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Language: en-US

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Hello, dear fans and supporters 
of the Ambient Project.

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This is Dreamy speaking, the lead 
and sole programmer, game-designer,  

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modeler, lead level designer, 
UI designer, lead VFX designer,  

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lead writer and the project manager 
of the game - Ambient White.

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Many positions eh? When I started this project, 
I was foolish enough to believe one person could  

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occupy all of those and many more positions and 
develop a game of the quality our fandom deserves.

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The game called Ambient White was the dream 
of an 18-year old kid, filled with passion...  

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a lot of passion dedicated to 
the fandom he loves and the idea,  

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the visualization of which you’ve 
seen a lot on this channel. 

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This kid was experienced enough to produce parts 
of the game, but not aware of the scale of such a  

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project and the time it would take to turn this 
vision into a finished product. Well... maybe  

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he was aware of how hard it would be. But that 
didn’t stop him from doing everything by himself.

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His... my determination might have been 
the whole point of this nickname “Dreamy”.

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And I am still Dreamy. A lot has changed in the 
last 6 years. I’m 24 now, and I am still Dreamy.

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Since I started working on the project I have been 
learning every single day about how to make games,  

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and encountered many challenges in 
the development of this project.  

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Many technical, concept and game design issues 
were new to me and the ALBD team, and hard to  

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manage with people across multiple time zones with 
different lives. That said I’ve acquired extremely  

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useful, inspiring but harsh and unforgiving 
experience in managing a team of volunteers. 

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The ALBD team and I have been through 
many different cycles of development,  

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producing amazing work, but often ending up with 
very rough and unfinished sections of the game.  

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Well... to be fair, the actual game part 
with all of the gameplay and visuals was 95%  

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on me, because we didn’t ever have 
any level and game designers except me  

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and programming with volunteers 
was a faulty practice. Anyway, 

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I’ve finished college and obtained a degree 
in game design, I’ve worked in an interesting  

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variety of studios and teams and for the past year 
specifically I’ve been developing and managing the  

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production of Ambient as something as 
close to a professional as I ever was.

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As I said in Ambient Update #7.01,  

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currently the major part of game concept, 
music as well as a big part of gameplay  

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functionality are ready in the game. This is a 
big achievement of the A Little Bit Different

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team, which showed the talent and the potential 
of our fandom. However this project is still far  

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from finished. A huge chunk of features, levels 
and models which are the bare minimum to make a  

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game people would be happy to play and experience 
still needs to be developed. And unfortunately,  

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we always had trouble finding volunteers or hiring 
people for that kind of work. At this time I,  

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Dreamy, am the only person in the team with 
enough skill to work on these parts of the game. 

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For the past year I have been working on the game 
part time and the development has been going slow.  

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The good part is: the development was going 
with a heavy bit of planning beforehand  

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and I have then been compiling 
a lot of progress data.  

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Although this data wasn’t fun to look at, it gave 
me a lot of things to think about in terms of  

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the big picture of the development 
of this game. Progress was slow,  

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but we kept pushing for simpler, faster solutions 
to release the game closer to the desired date.

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The budget our team receives from 
Patreon is truly an amazing example  

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of the dedication and the love the 
Brony fandom has for art. However,  

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unfortunately, it is still barely enough to be 
a salary for even one skilled game developer.  

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Nearly half of the Patreon budget we had was used 
to pay for external content and as a reward to  

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some teammates. The second half I used as a salary 
for my part-time work on Ambient. When I wasn’t  

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working on Ambient, I was studying for college, 
and then I was working at game-development jobs,  

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mainly as a project manager - a skill that I was 
happy to learn while working with the ALBD team.

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The good outcome is: I’ve acquired 
extremely useful experience that gave me  

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an opportunity to look at the Ambient Project 
from a much more professional perspective. 

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The bad outcome is: I’ve ended up 
in a very busy work environment,  

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managing a huge team, ending up with 
less than 2 hours of free time after work  

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to… work on Ambient and have no personal life 
at all. First: that’s not enough time to work  

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on Ambient. Second: that’s not enough time 
to care about my physical and mental health.

