I'll be honest, the night before our Kickstarter launched, I barely slept. Going public with our niche game, we wondered if anyone would notice - well they ... you! ... did. A huge thank you for your support, kind words, and feedback, it really means the world to us! 🧡 Today, I would like to share a peek behind the scenes of developing The Darkest Files for the last two years and show you how we got here. [b]Welcome to the Chronicles of Crime - Today: Starting a Case![/b] It all starts with research. The cases in The Darkest Files are based on real crimes of the time. This means going through archives, files, newspapers, and literature on possible cases to a) pick one that works with our game mechanics - not all cases do - and b) make sure that once we pick it, we get the facts right. While we do sometimes change characters or events for the game, we want to make sure that we know when we are doing so. While working on The Darkest Files, we went through dozens of potential cases to pick the ones that would work for us. We would have liked to do more, but to quote your in-game co-prosecutor, Mr Peters: "There are so many of them and so few of us." [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42791427/a4b03ce78a9f3fee8a85281ab898dd18cc0666c7.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42791427/f30eb5162ebfb4e7990c9441fbba02553ec4b384.png[/img] Historical inspiration and an early draft of the reconstruction board that you will be using in the game to draft your theory of the crime and how it ended up looking in the game After researching a historical case, the game designers arrange the events to make them playable: they decide which witness unveils which clue, what files need to be found and how, and who sends the investigators off course. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42791427/0338d6f6e65ef1b2208d134c14ef42f255f983a6.png[/img] A storyboard artist and designer takes over and creates storyboards and mock-ups of key scenes helping us to better imagine how things will feel in the game. From bio and description, the character artists create the NPC, skeleton, and poses. So many poses! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42791427/d05c0425389f0f0f001431800fefcaba67e28574.jpg[/img] Just as for characters and scenes, the 2D artists draw sketches of the environments. The 3D artists model the environments creating walkable, interactive spaces. Once built, our brilliant technical artist uses her shader wizardry to turn everything into an explorable graphic novel. And here you go: [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42791427/b99f1a7a7a5787faece5a116c5bf44fa1e2d436b.png[/img] [b]SteamDeck:[/b] The Darkest Files is already running on SteamDeck - if you own one you can try the demo - but we would like to optimize it further and thanks to you, we can now. Because we want The Darkest Files to be inclusive to all players, regardless of ability. That’s why we don’t only pay attention to the controls while optimizing the game for SteamDeck, but we also check for readability and sizing - which will take some extra work. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42791427/00f5c86078629cd77eceb7a67b0c3309621da597.jpg[/img] Btw: You can also find us on Twitter, Instagram & Co.! [url=https://twitter.com/TheDarkestFiles]Twitter [/url]| [url=https://www.instagram.com/paintbucketgames/]Instagram[/url] | [url=https://www.tiktok.com/@paintbucketgames]Tiktok[/url] | [url=https://www.youtube.com/@paintbucketgames4866]YouTube[/url] | [url=https://discord.gg/U5zXuJqpz4/]Join our Discord![/url]