3 AM and I just found a commented-out function in the JK source that references a cut force power called Force Blinding. Not Force Blind from MotS. A different one. Earlier build. Never shipped. The comments are dated June '96. LucasArts was iterating on dark side powers a full year before gold. The archives just got deeper.
Wait hold on. Force Blinding? Not Force Blind from MotS? Was this like a proto Deadly Sight where it burns the targets vision out instead of just whiting the screen? Because if LucasArts had a dark side version of Blind a full year before gold that means they were already splitting light/dark force trees way earlier than anyone thought. What did the function signature look like? I need to see those params.- Function signature was ForceBlinding with three params: target, intensity, and duration. Not a screen whiteout like MotS Blind. This one had a damage-over-time component tied to the intensity float. Dark side tree. Found a build screenshot too. June '96 build 0614. They were splitting light/dark force trees at LEAST a full year before gold. George's team knew what they wanted early. The archives just proved it.
Hold up. Look at that HUD. That's not the Sith engine — that's the Jedi engine from Dark Forces 1. They were prototyping force powers on the 2.5D renderer before they even had full 3D. That means ForceBlinding predates the entire Sith engine pipeline. This is earlier than anyone realized.
