Until I'm Gone: Info³

Hi all

It's been a long time since I last informed you about our progress on our project- Until I'm Gone, and once again the time has come to set things right...
Don‘t know what "Until I‘m Gone" (UIG) is? Well, then believe that it is a FREEWARE winter-melancholy-dark-horror adventure game under development by Faraway Studios (set in Czech republic) for almost two years now. To be concrete (if you know the project, you can skip this part) :

Until I’m Gone is a 2.5D 3rd person point-and-click adventure game with horror elements and a psychological subtext. It takes place in a small mountain village covered with snow at Christmas time. The main hero is forced by his lady-friend to visit Pitfall Mountain. Soon after he arrives, the village is cut off from the outside world due to a huge snowstorm, and Nathan, who forced to stay until the storm blows over, unwittingly starts to reveal the tiny secrets of this picturesque village...
More about the story can be found on our webpages.



Know what UIG is, still remembering it, or looking forward to it (as we hope ), then here's the news that you might have missed, if you do not visit our webpage regularly. To get a comprehensive picture of how UIG looks now, what has gone through, what happened, and so on, you should nevertheless look on our website, because it is impossible to summarize it all here, in few posts...

Hm... this posts gonna be big... If I remember things right, I had previsously chatted with you when we released the "new" "cold" pictures, so from that point:

Languages - since then, the language portfolio of the project grew HEAVILY, right now, we are prepaing to release the game (in Q3-Q4 2007, so this winter!) in 14 world languages! Yeah, you read right: when the project will come out, it will, right in this 1st version, feature 14 World languages, and it is very probabe, that you will find even your native language in there... Simply check it out... The game is being translated into: English, French, German, Russian, Hungarian,Czech, Slovak, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Greek, Polish and Dutch ("Netherlands").

The team - Has also gone through many changes from my last post. We are now better organized, have more talented people (especially new pogrammers (about 4) 2D graphic designer and a few more), got rid of confirmed slackers, have new experiencies, made also some new interviews, where you can find "never-before-said" information and more (check the "Articles" section on our web), made some "summarization" of the project (section "News"), replaced some "externist" (they had no time, regrettably) etc., etc., many other things. I won‘t bother you with this anymore :-).



Hacking- is not good for you... right... Right, even when you hacked us (and you did ) you didnt break us. So sorry guys, but still nothing. It takes time, keep trying ...
And now seriously. Our project must be these days really "something", when we have "attract hackers" and been hacked (unfortunatelly quite (+-) "succesfull") just week, week or two ago. But still, it doesn't seems, that the attackers were that succesfull to "get something they should not", it seems, that all they made was "mess". It almost seems, that all projects must go through these problems.

Publisher-... Hm... no, no worries we don't have any, what's "worse"... we don't even look for one, and the worst is, that we had even rejected few ! Yes, no worries that some publishers will contact us, pay us and we would be like "wow", infantinelly starring with the mouth open, illimitable crazy happy that "we made it". No, this situations or even speculations are NOT appropriate because it’s not that this situation didn't happen... It already did! And we are still here, still freeware, still happy and still poor :-).
If you are interested why did we reject some publishers, why dont we want any for UIG and more information around, check the news section and FAQ (or even contact us via email )

Music- Yeah, finally we had released an example of music, you will hear in UIG. One full 3,5 minutes dark-winter-calm-ambient track (visit section download to get the track), just the right one for the game from "just the right" person- a music composer with over 10 years of experience in the industry- Human Error, née "Rafal Kuczynski".
Stream of the music track avaiable also here.
And we are also starting to work with "Tony Porter" a profesor from well-known Game development university Full Sail in Florida. What does this all mean...? This means that we are absolutely familiarizated with importance the music plays in every creation whether it is a film, serial story, E. games or something else and this element will be heavily polished in the game! (the soundtrack of the game has alreay over 50 minutes and we are not still done with the game...)
At last,music helps (from the biggest part) build the feeling of the game, and this is something which we focus on most of all (our internal team motto could sound somethig like "Feeling, Story, Graphics")

And this is probably all for today,I hope you will keep us your favour and wish you a nice end of summer holidays, oh... and look forward, because this winter, your computer is really going to froze!


For more info, large versions of screenshots and more, simply visit us at [url=www.farawaystudios.com]www.farawaystudios.com[/url].

Roman Navratil
Faraway Studios team
[url=www.farawaystudios.com]www.farawaystudios.com[/url]

The game looks great ! And its point & click too. Can I make a plea for no action sequences?
It'll be on my to buy list.

