Hey folks!

I apologize for not updating in the last year with stuff. My life got a bit hectic with changes and all. My attention went all around the block of life. The good news is that now I got a reprieve from the hectic motions of it to focus on the universe of my passion DARK ZETA. Yes universe, in which I mean the whole of it, not just exclusively just 1 game set, but the overall overlapping account of an expansive universe in its entirety.

Let’s see where should I start… Ah yes! From July 29 2016 to today.

Last year I fell into a deep depression in realizing many things with this project, but I came to grips of it and marched on. I first went in the details with DARK ZETA One, originally DARK ZETA Vol 1, where our hero Dark Alpha begins his journey of self-discovery and it being the prelude to DARK ZETA: Chronicles. I worked on it for a whole month, getting the GUI working, the character movement, animation, presentation, environment, and technicalities functioning. The only thing I didn’t prepare is the fighting portion of it yet, as september came into the picture and I decided to upgrade my equipment.

So I took the whole month of September just to get my rig suited up for some hardcore hardware projections. This is when I deviated into testing the limits of my new setup. I got a Geforce GTX 1080 founder’s edition, 8 gigs more of RAM (16 total), and 500GB SSD to for the programs. In overall specs, I was ready to start on DARK ZETA Teaser trailer to test the limits of my computer.

October came, and I started on character building. At the end of September I also jumped in to help out a group with their game jam. It lasted 2 weeks I think, I’m a bit cloudy on that, and I was responsible in making environmental assets. That was fun and as well my first game jam as well. I miss it really. Once that ended, I went back into making my characters for my teaser.

Fast Forward to November, and I accomplished to make both Zed and The Third Beast in record time. I then went back to remake the hero a second time, but…. …. I overlooked on things with him. The geometry count was way too costly, but the look to it felt like clay. That was something I wished to consistently hold on to but sadly I hit a threshold limit that’s capable on my computer. I couldn’t really march on with that idea. Months later I would have to redo the hero again by optimizing it further to a sustainable level that the computer can draw without having framerate issues.

Then my depression hit in December.

My parents left for the first time in years, and for a very long time. I started to feel it in the middle of the month, where things became uncertain. There were changes happening that I wasn’t really accepting of it, and it conflicted me. My family is a close unit, and not having my parents near, even though I kinda needed a small break, in part I really felt their absence. I was missing them everyday.

I then started to panic before the year ended, like being under pressure in a water tank that has just 5 inches of space for air. I felt something was coming, and my brother got in the crossfire of emotional backlash.

This feeling was accumulating since the summer time. The reason so was because I have quit my job for this project back in May of 2016. So there was no income, and pressures started to crack the patience of my brother and other family members. Two months later my brother quit the same job I was in for other irrational reasons. This culminated to the backlash of January’s new year surprise event. That surprise was my father initializing the sell of the house. I and many other immediate family members were really jolted by this. My brother was really shocked to the bone, that his panic button was pressed and subsequently started to do things that I was not happy about.

I really felt terrified, and my anxiety stepped in as well my depression. This had lead me to stop working on my stuff in the new year, and at the end of January I completely put my project on hold for 2 months. The brotherly feud got to it’s apex in March, and I was completely paralyzed mentally about myself. Self hate filled me. Irrational thoughts as well as suicidal ones too. I felt I failed my family and thought this project was just pointless. The setup of the prerender I was going to do wasn’t even close to finish, and the characters were not ready either.

Furthermore I felt hopeless. Definitely a dark time for me this past winter, but a light showed up in a form of friends and family. My cousins and friends all came in to assist to lift me up from my own mental unrest. In part, the one who I call my little nephew, rejuvenated my feelings in continuing my quest.

I’m so fortunate to have family and friends who care so deeply. My little baby cousin who I consider as a nephew, giving me uplifting motivation to continue this project further. I’m doing it for him mostly now, and changed a few things about it so he can relate to it, but overall the game is for a wide spectrum of people as the story itself has its dimensions that not a 10 year old can really yet understand.

Going forward, April was a trainwreck with financials as well because I invested into something that my poor uneducated choices resulted me in a deep pocket loss. This is where it hit me, I really need to double down on my strengths and not go anywhere anymore. I am strongly a designer, graphic technical artist than anything else. If I was to start something new today, I will need guidance and lots of time to get better at it. As a new script writer to code, the majority of things about programming is still unknown.

Moreover, with my strength I feel much more confident in business than with my weakness. While I practice and get better at what I suck at, I use what I know to fulfill myself financially. That’s the problem now is finding jobs that are for visual communication as it’s a tricky market for me. That’s why I’m open as a freelancer and setup my Patreon for that cause.

Continuing on now about my health, I finalized my exams in late May. Since at the moment that’s cleared up, the only thing left is my appointments to go the psychologist. After that, I used the time to double down on the project. I started in the beginning of June. Before then I finished up on 2 of the characters for the main teaser, and remade the hero for the third time. I then decided to bring all the work into UNITY.

Furthermore when getting re-acquainted with Unity, I discovered that why not just do it all in Real-time in that engine. Everything looks much better and it handles better on the video card than the CPU. The live rendering of the geometry was good enough to create a very nice impression. I was just so impressed about it myself, that I started to get excited for it even more. It was the best decision I made to get it to run in engine and in real-time.

Note for those who don’t know what I mean about “Real-Time”: It means the computer is drawing the geometry live instead of caching it and layering it in the CPU to project it in a way where it is superimposed with many complex subtle effects that the computer would originally have a hard time to do if it were rendered otherwise.

This means that the gamer or end-user will be able to experience the true power of the hardware they are playing the game in. It is quite an achievement for me personally because I never did something like that before. I was always experimenting but not fully applying it to something big like this.This breaks new ground for me to explore and be able to continue achieving more higher notes, as a solo developer, from this point on.

So I’m happy to share with you my accomplishments and hope you have patience with me on what’s to come!

Now I present you DARK ZETA: Chronicles teaser trailer!

• g •