For a while, I haven’t been posting news and stayed silent in regards to the development. To my surprise, lots of people were curious about the game’s current state and how the progress has been going for the past months, as I undoubtedly created ambiguity with my latest posts and silence. The general interest for the project seems to have been increasing again. While that is a great thing, I feel like I own clarification on stuff and give you an overall update on the status of the game as of today.
Currently
To be completely transparent, I haven't had the time to properly work on the game for a long time. Studies require 200% of my attention, and as I’ve said it a few times already, my involvement in the fnaf community hasn’t been the smoothest and the most enjoyable, hence the distance I took.
My circumstances don’t allow me to keep up with the requirements for fangames to stay on the top levels nowadays. In other words, I cannot work on, produce, nor present game content as much as I used to, as I would like to, or as much as people would expect it from me. I cannot ensure that the hype around PI is kept up.
That, however, does not affect the way I care about Roxy’s, I want to make that clear. I might have given off a different vibe in an older post, and I want to clear that up. It is something that I love working on: every piece I add to it is done with a huge amount of care, dedication and professionalism (that helps me better my workflow and skills). The fact that have been focusing on one thing at a time (school) and took the distance I needed from the community helped me a lot and simply made this even more clearer: you should give proper time and care to something that you hold close to yourself. It also changed how I worked on PI, a passionate project, pure fun, something for friends rather than for a huge demanding community (not because I ultimately don't want it to be, but because it turns out that it's the best mindset for me when it comes to working on project).
And for over a year, that is what I’ve been doing. This is the best way for me to enjoy this journey at its fullest, and I will continue on this path that seems to work well.
From now on, I’d like to officially announce that I will go silent about the game. I will stay silent, work on it until I feel like the project is shaping up for real. I do not want to give deadlines, project release dates/years. I do not want to be anxious over the fact that I haven’t posted anything in a while, or that I should give the public image that I need to work on PI every second I find myself some free-time. Some great developers are doing this already, and the more I think about it, the more I think I should have clarified that this is the way PI is going to be worked on.
A word on cancellations and PI
What about cancellations? I want to point out in the clearest way possible, that NO, the project WILL NOT BE cancelled, and that silence from my part doesn’t mean that the project is no longer in works.
Should there unlikely be any major mishap, if the project is ever cancelled, I will firmly let everyone know about that.
So what does all this boil down to? What are the next steps?
As some of you are aware of, I had the opportunity to visit a good old friend of mine, Jayfer. While the time I spent there wasn’t solely focused on talking about Pyro-Illusion, we have indeed discussed a lot about it (and I really mean A LOT lol).
These conversations made me realize that the game had pretty much become a sandbox. A project which I was using to improve my coding, modelling, sound mixing and a variety of other skills.
However, while I did learn a lot, it means that the project slowly became really disjointed, mainly because some pieces weren’t fitting with others. Some were completely neglected and turned into a “nah that part isn’t that great” resulting in a “yeah I will fix that some time later”: when will I fix that part though? Should I truly fix it? I had some good plans initially, but slowly this plan got lost over the years, because I wasn't completely satisfied with them, maybe? I tried to rely on new trailblazing things to compensate for the old. I fixed the story-line by slapping more and better content to it, but in the end felt like a weak structure. With each addition it got shallower, that’s why despite those initial plans it felt like an ungraspable workflow that I will need to "fix... some time in the future?".
For example, the main night's section was coded in 2018 while the most recent “task” is only a few months old (besides, I had a completely different mindset while making them). Needless to say, the difference of quality between the two of them is quite noticeable, not just in terms of content, but also in terms of what game I wanted to create.
Keeping that in mind, we’ve talked about all the positive and negative aspects of the game and came to a logical conclusion. If I want the game to release one day, I need to lay down the game plans from beginning to end. Solid plans. Game plans to give myself a proper goal, something immaculate that’s worth coding for and pouring even my little free time into.
And that’s exactly what we did: I’ve got a plan, a clear view, and the project finally matured. Yes, this is the tale I want to tell, this is how I will leave a mark in the FNAF community.
We’ve sat down, and wrote down everything that was done, that is being worked on and that still needs to be made for the game. We changed and scrapped things to make sure the game is as cohesive and entertaining as it can be. We kept the core of great parts (actual playable and working game content) that have been created over the year, and that truly contribute to quality and the game experience. We made place for the content that's yet to come.
I can now safely say that I have a clear idea of how the game is gonna play out from the beginning to the very end. Every part that I’ve made so far has finally been given a purpose that fits into the bigger picture.
Every single game’s phase has been put into a chronological order that fits the best with the plot. We really wanted the game’s narrative to be as engaging as possible. Pyro-Illusion is essentially telling a single story that has a really clear set of events. After a lot of back and forth, I am confident we've finally found the best way to tell this tale while also keeping the player entertained. One step at a time.
I am really proud of how far this project has come, and I’m beyond excited for the day I’ll finally be able to share it with all of you!
With that said, I would like to share the earliest memories with the community that made Pyro-Illusion what it is today. What to me just seems like an old forgotten part, that actually has been giving the game’s image for all this time since 2018
Here's a non-exhaustive list of some interesting things revealed, highlights.
Opening, general overview of office
Office perspective scrolling, usage of hallway button. Pad charge up and discharge. Turning around, check dining room with light and using the electric pad button.
Camera system overview
Monitor rebooting animation, switching cameras.
Roxy attacking
Back window, Roxy attack from back window. Under the table view.
Camera UI
Dragon music OST, camera cut effect, glimpse into the dragons mechanics, dragon controller, window drag, hours switch animation.
Truddy attack sequence
Truddy voice, Truddy in the hallway, Truddy hallway screamer, Truddy enters, lights shut off, final jumpscare.
Dragons attack sequence
Dragon box failed, trigger attack, system lockdown.
Note: the videos above aren't representative of the final product, I will not confirm nor deny if any/what content is prone to change.
I hope this post will shed some light onto the situation for the time until I will make updates again. That it prepares you for the new way the development is going to go. And hope you'll enjoy some of the well long deserved videos.
Until then, hopefully you’ll still have Roxy and her Friends in a corner of your mind :)
By @ddemkoo 
- Special thanks to @JayferGames
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