Once again it has been a little while since any communication has come from us so here's a little update on what's been going on.
Most of you should know what was said in the previous update announcement about why work on the game seemed to have stopped, the problems experienced, the diversion work on a new game "Forest of Evil" which is now fully released, and the plans for going forwards with Hereafter. If not, then please read that announcement first before reading this one.
Well, work on remaking Hereafter from the ground up has been going much slower than desired. Certainly much slower than desired by me as I'm just as impatient as you might be to play more of this game. College classes and Work schedules have limited the amount of time that the artist and coder of the group can work on making the game. However, I personally blame LOL for the slow progress. The coder of the group is addicted to it and it is at the coding stage of the workflow that things are being especially slowed down. Although, it seems that he will be securing a $2,000 scholarship to further his college studies in coding by playing LOL on a special team so I suppose that's some good to come from it.
Still to prove that work is being done, even though slowly, here's some Before and After pictures of some of what's been worked on so far. Please feel free to give us your feedback on the changes. Feedback is always very appreciated! :)
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VERY IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!
I greatly apologize for the lack of communication since shortly after initial launch of HereAfter about 1 and 1/2 years ago. A bit of a catastrophe occurred and at first I didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure what was going to happen. By the time I knew, it had been many months later and traffic concerning HereAfter had essentially stopped, as well no-one had asked about why the game had stalled, so I decided not to say anything until I had some concrete decisions and content to share. [BOD] Lotus_Bear did then reach out to us by making a discussion post and approximately 1 year after initial launch I began posting updates about what had been going on there, but still chose not to post an official announcement. Now that I finally have some concrete decisions and content however, it is time.
Let me first assure to everyone whom it may concern that we have not forgotten about HereAfter and still intend to finish the game. That being said there is indeed a significant reason for why further communication and updates had been stalled for so long.
Directly after the initial launch we were all very enthusiastic about the game and wanted to continue developing it as quickly as possible. About 2 months after the initial launch containing the first 3 levels we had nearly completed the 4th level and were in the final stages of fine-tuning before releasing it to the public on Early Access. Then one day, just as we were about to make a long overdue back-up of the game files to a flash-drive, the computer on which we had been creating the game suddenly crashed. The hard-drive had become unreadable, everything was gone, and we couldn't get the computer to turn back on. The furthest along back-up that we had made of the unity game files at that point was all the way back at the very beginning of making the 4th level; having just the basic background and a couple enemy prototypes. This was a devastating blow to our enthusiasm. Thanks to a computer repair friend and some research online, we were able to recover many of the assets that had been lost for the 4th level. However, most of the scripts were corrupted and would have to be rewritten and everything coding/placement wise for the 4th level would have to be rebuilt essentially from the start. We had lost 2 months of very hard work.
Well, all this caused the programmer/coder of the group especially to feel very depressed and instead of trying to get everything put back together right away, he and the visual artist decided it would be best to take a break from developing the game as the thought of redoing all that work caused them to feel very exhausted and depressed.
It was at this point where I was unsure of what to say because I wasn't sure if they were even going to continue making the game. It was a very uncertain time. After about 1 month of this prolonged break I encouraged them to work on the game again as I really wanted to play more of it and was certain that it wouldn't take them as long to put the pieces back together again as it had to first make the pieces and then put them together; since they kind-of still had the pieces intact but needed to replace and re-code everything. However, despite my encouragement, they still felt very depressed about the whole thing and instead of trying to remake what they had lost they decided that to cure their depression it would be better to begin working on a new, much more simple, much easier to create, game idea that they had thought of during this break. I can't blame them too much as it does feel much better to work on something new rather than redo a lot that you had already done and lost. They assured me that once this new game was completed they would then feel better and continue working on HereAfter, though again I was unsure. By the time I was sure, it seemed unnecessary to make an announcement until something concrete had occurred.
Well, something concrete has finally occurred. We've been more careful about keeping back-ups of unity game files and while their new game idea ended up taking quite a bit longer to develop than they had first intended, it is now finished and posted as coming soon on Steam. Now our second attempt at making a video game, but our first fully complete release. It's called "Forest Of Evil" if anyone wants to check it out.
We've especially had trouble with trying to get Steam Achievements to work which caused us to take about a month longer to release to Steam than we otherwise would have needed to. We still haven't managed to get Steam Achievements to work so if anyone who sees this post knows how it would be very much appreciated if we could get some help with this. Regardless however we are tired of waiting to release it and tired of waiting to resume focus on HereAfter so the new game has been posted and they have assured me that work on HereAfter will finally once again resume.
That being said, it still won't be any time soon that HereAfter will be completed as both the visual artist and programmer have learned a lot through developing "Forest Of Evil" and have come to see that there is much they could improve upon in developing HereAfter. They both say now that they wish they had made the less ambitious game of "Forest Of Evil" first before making "HereAfter" as it would have helped them make HereAfter a much better game. Due to this, they have both decided that they will first upgrade their equipment and then that it would be best to remake HereAfter from the ground up so that they can make a more solid and polished game. While this means that it will take even longer to complete, the end result should be a much better experience.
Another important thing to note is that due to this they have also rethought their decision to make the game free. Currently, the new plan is to leave HereAfter as free until the game is remade up through to the 5th level. After that, the first 4 levels will be used as a free to play demo and the main game will become purchasable for an extreme discount up until full release after which it will become more expensive.
