Hello! I know I've been rather quiet, and haven't updated the page much since I first created it. The truth is, despite Dark Winter being a small mission pack, I haven't had that much time to work on it as of late. Below is my explanation on the delay, and warning, it goes a bit into personal stuff. If you want to skip past all of that I've segmented things and you can just skip to the delay itself and the small amount of in-game updates I do currently have that I can give.
Why is a delay needed?
To give some context on why this is I suppose I should take a dive into my mindset when I first started working on Dark Winter. In early October I wanted to become more accustomed to the HL1 toolset. I already have J.A.C.K. on steam from when I was doing small Quake experiments so I knew I had the tools needed. The issue, though, was that I noticed the very large, very plentiful amount of HL1 mods already on the 'market'. Many way better than anything I could do at my current skill level. This is when I started looking at other GldSrc games that I could possibly make maps for. That's when I stumbled across Deleted Scenes. I game which I have recently played, enjoyed, and realized didn't have as active as a modding scene.
In the beginning this was just a way to give myself a portfolio piece to work on, something for the winter. I want to be a level designer at some point, and one of the ways I wanted to prepare myself for that is designing levels for the games that I enjoy, this being one of them. After some time though it would become something... different. Late October, the 26th, some unexpected health issues occurred with one of my parents -- my dad. A lot was going on, we didn't exactly know what it was but we knew it was bad. That was the moment that this started to become less of a 'level-design portfolio project' and more of a 'distraction'. A way for me to take my mind off of things while working on something I enjoyed.
And to give it credit, it did exactly that. I've had fun with this project, I'll probably continue to enjoy working on it, and it helped take my mind off of things just as I intended to. I did make progress on the missions like I wanted. But for all of the help and comfort this project gave... things still got worse in my personal life. While writing this, the future seems -- uncertain -- with my dad. He's still in the hospital and it looks like all routes of recovery have been tried and haven't worked. Unless something unexpected or a miracle happens, it's not looking good. It's just scary -- it feels claustrophobic -- I don't fully know how to feel right now. Because of that even though this is my 'comfort' project I can't fully work on it right now, it's all just too much. So, I probably won't hit my winter or early 2024 deadline. But, I still plan on finishing it. I started this, and I'm going to see it through.
Delay and Update Images
If you've read this far -- thank you, if you've skipped to this point that's fine too, I understand. TLDR; Dark Winter is being delayed to mid-late 2024. It'll still be finished, but I have to take some time away, and that pushed the release back quite a bit. Nevertheless, I want to share the things I have been working on.
1- Mission #2, "Black Friday":
In "Black Friday" the player is tasked with helping to rescue a major political figure who has been taken hostage in a mall, set right before Black Friday (hence the name of the mission). The issue? During the start of the mission the player also got captured by the terrorists and must navigate the mall without alerting the guards to the fact that you've escaped, gear up, and take the operation out from the inside while escorting the leader out of the mall.
The idea for this mission and the setting were mostly because I think malls are a neat area and location to explore in games, and, I thought a mission with the backdrop of a mall decorated for Christmas and Black Friday is a nice one. Even with the fighting going on inside. This isn't a complete stealth mission, I'll be the first to admit those are my least favorite type of mission in games. It starts as a stealth mission and turns into a more standard one half-way through.
2- HUB, "Mission Control":
The HUB in Dark Winter, or 'mission control' has also seen some changes. I made the area a little bit more explorable and added the ability to choose multiple missions. The area is still very basic, and, in early stages. All the player can really do is press the buttons to start each mission but it's a start and it works for now as a mission selector. My plan is to expand upon it and keep making it even more interactable. My goal with the HUB is for it to almost be like the 'Carrington Institute' in Perfect Dark. A nice area the player can explore in-between missions.
The End
Thank you for reading this far! This has been a... hard update to make, but, I wanted to give some explanation to the radio silence on my end and, notify people who are following this project that it isn't abandoned, dead, or dropped. Life has just been all over the place and I'm trying to take things one step at a time.
