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Hi! 

How are you? Long time. I guess it's been a year. Feels like even more than that. I was re-reading some of my old devlogs while typing this up and... I was kind of going through it, huh? Things are very different for me now. I'll explain.

Around the time of the last update, I had this really awful chest injury.  I was bed-ridden for almost a month (and fairly weakened for another 3 of 4) and I was forced to look inwards. I realized I had been going in circles both professionally and emotionally for the previous 2 years. I was also forced to move back with my parents, and I was profoundly unhappy there. So I decided to apply to grad school. And I got in!

Things are really great. I'm surrounded by talented peers and teachers and it's inspiring to be around it all. I know I'm starting to sound like school outreach material, but that's really how it is. My school has some really great connections and rep (plus the location has a much more sizeable game industry than where I was before), so I think the job hunt won't be such a struggle after I graduate. And for the first time in my life, I feel I have found a community of similar-minded people who care about the same things I do. I'm not sure how much I'm really "part" of this community or if I will ever feel like I am, but I am hopeful and I haven't been in a while :)

Where does that leave The Game of Theseus? Unfortunately, and I hope this doesn't sadden you too much dear reader, this is most likely going to be the final update. This wasn't an easy decision to make, but ultimately it came down to the following reasons:

- I started this as a sort of chill way to force myself to keep making, but I'm in school anyway so motivation isn't really an issue anymore (structure!!).
- I don't have much time for personal projects.
- Remaking Theseus over and over made me feel like shit.
- This never really had legs to stand on.
- I don't want to work alone anymore (more on this further down).

All in all, I think this is what's best for me at the moment, and I look forward to the closure of marking this project as "Released" (or I guess "Cancelled" I'm not sure yet).

Still. I have one final game to show, which is... in 3D!

I started seriously making 3D games in school, and it's been fun! I think the medium has a lot more potential for creative play and expression. I actually made this prototype not super long after the last update, for a class assignment. At the time, I was still sort of convinced that my thesis project was going to be a continuation of The Game of Theseus. But things have changed. After making some games in groups (check out Growth Spurt!) I've become a lot more interested in team-work, as I realized how much more can be accomplished together. It's true that there's always an element of compromise involved, but games are hard to make! And solo dev is extremely lonely.

Now, I'm honestly a bit ashamed of this game. I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to share it (lights are fucked, you can sometimes literally see the edges of world, the post-processing effects are super corny). Still, I was feeling bad for leaving you hanging after so long, so I thought I owed you at least this little what-I've-ben-up-to, even if I don't think the game is very good :).

Wow, I really do ramble. Haven't even really spoken about the prototype. I guess I've missed talking to you.

Basically, it's a short I guess walking sim/maze exploration thing. There isn't much to do besides walking around the maze. The game is pretty much the same as it was last ~October although I did remove this terrible motion blur that made everyone who played it at the time sick (as well as this chromatic blur effect that made things look even cornier (what was I thinking?)).  I didn't dig too deep in the files because it's all kind of messy and also I just wanted to be done with it. If you can, I recommend downloading the Windows version as the HTML version's lighting looks really bad.

When it comes to the models and textures I used, they're pretty much all borrowed from other games (check out the models resource) (I'll put a list of all the games I borrowed from below). I guess this makes my game fall under the "plundercore" genre which are "games made up of stolen pieces from recognizable works that recontextualize those pieces". There's some pretty cool experiments within the genre, though I do find it kind of gimmicky overall and I don't think it has much of a future (how much original meaning can you even extract from just stealing over and over again?). Still, it can be practical and fun when one is getting started with 3D.

Anyway! Play it, have fun with it, and let me know what you think. No pressure on writing a thoughtful critique -- like I said, this is going to be the last of The Game of Theseus. If you want to keep up with my other work and you haven't already, follow my itch page. Definitely expect less esoteric nonsense and more serious (team) work!

See ya!

Hatim

EDIT: I know I said above that I would list where I got all the assets from, but I just opened my assets folder and there's... so many of them... many of which I renamed and lost what game they're from... Nowadays I'm much more diligent about this sort of thing but I guess I wasn't as organized when I first made this. Sorry, I just don't have it in me to retrieve it all at the moment. Maybe in the future.

Gameplay Video: