Hell Has Been Unleashed!

Wow, the day actually came! After 7 years of work, Out Of Hell has finally been released upon the masses! What can I say? I feel…weird!…and floaty! I always thought about this day, but now that it’s here, it feels as though I’ve been sleepwalking for the last 7 years and am now just waking up!

I’d like to start by giving out special thanks to:

Justin Lassen for composing a beautiful soundtrack for Out Of Hell. Justin came to me years ago when Out Of Hell was only starting to grow. He said that my artwork inspired him and he would be more than happy to create a custom soundtrack for me! At the time, I had some music loops that I was already going to use for Out Of Hell and declined his offer. 3 years later, I ran across his blog and read that his hard drive had crashed and that he lost a lot of work and data. I felt terrible reading this because I personally know the pain of losing hard work due to equipment failure. (Over the years, I’ve had 3 hard drives die, 2 powers supplies go, all during critical times in the project’s life) I emailed him to offer my condolences and we began talking again. To my surprise, he was still interested in doing music for the game! So I asked if he would like to come onboard, he agreed and the rest is history!

In 2008 Justin flew over for almost a week and we finally met in person. It was awesome, we totally hit it off, there was no internet-person-awkwardness, and we talked about a ton of stuff and I showed him the sights.

Your faith in the project (and in me) was more important than you could possibly know. Thanks for helping me out, for always pimping me in the press and thanks for sticking by me. I hope that we can work together on future projects and make more awesome stuff!

Derek Solarino of BP6.net for helping me out with years of hosting! A funny but true story, we met while playing Counterstrike back in the 90’s. We were in the same clan until the clan disbanded and everyone went their separate ways. Fast forward something like a year later, and I was playing UT. I was searching for a server and joined one randomly and guess what? It was run by Derek! After playing some DM, I thought to myself, “This guy has the same name as someone I used to know.” so we chatted, and it turns out to be him! How weird is that? Not only that, he lived one city next to mine! I told him about a new project I was working on, and he selflessly offered to host the mod site for free, never once asking for anything in return. Thanks so much Derek, I’m happy that we became friends like this and thank you for all that you’ve done to help me on my way.

This list could go on because there were so many great people who helped me along the way in some capacity, I couldn’t possibly thank every single one but THANK YOU for your support throughout this entire endevour, you know who you are!

To the Out Of Hell community, the Unreal gaming community, Epic for a seriously kickass engine and their support for the indie/mod dev scene, gaming sites and magazines who were willing to interview me, all of those who sent emails and messages to motivate over the years, THANK YOU. You have put up with some serious delays and bullshit over the years and yet are still here to welcome my baby into the world.

So this is it. This is my life in 7 years, compressed into 1 GB and ready for you to download! I hope that you all download it and give it a try. Play through it all if possible as I’ve worked hard on establishing a unique story, setting and atmosphere. It is my vision, the fruits of my long labor and my first triumph. I hope that it meets your expectations and you can find something worthwhile in Out Of Hell!

SO WHAT NOW?

It’s time to wait. I want to see how Out Of Hell does. For some reason, I’m not burnt out so I’ll stick to the forums to answer any questions, help with any bug fixes and so on for the foreseeable future. If Out Of Hell does well and there is a demand for it, I will work on the official expansion. I have story (takes place right after the ending) and more game ideas (co-op mp, offline npc co-op) to expand upon the Out Of Hell universe but it’s all dependent on whether people like it.

I’ve got a couple of other projects in mind and will be toying with some ideas over the next while. I’ve got plans drawn up for a medieval-themed game but I also want to do something with mechs or ninjas and samurai! (Perhaps a first-person shooter where the main character is a whip wielding mech with a wise-cracking effeminate samurai who travel back in time to exterminate ninjas and their knight allies!) I am now a free agent, no longer limited to one project.

So being as how I haven’t slept for more than 4 hours over the last 50 hours, I will bid you goodnight!