One week has passed since Michael Sanders' world was shattered by a simple sip of wine. Though he is plagued with horrible dreams, he had believed that his ordeal was over. He will soon discover that the late night drink that sent him into a hellish world of nightmare was only the beginning. WARNING: This mod contains a good deal of reading, and no voice acting. It can be played without paying attention to the story, but you will miss out on the main focus of the game if you do that. The text amounts to less than what would be a single chapter of a book.

Post news Report RSS WHERE HAVE I BEEN!?!?!?!?

Uh....Hi. So, the 3 people psychotic enough to still be following my ass after all this silence may be curious where I am. Why hasn't there been an ALND 3? The last one ended by pretty clearly setting up a sequel, after all. Well, a lot has happened. I'm gonna warn you, some of this is depressing, so don't read if you want to stay cheerful and happy and optimistic in your daily life.

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Uh....Hi. So, the 3 people psychotic enough to still be following my ass after all this silence may be curious where I am. Why hasn't there been an ALND 3? The last one ended by pretty clearly setting up a sequel, after all. Well, a lot has happened. I'm gonna warn you, some of this is depressing, so don't read if you want to stay cheerful and happy and optimistic in your daily life.

Nearly 2 years ago, I released a mimi sequel to A Late Night Drink. I always claimed it was to "bridge the narrative gap between the game and a future sequel" and while that was largely true, I was never really sure I'd make a sequel. You see, around the time that The Last Sip was released, my wife at the time was getting very sick. She'd had Multiple Sclerosis since I met her, and it was progressing rapidly.

This meant that, among other things, I had less and less time to work on Amnesia custom stories. If you ever wondered why aspects of these custom stories felt rushed, well that's it. It's not a lack of patience, just a lack of time. I released The Last Sip without voice acting, despite claiming I would find voice actors, because I simply didn't have the time.

In March of 2017, Anna passed away. Shortly after that, I lost my job and moved back in with my mother. I actually started working on another custom story, titled Guppy, that was about the 5 stages of grief, but shortly into it I realized that without the lifeline that is the Frictional Games forum, I had no chance of making anything decent.

I have tried finding work, but the strain that 8 years of being a 24/7 caregiver put on my back means I can't do anything overly physical. I threw myself into my writing to cope with Anna's death and, among other novels, I finished the A Late Night Drink novel that was teased in the bonus room of The Last Sip.

About a week ago, I found out that someone who had friended me on Facebook and had been talking to me a lot actually lived across the street from me, and had been too shy to tell me so. We've started hanging out and, as of a few days ago, I now have a girlfriend. I have mixed feelings about this. After all, it's only been a year. But shortly before her death, Anna made me promise I'd move on. And since I don't have access to any Hachimara, I'm trying to.

Apart from the happiness my new girlfriend has brought me (I was in a very dark and dangerous place for a while there) she also has internet. Oooooh!

So the question becomes: Do I return to Amnesia? And if so, how? I could begin work on A Late Night Drink 3 (Which I already have plenty of ideas for) but there's another possibility. The novel I wrote based on the original and the sequel goes FAR more in depth than the game did. There's a budding romance between Michael and Sarah, and Roger, who is only mentioned once or twice in the game, plays a large role. There's new monsters (since I'm not sure if it would have been legal for me to describe the monsters the way they appear in Amnesia) and new events. You know that part in Confusion where the hands come up from the ground? In the book, they actually detach and start crawling over Michael trying to kill him. Plenty more stuff as well.

So something I've thought of doing lately is going back and remaking both the original and The Last Sip, pushing it further towards what the book is like, getting some modelers to make more custom monsters, and adding a little feature requested by I think roughly 2 or 3 people (Read: Fucking everybody) called voice acting. I could also seek out people with actual talent in level design to make the look of my levels match the quality and uniqueness of the scripting and events.

I'm also considering going through with making Guppy (It would be a very short custom story of only about 5 levels) as a way of refreshing myself with Amnesia.

So....yeah. Thoughts?

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Hollowinside
Hollowinside

Hey DeAngelo!

Let me start off by saying that I feel incredibly sorry about all the ill things that have befallen you in the span of these 2 years. The death of a loved one is never an easy matter, but things do get better with time.

I would personally love to see you back in Amnesia (as I am sure of a lot of other people would, also) just to experience first hand your new ideas and experiences, and get to play ALND 3, Guppy and ALND 1 remade. However, trust me when I say that your fans will understand if you need more time for yourself.

What I would personally advise you is to not rush things, and when it comes to Amnesia just progress in the way that you feel like. That's pretty much everything I wanted to say at this point.

Best regards

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DeAngelo Author
DeAngelo

Thank you. Another think I didn't put in the post is I might look into other game engines. As awesome as Amnesia's HPL engine is, it's really limited. I would like to look into learning Unity or something. I wonder what ALND would be like remade on another engine?

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Hollowinside
Hollowinside

Well I don't know anything about game engines sadly so I can't really provide an opinion on that, but it would in theory open more doors for you.

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func_jay
func_jay

>response almost 6 months later
I think you could try using HPL3 with SOMA and Amnesia assets.
Probably not what you're looking for, but it could be at least a slight improvement. Other than that, I think for a kinda simple game like this Unity would be good. Good luck in any future developments!

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TroHea
TroHea

The game could be revived, since some big names are picking it up again.
And with you back in our boat it will be easy to get them back. :)
You're a big name in the modding community, this hasn't changed I guess. ^^

Take the time you want and don't put more pressure on yourself! Lots of love to you!

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DeAngelo Author
DeAngelo

I'm a big name in the modding community? Since when?

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TroHea
TroHea

When I hear someone talking about good Amnesia custom stories, one example is "A Late Night Drink". I mean, the Amnesia community isn't as big as it used to be, but your custom storis are the most well known in it, since these were also really huge when the community used to be actually big.
You can deny it, but it's a fact. Imo your custom stories made ... "Amnesia History" even though that sounds weird.

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DeAngelo Author
DeAngelo

My whole goal with ALND was to do things that hadn't been done before and push the engine beyond its limits. I got so sick of how every custom story was beautiful to look at then contained the same exact hide and seek gameplay and "you were the bad guy all along" plot twist. It always felt as if modders were afraid to step outside of the established style.

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TroHea
TroHea

And you managed to do it. :D
Your cs was indeed something different... to this day.

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Guest
Guest

“So something I've thought of doing lately is going back and remaking both the original and The Last Sip, pushing it further towards what the book is like… I could also seek out people with actual talent in level design to make the look of my levels match the quality and uniqueness of the scripting and events.”

This would be awesome! The Last Sip is probably my third favorite Amnesia mod (only behind The Great Work and The Second Dimension) and probably one of the ones I’ve replayed the most. Sure, like you’ve acknowledged, the level design isn’t great, but I think your insane scripting skills more than make up for it. I think if you teamed up with someone who really knows what they’re doing as far as level design goes, you could make something really amazing.

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Guest
Guest

Sorry you had to go through that. I just finished ALND and Last Sip and it was heartbreaking to learn that the game was actually in part a coping mechanism for your loss. I know it's been half a decade since you released this, but I hope life is treating you well. I really enjoyed your CS (Even though some of the key hiding places were admittedly a little cruel.)
Some very creative and fun ideas. It was unique and fun. It doesn't really feel like Amnesia, but I feel that's the point. ALND is much more about the story and just uses Amnesia's engine as a medium to tell it. I think a novel is a great idea, or even creating your own video game altogether if that isn't too ambitious to propose. At least then, you wouldn't be limited by the... well, the limits of the game's engine, although you're certainly very good at stretching them to do some pretty cool things.

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