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THE BIRTH OF BACKOFSPACE:
Hey Folks,
We've started this journey in July 2021, as a means of me trying to make quick money after leaving the games industry in 2018 bc I felt like social apps were objectifying, depressing, and did not provide real social opportunity. I have this hilarious 'hero' complex which puts me in funny situations.
The birth of BACKOFSPACE came about in June 2021 during the development of dore.app (the solution to social apps). I was told by an excitable and talented ex-colleague in 2021, in the middle of DORE's development, to quickly release an OLDTV DLC get some funding to fund our social app.
So I loaded up the old OLDTV project, and while I was being inventive, I found something.
There was a level I made, all lower case, from 2017. Called 'back of space'. Which was supposed to be the second dlc after COLDTV. Suddenly I remembered technical ideas I had from 2017, and quickly realized I couldn't do this as a DLC to graphically impress people nowadays, so I hit new project, and BACKOFSPACE began with a whole new lore.
You guys know me and I generally don't like doing Early Access, so this was an odd, odd, exception.
What started off as an attempt at just making money quickly, progressively became a way for me to express my feelings about the state of the world. Throughout my whole career I was holding off making any techy games bc I felt like that theme would be too natural for me. I wanted to challenge myself, but my perfectionism disabled me for 7 years (since oldtv) and I was lacking income, so I went ahead and made my first real 'techy' game. And boy was this a marriage I should've explored long ago. It became easy to create outstanding animations and sequences in this theme.
I began to project myself into this story and conceived of star and his lore. People outside the server don't know this, but many of the lines in the game came from my personal life, from milf (a woman who dated me when I was 24 & she was 33) to julie (a toxic ex who couldn't decide whether to be with me or not) to demon (angel investors who wanted to take advantage of me) and oldtv (the old, childish version of myself). Some of those lines are direct quotes. I do infact feel like I'm opposing a world narrative, and I do feel like evidence, science, and truth seeking are globally undermined in the name of a new god, comfort.
I'm not entirely sure I'm a creative as everything I made, from only if to backofspace, is just a personal reflection. And considering that I'm running out of funds while waiting for the legals for this game to complete. I'm going to challenge myself again, and produce something, exceptionally quick, so that I can stop eating left over bread and protein bars from the office's fridge. I can't get loans, and I can't get investment, and I can't spend another year in dev making another game. So, something new is coming quickly, please don't think BOS is neglected. It would break my heart if I pushed bos out too soon for release without proper funding.
One last thing, OLDTV was actually originally completed in Dec 2015. Not July 2017. Turns out I've always had chaotic development cycles. Here's footage of a build none of you played, 2 years before release, and a reminder of how unstable software development can be: https://youtu.be/fCh6NZQVh2s
NEWS:
I want to thank you all for your support and let you know that BACKOFSPACE will be entering a closed state of development starting from the remake of TKV. There will be no more updates until launch.
Important to note that we also will be changing ESCAPISM, THE KARMAN VIRUS, THE SCREAMING MACHINE due to disputes over those tracks in particular.
I'm excited to bring to you a whole new franchise that officially starts with the launch of BACKOFSPACE. I appreciate all of you who have been here since STORM THE STRATOSPHERE.
Let's take the industry by storm, once again.
Vi ses,
River Gandour.