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Last February, I was hired as a project manager 
for a big game development company with a game in  

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development that is extremely advanced compared 
to my barely functioning production of Ambient.  

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This game company is developing a game of greater 
scope than Ambient, but similar in many ways.  

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I’ve been managing many production pipelines 
for a game development studio and that made me  

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look at Ambient realistically. Also, a stable 
job gave me the opportunity to plan far ahead.

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Right now I'm going to explain to you

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the Reality of the Ambient Project.
The scope of Ambient White is very realistic  

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and not hard to achieve. BUT not for a team of 
volunteers. Ambient White needs much more time,  

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financial and human resources, and multiple people 
to manage the workflow. It needs people, for whom  

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Ambient is a primary job with a salary which lets 
them live a happy life to fuel their passion.  

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However, if things keep going the same way, 
Ambient.White will not be released for years  

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on end. It's simply about the realistic 
size and the complexity of the game:  

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experience in a big company has shown me that 
this kind of project needs many people working  

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full time to be produced properly. By my 
estimates, Ambient White needs at least  

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$800 000 for us to fully develop the 
story, features and visuals of the game.

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There is no easy, legal or promising 
place to acquire this kind of budget.  

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But I am a game developer. A very 
experienced one at this point.  

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And there have been much simpler 
games that had millions in profits.  

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The ALBD team has connections with many talented 
people and considering the experience we had,  

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it really is very easy to make a good game, 
much smaller in scope but one that will inspire,  

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give lots of fun and a deep emotional journey to 
its audience. Making a good game is one thing,  

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but selling it is a process that requires 
another type of strategy. And fortunately,  

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there are some very promising plans and ideas 
that we have been having in our minds for a while.  

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And I’m very excited about putting them 
to practice, releasing awesome games and  

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acquiring a budget for a professional studio. The 
studio that will be able to make Ambient White.

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I am still Dreamy, a person determined to complete 
the project I have put so much love, care and time  

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into. We are still the ALBD team: those who create 
worlds with our passion. We are the ones who are  

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creating a game so many people can’t wait to 
play. But we are not fools. At least not anymore.  

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There is no realistic way for us to complete 
the Ambient project with our current resources. 

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However, there is a promising path ahead: 
the one in which we start getting a budget  

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for the production of Ambient.White by 
doing what we do best: creating games.  

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Smaller games, the kind of games that are also 
full of love and passion but possible to do  

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by our current team in less than half 
a year. I had experience in developing  

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games of this size and I am capable 
of creating plans and following them,  

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while the ALBD team is capable of creating beauty 
and bringing worlds to life. The last part is for  

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you to trust us. And expect the release of Ambient 
in 2025, when the ALBD team releases simpler and  

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successful games, forms a studio and starts 
the development of Ambient roughly in 2024.

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Starting today, the Ambient Project is 
frozen, as we reform our patreon page  

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and the website to showcase more games 
of our growing studio. It's your choice  

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to trust our next path or not, based on 
the stuff you’ve seen from us before.

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The truth is: by supporting A 
Little Bit Different studio,  

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you get us closer to the future of Ambient.White 
being released in its best possible shape.  

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As they say, Rome was not built in a day, 
and I hope I gave you enough reasons to  

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believe that the fantastic world of 
Ambient needs time and attention too.

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But Ambient is not only our project, 
you are taking part in its future too,  

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and your opinion matters. So to understand what 
you think about such a big change of course,  

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we will include a form in the description,  

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where you can leave your take on how to 
approach the complex production of Ambient.

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Meanwhile, if you want to see where 
A Little Bit Different studio goes,  

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follow our social media, check 
out our website every now and then  

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and expect more updates about our 
upcoming projects by next winter.

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Okay then, wish us luck, and let 
this journey take a new turn:  

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growing A Little Bit Different studios to 
the extent worthy of the Ambient Project.

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Oh, no, wait. One more thing.

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We are going to release a new 
demo of the game very soon

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along with the video on this channel 
that will show one of the most polished  

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parts of the game - the game's starting sequence.

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Let this be the show of our determination, 
we will give this game a start, so in the  

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future we will do our best to give this game 
a continuation and a desired perfect ending.