Nice screenshots if it is point n click I'm in and hopefully no action

OH men... not again :-D...

"...Well, then believe that it is a FREEWARE ..."

And about action thing- no worries, there will be no agressive action minigames or how to call it. If you are interested, read the whole post (yeah i know its big), or visit our page to get comprehensive picture of how UIG looks and feels, what it will be etc.

(And really, UIG is a FREEWARE game )

Free ? Thats incredible, thank you

Thanks roamn, interesting read and I am glad you survived the hackers. It's a shame isn't it?

The game is looking awesome and can't wait for the release. I'll definitely give it a go!

Ana

Hi

This game looks pretty interesting to me - and I will be watching this space for a release date

Cheers.

Mad

Hi roamn --

I couldn't find the FAQ section on the website -- I am very curious as to why you prefer to keep the game as Freeware and don't want to publish it as a commercial game.

Thanks roamm. The game looks good.

Chief

Becky, it sounds like this project is one of roamn's "passions" and its being offered as freeware is just a very generous gesture on the part of its makers. I for one would pay for it as it sounds like "just my cuppa tea" and they sure are putting a lot of time and GRAND efforts into it - WOW, so many languages! It sounds like the only thing missing is playability to those who use a MAC instead of a PC. And I applaud the lack of 'action' in this one - am not intrigued by 'action' in my Adventure games. Thanks you beautiful game-makers for this one...which I "await with bated breath" (just what does THAT mean anyway?)
Love, Betty Lou

It looks good and Thank You Roamm can't wait for the release Yippee no action

Beautiful screen shots, Roamn. The game sounds very intriguing, I look forward to it. But can someone explain 2.5D?

Birddog -- there's an explanation here.

Wow. This looks great Roamm. Thanks.
I would like to give my encouragement to you towards putting whatever you think will make a great game, be it some "action" or otherwise. Write a great story, put in good puzzles, or mazes or timed sequences (please let them be part of the story), and people will enjoy and play your game.

I will look forward to playing it when you are finished!

Thanks Becky.

Definitely looking forward to this game, the screenshots are awsome and look pretty professional for a freeware game, thanks for the update roamn!

http://farawaystudios.com/uig-faq.php?lang=en

Or check the news section (scroll down for older news):

"Let's look at it. Why did we actually reject them...? Until I'm Gone has been being developed for some time (those who experienced delays know it:-) ) and from the first day of its concept it was intended and being prepared as a freeware game without a single thought that it could be any other way. Team organizing, planning, etc. everything was subject to the game being freeware. We work on UIG in our free time (and for *some* of us, free time=UIG, not much of us though) without any *financial claim*... And now there's a publisher and money... Would we go for it? Noooo:-). Why? (Except for the stuff
already mentioned) Because:

-It would be hard to divide the money since nobody expected *commercialisation*.
-Complications- our studies/contemporary jobs vs. project work. (There's no other way than full time.)
-Retail profit...? Unwarranted in current situation.
-Publisher intervention in the concept, game, remaking, etc.
-Publisher- slowdown due to various approvals, agreements, changes, reworking, etc. (it is a question however whether it would be a slowdown as big as now...?) (Well, if you look at other projects: positive)
-Originally we promised and kept it free. Why should we back out now?
-Various deadlines, stress, quick job change without guaranteed (*good*) profit
-This way (freeware) we can still work in relative peace and gain valuable experience *painlessly*.
-We wanted to pay attention to development, not to transferring a freeware project into the commercial sphere. That's it for the *brief* list of reasons why we are rejecting what others usually look for - publisher. Hopefully we have made the situation clear and nobody will doubt about our FREEWARE intentions and ask why we think so...
And if yes... e-mail is in the *contact* section, you know...;-).

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First: I Thank you all your for you positive posts!

Secondly:

The release date is set to Q3-Q4 2007.

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Pre-rendered backgrounds (so they can be more detailed, "more top quality") and 3D realtime actors/characters moving on them, using the hidden 3D geometry for colisions etc.

Excellent looking game roamn, good job

The graphics look excellent and the atmosphere is creepy. It looks too good to be free, but thanks that it is.

I admire indie artists they toil and work so hard on these beautiful games so we can have some enjoyment, this is great, hats off to you guys and gals.

Looking forward to playing Until I'm Gone, good luck and happy creating.

It looks wonderful Roamn, and I'm very much looking forward to playing it. Kudos to you for keeping to your path on freeware - I'm thankful to you and all the indie folks like Starite Moon that have a vision they want to follow for the enjoyment of everyone.