Happy new year, everyone!

Yes, things have been a bit silent on our end. But work is still progressing smoothly on Last Call. To give everyone an idea of where progress stands...

•Last Call's story and overall progression - minus a puzzle or two I'm still deliberating on - is complete and written down, ready to be moved in-engine.
•The comic book story panels for the majority of Act 1 are completed, thanks to Kerry's hard work.
•Further discovered bugs in the still-available Prelude demo have been noted and fixed, thanks to some community input. An updated file will be uploaded in the next few days.

Another thing we've gotten a few comments and questions about is where the inspiration for Last Call comes from. So - as a New Year's treat - I decided to narrow it down and talk about some of the influences we took, to give both old and new players a look into the direction of Last Call.

•David Lynch. When it comes to surreal psychological thrillers, Lynch is my favorite director for that style. Though there are a few scattered references to his entire body of work (for example: Jay Beaumont - the name of our protagonist - is a spin on Jeffrey Beaumont from Blue Velvet), the dream-like state of the world and story takes the most from his last three theatrically released films: Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire. It won't be as potentially confusing to follow as any of those three films, but the way the story goes might leave you with as many questions and thoughts.
•Corpse Party. Though the original design for Last Call borrowed from the book of Silent Hill, the difficulty of finding and working a real-time combat system into a turn-based engine proved a little too difficult and time consuming. Rather than fight with that and risk losing quality in other aspects of the project, we decided to move to something similar to Corpse Party - a heavy focus on exploration and puzzle solving for progression and storytelling. Looking at the game's current state, this decision honestly made the project better for us to make and hopefully for you to play.
•Max Payne. Much like the team at Remedy during Max Payne's development, we had difficulty portraying certain story events in-engine due to technical limitations and difficulties. So following in their footsteps, we took the logical approach of comic book-style cutscenes. Not only did this allow Kerry to express more of his own ideas into the world of Last Call, but it also allows for some unique potential in the story and how it's told.

There are additional smaller influences taken, especially from independent horror titles. Paratopic, Pathologic 2, White Day: A Labyrinth Named School, and The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories all have their own places in the heart of Last Call, and we highly suggest checking those games out in the meantime.

This has easily been one of our longest posts to date, but hopefully it gives you a clear visual as to where Last Call is and where we plan on taking it as we continue our work. At our current rate, Last Call will be coming to you guys later this year. Thank you for all our support so far.

-Ian Obst, writer/director of Last Call