Dark Strolls is complete!

I started this game several years ago after I had been let go from a job I had for years. I had started and then dropped maybe dozens of personal projects over the years. I didn't deal with the difficulty very well when I could just be playing a game, watching a movie or doing anything else other than more work.

Starting Dark Strolls (original codename: RunRunRun) I had decided that this wouldn't be another thing that I dropped. I promised myself that even if the game is bad, even if I hated every moment of it, I would complete the project if only to have completed something and maybe learn a thing or two.

So here I am, around three years later of started and stalled development where I brute forced my way through learning Unreal. I somehow not only managed to make a game that isn't bad, but I also know a thing or two about making a game in the Unreal Engine and how to use their blueprint visual programming system.

I won't lie. It took longer than I originally hoped it would. I would have liked this to take at the most half as long as it did. Development only really picked up at the beginning of 2019 when several things aligned to give me a boost of motivation.

For most of 2019 I'd work on the game regularly. I managed to finish the greyboxed design around October, and the rest of year was spent applying art (mostly free assets supplied by Epic Games) and fixing various sections in an attempt to make them more fun and less frustrating while keeping the challenge level I was hoping to achieve.

Throughout this process I had some friends play the game and I can honestly say Dark Strolls was improved due to their input.

A mostly completed version of the game was made on January 7th and released to a small number of close friends. February 2nd was when the fully completed version of the game was made. To me it represents the end of a process where I learned a lot, and the chance to use that knowledge to make something better and more cohesive.

In the end I feel I achieved my goals with Dark Strolls' completion. They were never lofty goals to begin with, but the first step I felt I needed to make before I start making something a tad more seriously.

Dark Strolls was an excellent learning experience, and confidence booster. Releasing this to the public is a way for me to finalize this project. To officially say I'm done and allow myself to move on to something new and more ambitious.

I hope some people can get some enjoyment out of it, but also understand that it was not especially ambitious.

Cheers,
-Alex