beta testers throughout the last few months. It's nothing too exciting but you will get a sense of a lot of things I've been working on. When releasing the beta, assuming steam accepts it, you will probably get a 5 minute experience assuming you play it slowly and try to get a feel for the game. My number one hope is that you understand how early this is (and how badly I messed up the date), but also that you guys suggest fixes for every broking feature that's in this simple beta. Fixing it sooner, rather than later, will give me the pitch perfect assets to copy and paste in the later missions. Also when you're playing this, realize that all of this is not just a small game but a bunch of systems and features that will never need to be implemented again. Once all of this is completed, I get to work on mission after mission and building a completed story.

My greatest fear

Again, I fear greatly that a lot of this will just come with outlash from the community but I’m hoping more than ever that instead of sending harsh remarks I'll get a series of harsh criticism on everything that needs to be fixed, along with the things that work and the things that need to be fixed. More then likely I'll be updating the beta build more so than anything else to get a clearer understanding on what it is people want from this came come release. Whenever I need to test new features I'll update the beta rather then the closed beta allowing me to see what you guys really want to see.

Other projects?

Earlier I also mentioned small projects that I wanted to work on outside of this to keep my mind clear and not as stressed out over everything relating to Darkness and a Crowd. I do have a few more private creations of mine but I'm working very hard on getting another project public. Of course Darkness and a Crowd comes first giving its progression and importance, but this other idea is so, so, so much more simple to work with. With this project I’m using a total of 3 scripts for simply just the gameplay, and it works beautifully to accomplish what I want, along with showing how much I've improved in programming over the years. The following will briefly describe Color Bust. While I explain the game, dont assume im procrastinating, because if I worked on Darkness and a Crowd non-stop, I would go beyond insane.... But if you're interested in other things I'm capable of and probably will be posting to steam in the future, I hope you find this concept interesting...

Color Bust

Copied directly from the itch.io page: ColorBust is a puzzle simplistic puzzle platformer turned into a nightmare. The gameplay and character elements most closely relate to that of super meat boy with its fast paced platforming strategies however its incorporated with a color system forcing you to switch between colors while jumping from platform to platform, avoiding all possible dangers along the way. Dangers from spinning objects of opposite colors or turrets shooting items forcing you to switch your gravity. The game will have you screaming in anger yet still slightly amused and willing to try at it one more time to get past each individual challenge along the way.

What happened?

I hope this wasn’t too much and I can't stress enough how worried I am reviewing what I’ve said. I am still very excited to show off to the world what Darkness and a Crowd can and will be and I couldn't do this without you all supporting me every step of the way. I do deserve some bit of backlash giving I’ve had so long to get this done but honestly the marketing pitch was a simple physics based puzzle game that I’ve turned way bigger than it needed to be. Simply check the greenlight page lmao.

In conclusion

I’m excited to show the world what this will be and I can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say about what you want to see in the final product. Any advice counts and I’ll certainly award those who are active in the community. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for you all and I can’t wait to show you what’s to come. I have an idea for a main city hub and a looting system, but we’ll see what happens and what the programming gods want. I don't want my first game to be a throw away and I'm certainly not going to publish something I’m not yet proud of or would play myself. I have high standards for this game and I won't accept anything less than perfect. Thank you all SO MUCH in advance! Seth Albertus