This doesn't mean that those of you who have been waiting this whole time will need to wait further for more HereAfter content however! I discovered a stable save of a game build of HereAfter that we had made and placed onto another computer for testing which has almost the entire 4th level completed! It certainly is not a completed 4th level as you will notice that the further you go the less polished it is and the more things are missing, but it is a playable state of the 4th level and so it has been decided that this build will be uploaded to Steam and remain free so that those of you who have been waiting will be able to see the general direction in which the game is headed until they have remade the game up through the 5th level.
Again I greatly apologize for how things have been and hope that this announcement post provides an adequate explanation for our actions.
First 1,000 Downloads! And Argolas!
We have recently hit 1,000 Steam downloads!ːsteamhappyː According to Steam's stats. THANK YOU so very much everyone who saw our game on Steam and decided to give it a chance so that we could reach this milestone!ːsteamhappyː Maybe someday we could even reach 10,000? Even if it took a few years that'd be pretty cool!ːsteamhappyː And THANK YOU also so very much everyone who has provided us feedback and helped us make our game better!ːsteamhappyː Our game wouldn't become nearly as polished without you!ːsteamhappyː
A wonderful Youtuber named (Argolas) has also become the first Youtuber to post a more or less completed play-through series of what we currently have finished of the game which is something that is equally as special to us!ːsteamhappyː Anyone who doesn't speak Italian might have a little trouble understanding him, but he has subtitles enabled on his videos so I think people of all languages will be able to enjoy his videos!ːsteamhappyː We certainly found his videos of our game to be very enjoyable because of his personality and energy even though we could only understand half of what the subtitles said he said!ːsteamhappyː So if anyone wants to see a more or less completed playthrough of what we have completed of the game so far, which is the first 3 levels, then go checkout Argolas's Youtube channel and maybe even give him a thumbs up if you like the playthrough!ːsteamhappyː
To celebrate these two things we are adding the game's second armor set into the game with this update!ːsteamhappyː It's called the (Stalker) armor and just like the first armor set it also has a special ability. You can find the parts to this armor as drop chance items from a certain enemy. Hmm....which one is it though? I guess you'll have to go around destroying all the enemies in the game to hunt down which one drops the pieces!ːsteammockingː That should give those who have completed the game so far something to do while they wait for the 4th level!ːsteamhappyː
Also in this update we have hopefully fixed the lift glitch that some people were experiencing which caused it to hesitate and not move for a while when first entering the first level. It should now move properly which is constantly except for stopping just a couple seconds at the top and bottom of its movement. Anyone who had this glitch please let us know if the fix worked!ːsteamhappyː
Windowed mode should now also work properly when selected on the Unity launcher; thank you Hikari for bringing this to our attention!ːsteamhappyː
The mouse cursor is now also made invisible when playing the game so that it won't get in the way; thank you Mr Codex for this suggestion!ːsteamhappyː
Keep up that wonderful feedback!ːsteamhappyː Good or bad it helps us continue to polish the game and make it better!ːsteamhappyː
Exit Button and Dialogue Text Changes!
Previously the Exit button on the pause menu was merely intended to exit the pause menu. However, after Mr. Codex brought it to our attention, we decided that it was somewhat redundant since you can exit the pause menu with another button. Therefore it is now a Quit Game button to make exiting the game more convenient!ːsteamhappyː You can still exit the game through the save terminals as well. The dialogue boxes have also been changed to make the names of the characters speaking to you easier to distinguish from the rest of the text. Thank you again GGibbous1256 for your feedback!ːsteamhappyː The names are now bolder, larger, are set on a line above the text so that the text comes under the name, and is color coded green for friend and red for foe! As well as grey for unknown. Also in this update the hammer weapon's damage has been increased from 5 to 6 to make it more special and a few typos have been corrected.
A Few Fixes!
This update fixes a few things we've become aware of and changes a few things. Firstly we decreased the amount of force used by the first boss's arm to throw you so that it should now be impossible for the player to get stuck in the wall by its force. An unintended glitch with the arrow move keys was fixed so you can now properly go down through the line platforms. You always could but we found a glitch which prevented it with the arrow keys. To do so you simply crouch first and then tap the jump key to decend through the line platforms. A visual glitch with the laboratory pest was fixed where an unintended line could be seen above it. The Flying Bones enemy's speed was decreased slightly to make them a little easier to deal with. And the title "Medals:" was added to the pause menu so that it's easier to see where your medal count is. We really appreciate the feedback so keep it up!ːsteamhappyː
Key Bindings Instructions Added!
There is now a key bindings instructions when you press START to begin a new game! A big thank you for the feedback provided by GGibbous1256 and Mr Codex in their reviews! The rest of their reviews is also noted and will be taken into consideration. We had gotten so caught up in playing the game otherwise for testing and were so excited to just get the game on Steam that this particular function which must obviously be in any video game had completely slipped our minds! Thanks again and everyone feel free to send us any feedback you have through our support email, by starting a discussion on Steam, or writing a review. The feedback is very much appreciated! IMPORTANT NOTE: The key bindings appears to save to each individual computer so for this update to work properly you may have to completely uninstall and reinstall the game if you installed the game prior to this update.
