Hello again to another Letter from the Producer number. Gee, which is it now? Oh right, VI!
I know it's been quite awhile since we've last had an update, especially after we said that we were going to keep bi weekly updates. I feel as though we owe everyone an explanation to the past, and current situation here at Fenrir Studios.
Several months ago we unfortunately parted ways with the lead animator on our team who has been with us from the start, while losing our most trusted and best animators at the time all around the same week. This took a heavy blow on our progress as we felt that we simply couldn't release anything with the current state of the animations. As we dived into the back log and behind the scenes work on our animations we realized several things needed to be re done, and the background technicalities of the animations needed much more work. This has been a grueling and timly process, one of which we are happy to say is finally over. With that out of the way, and a new host of animators on our team we are once again fixing and polishing our animations to be ready to be shown, and something to show we certainly will come the end of Oct.
Nearing the end of October we will have a polished and working section of the game ready to show, test, and demo. This means that for the first time ever we will have a large section of the game ready to be played which we will be passing too youtubers, and a select few people who have been chosen over a year ago to play test our game early. We may in the coming month pass this application out one more time.
With that being said there have been several major changes to the game as a whole. These changes were thought over, and considered heavily before we made the final decision. They were tough calls to make but unfortunately due to the situation our team has been in from the start they were simply calls we had to make and just bite the bullet.
The first major change is the cutscenes. Due to the state, and small team of animators we've had, and the difficulties recruiting animators who can animate and put the required time into the project we've had to change how the cutscenes will be played out. Instead of being a cutscene as you'd see in a game similar to ours, instead we've opted for a more artistic approach. Our cutscenes will consist of picture stills that can show more feeling and emphasis on the situation than our current skills in animations could ever do. It was a tough call, but we felt that this was simply the best route we could take given the time and ability our animators have.
A second major change is the removal of a few area's in our game. These are sections we've never shown or had completed entirely, and were side quest and side route area's that led you away from the main action. Due to the unfortunate time constraint, and complications we've ran into over the years and our release date to be towards the end of this year, and not be pushed back yet again, we've felt that the best course of action would be to cut these area's from the game. Make no mistake, our game is still very large and lengthy, and I doubt anyone would have noticed anything was cut if I hadn't mentioned it. However, to stay true to our word, that we are transparent, truthful, and overly honest I feel its only right to let those who are most interested in our game know the best, and even the worst of the situations.
Once our initial release of the demo is live, and our current mill grind towards the release is over, we will once again resume giving bi weekly updates on both the VR Missions (Is not a VR headset Game), and Dark Storm Ascension.
Once again, thank you for taking interest in our game Dark Storm Ascension. Our team is working over-time, and extra hard to release a Demo we feel people will enjoy and like. Please stay tuned these next two months for more updates, and announcements concerning the release and a possible chance to be an internal tester for the game!
Sincerely,
Isaac Cudd
Assistant Producer