Hey everyone, I’m here to talk about the current state of Hack’s Custom Night, and what to expect for this year.

CHARACTER ROSTER

Over the past development, Hack’s Custom Night had a very struggling progress on working on the base gameplay, including the details of the characters. When the game was first being developed, the characters of the roster was never fully concrete on keeping the idea of staying present for the entire process of the game. There were countless instances of several changes to the roster, mainly characters being removed or adjusted for personal or other issues. None of this is their fault, as game development is a huge commitment to spend your time and expose yourself to the audience of potentially multiple kinds of anonymous people. I do not want anyone to feel forced or obligated to be included in a giant and ambitious fangame, since it is very understandable for individuals (including me) to get pressured regardless of their intent and goal.

As of recently, a lot has changed and set for the current state of the game. Everyone (so far) who is in the roster has confirmed to be included into the game without any strains or underlying suspicions. They have been really supportive and kind over the development and progress of the game. Although as of right now, the amount of characters are not totaled up to fifty, which is the main goal of this game to be chaotic and overwhelming. Before, I would rush to gather enough characters to finish the roster, but I feel at this rate, it is best for me to take my time and include characters that means well for the idea of this game. Additionally, I won't show the roster until I feel it is ready to show. And no, please do not ask about joining the roster, I will not accept that.

GAMEPLAY MECHANICS

With only very minimal art assets being made, and several placeholders made, 22 characters are fully programmed and functional! I would attempt to play the game with multiple characters on without any real visual assets, but it would taint the experience with testing the game, with no significant benefits. So until then, I would need the artworks to be done so I can get the whole game thoroughly tested.

I also wanted to minimize RNG (Random Number Generator, or randomization) as much as possible to make the gameplay's flow to be more fluid. I did not want any of the strategies of this game to be any RNG-reliant to win the game, as I never really enjoyed that kind of strategy to win. Of course, there will at least be some randomization that will keep you on your toes and alter your route of your playthrough. I just do not want a lot instances where you use certain exploits of characters to win the game, which in this case, less camera stalling, and more shorter variety methods to deal or treat them.

VISUALS

Working on the visuals for this game will be the most time-consuming part of the whole development. It takes a lot more work than having 3D models and adjust their poses and model its environments. All of the visuals of this game has to go through the process from sketch/concept, to lineart, to coloring, to the final coloring touches.

There were a few questions from my Discord server regarding what and how this game will look like during gameplay. Like originally intended, Hack's Custom Night will be 2D handdrawn characters and visuals, including animations like jumpscares, environments, and minor polishes. Some people were questioning whether Hack's Custom Night is a horror game or not. I can confirm here that this game is not directed to be a horror game. For a 2D style, it is near impossible to capture the horror aspect with the current gameplay style. Regardless, it does not fit exactly well with how I envision this game, as I want it to be more silly and surprising for the audience. I will say that there will be characters that will be more unsettling and intimidating, as other characters will either be very-less scary and much more annoying. If you want to play a Custom-Night-like game with a really scary environment, play Animators' Hell here.

CURRENT RATE

As of right now, Hack's Custom Night's base gameplay is complete and fully programmed, while the characters are still in planning stage. Other miscellanous programming like menus, save data, small features, and small polishes are still in progress. However, I will say that I am very excited to showcase what I have to offer in programming this game, as I do not see other fangames have certain features. And to those who usually see me showcase my fangame often, you likely have not seen what I have to offer either. ;)

Besides that, this year's process rate has been going up much more significantly than what it was before. Hack's Custom Night used to have trouble in having a 3D modeler to create rooms and environments since the beginning of development. I could not find anyone despite a lot of searching, so I had to learn how to use a software myself. So far, I have most of the rooms modeled, ready to be handdrawn over.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Unfortunately, I cannot promise that Hack's Custom Night will have a full release, nor it will have a public demo, this or next year. Even if I were to have much more progress done right now, I would not give a proper release date, as it would set unrealistic expectations and pressure to me and others who are helping. However, I do feel more comfortable in showcasing more work-in-progress this year, as this game is more concrete than before. Before, this game had a lot of trouble with development and figuring out its identity. But I think it is at a degree enough to fully create the creation I envisioned for a very long time. I am so excited to showcase what I have to offer!

That's all I want to talk about for now, I hope for this to be a great year for the development of Hack's Custom Night.

Thank you for reading!

— Hack 💜