Hey everyone, this is Aaron here.
I can't believe it's been another year already! It's crazy to think that Shine Within is already 2 years old now...((*It only just feels like yesterday when I released the game.))
This makes me very happy knowing that my game is out there for people to play. I never in my wildest dreams thought that people would enjoy the game as much. It's just been an absolute pleasure being able to express myself in a video game medium.
I've been swamped this past year working on my latest game project Lost Inside, and I'm finally at the point of development where I can now openly talk about the game itself.
However, before I do. Firstly I wanna thank each & every one of you who have played Shine Within, you all have given me the confidence to express my storytelling in the video game medium. I am forever grateful for you all giving me the time to show off my little indie game. Even 2 years later I have noticed that people are still experiencing the game for the first time which is so wild to me.
I can't wait for many more memories to come. For that thank you. <3
Now, shall we dive into my next project?
OoOoOoO!!
What is Lost Inside?
Lost Inside is an episodic game series that is a sequel to Shine Within. The premise for the game is that many years after the events in SW, the Spirit World is still in a corrupted state. You play as a human who has stumbled their way into the Spirit World. The only way out is if you can fulfill the prophecy and save the spirit monsters once and for all...
This will be a much bigger game than SW since this will play more into the story and characters that you meet on your journey. That's all I'm gonna say about it for now.
The game will be seperated into 3 games: ((*Act 1, Act 2 & Act 3))
Why will it be episodic?
The reason for this is mainly because game development takes a really long time, especially for a solo developer like myself. Since I'm creating this game mostly alone, breaking it down into 3 Acts is much more achievable to create & is a much healthier option for my mental health.
My main plan right now is to create Act 1 and release it so I can get feedback on the game and improve on it for future acts that I make. I want each act to feel different than the other Acts but to continue on with the same story.
Lost Inside Act 1 Progress:
Alright, now it's time for the meat and potatoes of the update!
When I first started actually developing Act 1 back in early 2022 everything was going smoothly except for the programming itself. Since I am not a programmer, creating this was a huge challenge for me alone. This is because Lost Inside is a much more complex game than Shine Within. I was spending most of my time programming the systems for the game but wasn't able to add in the content since I kept experiencing bugs after bugs after bugs... ((*I guess you can say that it was pure chaos. xD)) By the time I got into the actual game content, everything was taking much slower to implement since the back-end code for the game was pure mess and wasn't working as expected.
When all hopes were lost, a programming chad saved the day...
Through making Shine Within I was able to meet really talented game developers. One of my good friends xandersauce who is a very talented programmer checked out the build for Act 1. He loved the vision that I had for the Lost Inside game but knew with the programming side of things that the game was slowly slipping from my fingertips.
He gave me an offer to help me create better systems for the game that would make development for Act 1 much quicker and more efficient to create. This would give me the time to focus on the contents of the game whilst he was able to help with the systems needed. However, the catch for this was that I had to scrap Act 1 and start it all over again...
This is exactly what I did.
Now back to 2023...
Act 1 was completely reprogrammed from the ground up in Game Maker Studio 2 from the very start of January and was all feature complete until late February. I was able to get started on coding the games actual contents from March this year which took a lot quicker to create as xandersauce was able to create his own systems for me to easily add dialogue and cutscenes to the game.
After March everything went very smoothly from there.
I'm so happy to announce that since September, Act 1 is now completely playable from start to finish and is now heading to the polishing stages of development.
Wrap Up
It has been such a long journey since the start of Act 1 and I'm so grateful for the help of xandersauce. Seriously without him, the game probably wouldn't be where it is today. The development progress has been really enjoyable this past year I was able to get the ideas that I had from pencil and paper into the game itself. It has been such a great feeling to finally see the world that I envisioned come alive.
Overall I'm so much happier about the progress of the game and can't wait to share more details about it soon?...
((*Also check out xandersauce's twitter account, his literally insane!))
Anyway, that was the update I wanted to share with you all!!
Now, back to work!...
Kind Regards
Ayetoons
Shine Within / Lost Inside Discord Server: https://discord.gg/7Q8MkJNMzZ
Shine Within OST: https://ayetoons.bandcamp.com/album/shine-within-ost
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ayetoons?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayetoonss/
xandersauce Twitter: https://twitter.com/Xandersauce