After six and a half months of development, I am proud to announce that the final version of Exit Mask is officially complete and available for download. 

Included in the download files is the first chapter previewed in the demo, "Sutures", with the newly added second and third chapters, "Sepsis" and "Scabs".  Playtime duration is roughly an hour, give or take.  Along with the two new sections of the game, the first chapter has received some minor updates based on feedback I received from both Twitter and YouTube. Several QoL changes have also been implemented. You can now pause the game, and from there mute the game's audio, exit the application or return to the main menu. Basic JSON utility is also available allowing for saving and loading. I will warn that, while the game should be able to run smoothly on most hardware, during stress testing the "Ward" and "Womb" scenes specifically caused repeat framerate issues during runtime on less powerful laptops. 

Working on Exit Mask was quite the experience. What started off as a much-needed artistic outlet quickly morphed into a strange little game that captured the attention of an audience much larger than I ever expected. Within the short time frame of June to December I learned an incredible amount relating to game art and development, while self-teaching myself enough of a programming language to make it all possible. It's safe to say I'm a much more capable game developer now than I was even just six months ago, and I'm only getting started. 

I'll have much more to say when it comes time to write the postmortem, but in short, I want to thank everybody for the support I've received throughout all of this. Though I never reached out to each and every one (I wish I did), I am well aware of all the videos people have made playing and discussing my game and I appreciate it immensely. Seeing people react in confusion, disgust, and of course, intrigue, was genuinely gratifying to say the least. Aside from video content, it's been a pleasure interacting with people who are equally as enthusiastic and passionate about game development as an art form through Twitter and itch, and I plan on becoming much more involved within these spaces in the future. With that out of the way for now,

I hope the game was worth the wait. 

- Stef