Amnesia: The Dark Descent Windows, Mac, Linux game

First, and foremost, my divided attention between projects and life events, and being a solo developer working on the demo, ended up not being able to wrap up a public release during the summer period. While that is indeed unfortunate, as no one would be happier than me if this project was any closer to the finish line, there are varioius perspective changes at work here.

- Cardia into Esophagus. How is it gonna be?

Initial discussion with participants about the demo led me down a path that involved creating brand new puzzles and even storyline for it, on my own, to keep the final product without major spoilers. Well, that is still happening!
But as you can see, it's taking a while..

The first realization as summer was nearing its end, is that the concept of Cardia as I showed in the trailer, and the events and story I have crafted for it, was way beyond such a deadline that I set for a single person, being myself.

With the TDD workshop getting updates, I was certain I want the mod to be featured there, and Cardia requires a custom exe with 64 bit features, outside of the scope of current Steam workshop functionality. So it was to time to break down my own ambition, and produce something managable in a reasonable time window.

So as it can be seen on the screenshot above, let me introduce the final demo concept: Esophagus! A custom story-esque showcase from parts of the initial 8 levels that will be made available for everyone in 2023 Q4, at which point the project enters early access.

- HELP WANTED! From the community, for the community.

If you read the excerpt above, you realized my initial idea for the project was breaking down, and ambition was set aside. This means, I am now officially asking for help, and putting together a support team, that will help me realize the final concept. While my participants were immense help in making the project, and the levels reality, most of them even left the Amnesia scene already, and has no further interest in taking part of the mod's other aspects.

I overhauled my ported HPL3 assets, ported some from the Bunker game additionally, and set up proper github repositories and links, so the project doesn't cause aneurysm on the first look :D

So if you are experienced with HPL2 , and has time to spare, I'm looking for people with the following skillsets (one is enough, more is even better):

- Level design details
- Coding more events and new mechanics
- Literary English grammar check and proofreading (having read works of H.P. Lovecraft is an advantage)
- Photoshop and Blender/Maya skills to fix some broken assets and reexport others
- Experience with entity creation (handling custom monsters is an advantage)
- Creating sound effects

Feel free to contact me anywhere, in a moddb message, on discord, etc. and we will discuss your role in the future of the project. I will put together a discord group after Esophagus reaches the finish line.

- Afterword, and my impending departure from the HPL2 scene

This has been planned for a while, but once the year ends, so do my plans for this game. I am willing to carry only Pandemia into next year, and some overhauls on old projects to catch up with the workshop functionality expansion.

But don't worry! My work on the game might end, but I've already started working on HPL3 as part of the current Frictional Modding Jam, and I'll be moving back to Unity game making too mid-2024 or so.

Thanks for reading this if you did, hope to see you soon at the estimated release date!