So I finally took the SSD out of @ERROR989 's old laptop and recovered all the original Outcasts assets from like 2018.

And, considering the effort and anticipation, I wasn't underwhelmed by any means.

There wasn't much, but the things I did find were big to me. I found out the original names of all the characters, I got a deeper look into the player character's life, I found out the title was orange?

And the more I looked at it, I realized something: I didn't lose my motivation to make Outcasts because the magic died and left me alone.

I killed that magic to make room for my own.

Kyle, or Jack, as he was referred to in ERROR's .rtf of the story, looked about the way ERROR did back then. And my version of him looks a little more like me.

There's so much of the game that I painted over with my own look that I didn't even catch as I made it. They are by no means the same game anymore. There is Outcasts by ERROR989, a scrapped project with a ton of potential, and there's Outcasts by Mr. Bad, a dream that's still clung to until the end but one that's been dressed up differently than the original concept.

And in a way, that's really cool! I think it's really incredible that the same game can vary so differently depending on who's still passionate about it. But that's also kind of sad. This is the true confirmation that I can't keep the same magic alive.

I'll probably be making some changes to menus and the like to fit some stuff I just think ERROR did better in general, and who knows what else will change?

This may not seem like much, but to me this is a whole chunk of my childhood I got to plug into my PC and look back on.

Anyway, that's everything I wanted to say. I'm having a weird moment right now as I think back to all the time we spent obsessing over this story. Hope it interests you.

I've actually got a video talking about some of this that I recorded the other day. It'll be published soon.

Later!