Hey everyone,
It's been quite a while, so I figured I'd post an update so you guys, and future people who are considering buying the game know what's up. It's a long read, but if you're curious, it's all here.
Current Status of the Game
First off, the game isn't abandoned, but it IS still being shelved for a while. While I love the game, and I really want to finish it, and still plan to, I just can't justify spending another few hundred to a thousand hours (minimum) of my time to get it where I want when there is no increase in income. We are already struggling as is with me spending my freetime and weekends on freelance work and ventures for money. It sucks, but that's how the world works. I have some games and opportunities I've been working on the last year or two that may finally pay off within the next year, and if they do, you better believe I'll finish this game right away. I love this game, and want it done.
Clearing some Confusions on VR
So on another note, some of you have confusion on some things, like what the final game will look like, and some long term bugs like VR. Well, the VR is a simple fix technically, but not in reality. I was unlucky in my timing releasing the last update, when SteamVR itself posted an update that broke VR for tons of games. All I really need to do it update the software in the project, and then it will work. As of right now, it seems to work for like 70% of people. Some unlucky 30% of people don;t have it work, and I have no idea why it's like that for them. One person with a quest 2 can play, yet another person with a Quest 2 can't. We never figured out why those people who can't use VR can't.
But as for actually fixing it, that's harder. I was in the middle of reworking the entire game for the 5th time when I had to stop working on Blackout. So even if it's easy to fix Steam VR, several maps aren't created yet, so the game is literally unplayable until I make several new maps. The old ones are literally gone, so it's literally hundreds of hours minimum to even make it playable to a decent level. I used to have that time, and money to take days off work. I don't anymore, so it's having to wait until I have time and money. Again, some people seem to think it's easy to take days and days off work, unpaid, to make a game, but those people just don't have the experience or conceptualizations to understand the sheer amount of work it takes. But that's why I'm laying the cards out so everyone can know what's going on.
Info on "Story Mode"
The other confusion is about Story mode. That's not a thing anymore, not with the upcoming update and rework to the game. The Original Blackout with Story and Survival mode was going to be about 30 minutes of playtime. A 10 minute gamemode for survival, where you can freeroam the small map, and a short story, about 20 minutes. Obviously, it's not like that anymore. I reworked the game about 5 times, for free, because I had fun making the game and was using it to learn. Survival became a full story by itself, and takes like 4 hours to beat. So the next big rework I was making was going to finalize the merge, making Survival and Story the same thing. I was reworking the first half of the game, one or two map, into like 5 maps. I'm also going to rework Sublab 11 to a higher quality, and add a surface base with three endings. So when I do eventually have the money to take time to work on and finish Blackout, there will only be one mode.
People's Suggested "Fixes"
For those who complain about it, well, the game is about 20x as big as it was ever originally planned to be. For those who say I should just set up a patreon to get funded, well I tried that too, but it's basically a full time job by itself to market it and make it sustainable. I'd need several thousand a month just to be worthwhile to stop my dayjob, which we can't afford. It's a nice thought, but in reality, it's way harder. I know I keep hitting on it, but it all comes down to money, that's the reality of the world we live in, and that sucks. If you're young, make sure to use all that free time you have while you have it. Otherwise you've got to wait til you make enough money to take off where you can pay yourself. Also having kids really eat up your time. It's worth it, but man does it eat your free time.
So what do I plan to do about it?
Well, I have a few irons in the forge that I've been working on for a long time to help make some money. I have a pretty massive big funded game that I've worked on for nearly a year as my day job. It's really cool, and if you like horror, you may like it. It's an asymmetric multiplayer horror with a cool story mode as well. It's made from one of my old games called Outsiders. But that's all I can say until it's fully announced, which is coming soon. Hopefully it takes off, and I can afford to take some days off to work on things like Blackout. I also have another non horror game I'm working on where you clean up stuff, and the world changes around you. Kind of a light survival game, multiplayer with base building and upgrading and stuff. It's just satisfying. But that's slow due to lack of free time. But it's a way smaller and less complicated game than Blackout, so it's actually feasible to get to a playable state, and then maybe funded by a publisher. No publisher will fund Blackout due to the creative commons copyright stuff, so it's the best chance I have if Outsiders doesn't hit the mark. There are also some other opportunities I can follow next year, but they don't quite give as good a chance as these two options. So, that's where I'm at. Doing my best to get the money to take days off so I can make Blackout. I'm down to listen to ideas if you guys have any, though I may have already tried some. Or if any of you have like $100,000 to fund Blackout, I can work on it them. Though 100k is still a low amount, it might be doable.
In the end, the game is already so, so much more than it was ever meant to be, and I'm proud of how far it has come. But I'm also sorry it's stuck in the state it is and I'm unable to work on it. I know I will get back to it, it's just taking a while. If you want more information, feel free to talk to me on discord.
