Hello all. As some of you (7 at current count) have noticed, I've put up the ModDB page for A Late Night Drink: The Last sip. I announced this mod about 2 years ago through the page for the original. I wanted to update you on the progress: I'm done. Well, sorta.
I don't want to ramble on about my personal life, but suffice it to say there have been a few massive delays since I started working on this mod. I had intended to release it forever ago, but I just didn't have the time. I started getting back into working on it near the beginning of 2016 and it is now nearing completion. By "nearing completion" I mean that in its current state, I could upload it, you could download it, you could click on "New game" and make it to the credits. However I intend on giving a few more weeks or so of tuning and polish.
My largest concern is that the long delays will give people a false sense of what is to come. Let me make it clear: This custom story was always meant to be a sort of "mini" sequel that bridged the narrative gap between ALND and a custom story I may make in the future. As such is is not very long (about half as long as the first one if I had to estimate) but there are definitely some neat things in it. In ALND my goal was to push the limit of what the Amnesia engine was capable of. This time around I think I broke it. I'm still not sure how I managed to get half this stuff to work.
I'll address one final concern then get back to work: Voice Acting. Some people complained (to the point of it being their sole reason for a 1 star review) that the previous custom story had no voice acting. While I can understand this complaint, given that it was such a story-heavy game, I do not think it is fair. Plenty of games have no voice acting. Many that are considered the greatest games of all time. Both FF7 and many Zelda games have no VA. I guess I could add some HYAAAAA to Michael, lol. This CS has no voice acting either. I had considered it at one point but realized that bad VA is far more detrimental to a custom story than none at all. And even if I could find VAs it would add far too much development time to an already much delayed mod. I made a decision to relegate a large portion of the story to a journal entry that is now about 20 pages long (more of a whole journal than an entry I suppose) so that you can skip it if you wish.
I've rambled for long enough. I'll make a much longer post at a later date with more thoughts for those insane enough to care.
P.S. Some may have noticed that I've spent the last year and a half responding to comments using an account other than this one. Sorry about that, I honestly don't know how I wound up with 2 ModDB accounts.
It's all right, we're glad to have you back.
People who gave ALND only 1 star because of absent voice acting are plainly stupid. Voice acting is meant to be a plus, not the base characteristic on which such well-made complex mods should be judged.
Just like you said, many old epic games like the ones you listed had no voice acting and they still remain masterpieces of the Gaming History even today. My personal favorite PS2 game of that category was Dark Cloud.
I loved ALND, I still do, and I am sure that the new mod release you are preparing will be just as perfect, if not even more.
I hope everything is ok with your real life as well. Good to have you back DeAngelo.