WARNING! LONG POST AHEAD.

And another year's down the drain.

It's truly been an intense year, for better or worse. I'd like to leave any political banter aside and instead just spend a few words on what I have accomplished in 2016 as Forgotten Dawn, as I've anticipated in the last post.

Games and related stuff

- Trail of Shadows: Origin

The first escape-the-room kind of game I had the chance to design and direct with the guys at X App. It was intended as a side-project to the main series, Tears of the Machine — something fun to make while the big project was in the works. Folks liked the idea and we released the game for mobile in early 2016 after about 4-5 months in the making. It's not over yet, however, as we're still planning something neat for this game at some point this year. ;)

As per usual, I also made the soundtrack which is available here.

Android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shadow.game.android

iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/trail-of-shadows-origin/id1102054848?mt=8

- .defrag

This project has a peculiar premise. I made it as a bit of a self-challenge after years of foreplanning and not being able to pull out actual games for myself. I built the core files in about 10 days of non-stop development and I'm still updating the game to this day, in fact, I am prepping the next version (likely the final one) as we speak. It's technically early access as of now, but it can be finished and I'm hoping to put it on Greenlight at some point in 2017. If you like surreal/weird retro-styled exploration games, this game might be for you. :)

The soundtrack, which mostly consists of experimental noise tracks, is available here.

Gamejolt link: http://gamejolt.com/games/defrag/179965

- Tears of the Machine: Episode 02

And here's the main dish. Over the past couple of years, I've pretty much become a de facto co-writer/co-director of this newborn series that still has a lot of potential to unleash, aside from providing the soundtrack and occasionally concept artwork. Episode 02 is the second canonical installment in the series, after Prologue, and Episode 01. In terms of audio, it was an interesting change of pace for me because we intended it to be more action-oriented instead of "in your face" creepy/dark, at least compared to the previous episode. I took inspiration from various video game soundtracks including Half-Life 2, Ratchet & Clank, and the Metal Gear series, and overall it was an interesting experience. The game took about a year to get done, as we planned beforehand, and we're now moving forward to the next projects.

The soundtrack is available here, along with a few sample tracks that I shared here on Newgrounds.

Android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.totm.game.android

iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tears-of-the-machine-extended/id1157840414?ls=1&mt=8

Music

Aside the aforementioned soundtracks, I haven't published many solo tracks in 2016 or even made albums for myself. There's actually a good reason for that and yeah, being involved in many different things at once is part of it. Only recently, I've been thinking about organizing my own musical projects better and what I actually would like to do with them. I've mentioned in previous posts how I'd like to organize my future albums into different "series" so that each of them would have their own sound and in the end it would still be me, under the same alias. It's a centralized approach but at the same time it enables me to branch into many different things because that's how my brain works, lol.

Worth mentioning is the creation of The Underground Collective, along with fellow @RealFaction, enabling all kinds of artists from Newgrounds to voice their own ideas and creativity. I hope to make it an annual thing, but for now I'd rather not plan anything in advance and live by a "we'll see" approach. It went surprisingly well, and I really hope to repeat the experience at some point again, possibly by expanding the concept to other mediums, not just confined to the musical realm.

The future

I'm pretty excited to see what can be accomplished in 2017. Bringing my games on Steam starting from .defrag would be great and it's definitely not a remote possibility this time around. I would also love to finish my portfolio website and start dumping content there. I'm also thrilled by what X App will come up with this year, and I'm sure it's also gonna be a busy but satisfying year.

I'm probably gonna upload less solo tracks here and less experiments due to just the sheer volume of projects I'm personally invested in. You've been warned! jk

I'll try to be around here, but I'll honestly just be busy overall and, well, I need to prioritize my own projects and ideas.

With that said, it's been an eventful year and I hope the trend continues in 2017 as well. Huge thanks to everyone who has been involved in any of the aforementioned projects, either directly or indirectly — without you supporting those ideas, nothing would have been done and I think it's important to let you guys know.

So, Happy New Year from Italy! I'll see you folks around, and as always, stay tuned. ;)

//FD