Lifeless Voyage - 2025 summary

"As one of the most mentally difficult years of our lifetime passes, it is worth reminiscing on what actually transpired. As the telltale format of this piece suggests, much of the time was spent refining narration. Design continued nonetheless, with me hacking around in parallel. It was certainly a Voyage - into a known unknown - even as the grief we endured left us almost Lifeless."

The sudden personal life changes and technical difficulties (my computer gradually degrading) turned this into a time of intense difficulty and nostalgia. Retirement of several engines were lifted, and old-new frontiers were also tackled (Unity, Maya!).

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Voyage of Horror - Director's Cut (HPL2)
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Last year's modding team reformed - under the name Anathema Syndicate - and went all out this year in terms of group projects. John Ekvall, one of our founding members, replaced me in the director's chair for the sake of a revisit. The project that inadvertently started the group - Voyage of Horror - was getting a remaster with the full workforce of our Syndicate. Writing, dialogue, and world re-building was once again led by myself, while the rest of our team tackled individual locations, additional scripts, and our "bandmaster" Hannes Skoglund returned to compose more tracks. The production closed with May, the result was scoring one of the top places on the Amnesia steam workshop "Most Popular" thus far.

Our page: https://www.moddb.com/company/anathema-syndicate

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Lifeless - Descent into Abandon (HPL2)
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Following Voyage's success, co-founders Justin Xerri, José Thous and myself decided to tackle a more personal theme in our next piece. Since multiple members of the team suffered personal losses this year, trauma and a closely connected motif - addiction - was chosen to serve as the foundation. In line with my more technical/professional activities I spent months building and writing the world of Lifeless, many of it stemming from my own personal struggles and victories against such habits. The protagonist faces a personal journey from our culminated experience, a fight against his own mind and for the remainder of his sanity. Both the visual and psychological aspects of the project were praised by many comments and reviews since our mid-December release, and we're looking at a similar level of popularity in the near future as our aforementioned project. Anathema Syndicate is definitely keen on taking more challenges next year!

Modpage: https://www.moddb.com/mods/lifeless-descent-into-abandon

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MyTurnTable - Unity mobile application
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Similarly in December, under the banner of "Grapes and Grapes", the beta of our collaboration project came out in the form of MyTurnTable - a retro vinyl style mobile application. It also marks my long-planned return to the Unity engine where I completed my thesis project. The Linux webserver and connected Wordpress page is in my father's care, while I mostly focused on the technicalities in C# myself. The app is aimed at a different audience than my usual works, and meant more for commercial use - the success of which is still ahead of us.
Webpage is already live with beta signup: https://myturntable.eu/

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Abyssbound,
Light Bearer,
Resurrection (PainEngine)

Last but not least, a nostalgic year wouldn't be complete without some Painkiller (re)work. Following the general dissatisfaction with the 2025 addition to the franchise, the fanbase went on to work harder than ever before, myself included.
- Another cut Redemption level was released in January -> Absorption Plant
https://www.moddb.com/mods/painkiller-re-demption-expansion/addons/absorbing-plant-sp-absinthe
- My overhaul on another "non-fan-favourite", Resurrection, releasing a modded cut version of the game (V42) came out in September
https://www.moddb.com/mods/resurrecting-devil

Light Bearer, a cancelled project from 2012 is now back, with two renewed maps:
-Eclipsed Castle https://www.moddb.com/mods/fallen-empire-mappack/addons/eclipsed-castle-v2
-Abyssbound Keep https://www.moddb.com/games/painkiller-overdose/addons/abyssbound-keep
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2025 remains in memory as the year when two important teams were formed:
- Anathema Syndicate (for-now modding group in the wake of our first successful project in 2024, Disadventure)
- Grapes and Grapes (an application development team formed within family)
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Ambition is also a factor worth mentioning, as attempts were made to switch my professional career towards application and game development, however such efforts were unavailing during that time (and market). Though the results of both team efforts aren't at all negligible - and may serve as a sort of bonus-share someday soon!