Darkest Days is an animated musical created using Valve’s SFM engine. It was created with a number of goals in mind. It was due to wanting to get into game design and world building, and more importantly, I saw how heavy metal music was treated unfairly.
I had been playing guitar in a progressive metal band and people would always tell me that ‘it’s too loud’ and ‘why does the singer scream! that’s not singing’.
“I wanted to show that heavy metal music can be appreciated as emotional music and not the idea that it’s all about murder and killing”
I spent a year making ‘Darkest Days’, working 5 hours every night after work during the week, and 14 hour days on the weekend. I also set myself a dead line by completing it by June 2013
NOTE: Darkest Days could face removal on Youtube. This is because the bands featured are starting to block access to their music. It's only a matter of time. While I could mute the music, I feel that this lessens the impact of the bands and the emotional impact that they have.
I must admit the animation does suck. But the focus was always on the music. It’s what drove the emotion.
I still remember going to work listening to Brand New’s song ‘Play Crack The Sky’. I could see a man drifting out into sea, trying to get away from something. I sat listening, trying to work to why he was out there. What was he trying to get away from?
