Monthly Archives: October 2008

Something more RPG

After successfully finishing Heileen even before the end of October, I resumed working on a project that I actually started before Heileen, but paused it while developing Supernova 2 and the latest visual novel.

To simplify I could say that is a sort of Princess Maker or Cute Knight inspired game: but that wouldn’t be enough. To start, there will be 3 different races (Human, Elf, Demon) that will have different starting skills and a different final goal. There will be the various jobs advancement, even if every job will be based on attributes, and then on specific skills. I plan also to implement the Arena, where you’ll fight against other characters of the game in a turn based combat.

So yes, seems a quite advanced game 🙂 I didn’t forget that one of my favourite genres are RPGs! However, you must not expect a very detailed RPG, but more a fantasy life simulation game, with lots of attributes and skills to master, and with the possibility to have fights like a RPG.

Everything connected with a main different plot for each character. So, that’s my starting point, we’ll see how the game will look like once is finished…! For now, enjoy a few screenshots below:

I’ll put this game on Winter Wolves website since it’s a RPG, and I want to put all RPGs games I make on that site.

Heileen: ready to sail?

So today officially put the game on sale. If you want to try it, click here to get on the download page.

it has been a fun experience to me writing this game, hope people will like playing it as well. Note that the game is a visual novel, so if you’re not familiar with the genre, this could be a good occasion to start with it.

I also made a promotional code to launch the game: enter the coupon BIPZ0509T in the discount code field on the order page to get 30% discount on price, is valid for first 50 orders.

Heileen: coming end of October

The game is basically done. Waiting for the last 2 backgrounds to put in the game and some testing, but I already played the whole game several times, so should be bug free! 🙂 I uploaded a video to dailymotion, since youtube quality was too poor (the game itself is 1024×768 !).

In the video below, if you want to try reading some texts, click on the “HQ” button and then fullscreen, and you should be able to!

Determinance: 20 free keys

I’ve been asked by my dev friend Paul at mode7games to promote his game on my customers, and here I am. I don’t really know how many people actually read my blog… but if they do, there’s a good surprise for them!

I am offering anyone that buys one of my games a free serial code to play Determinance, the sword-fighting game by mode7games. So in practice, buy any of my games to get that one free. But there’s a catch – the offer is limited to the first 20 buyers only!

How it works:

1) buy any of my games from Winter Wolves or Tycoon Games websites: they are UBM, USM2, Goalkeeper, Magic Stones, Summer Session and Supernova 1-2. The other game present are affiliated so they don’t count 😉

2) send me an email with the name of the product you bought asking for the free key

3) the first 20 customers will receive the code, so hurry!

When all the 20 free serials are assigned I’ll post again in the blog, so no more will be available, sorry.

Go Adventures!

Beside RPG games, adventures are one of my favourite genre ever. I didn’t make any before, for two reasons: I would have to hire someone to do the art and this was too expensive for me to do in the beginning, and also I wasn’t sure there was a market for them at all.

But in 2005 I decided I wanted to try anyway, so I started to commission lot of characters art for the game Summer Love, that was the original title of Summer Session. The artist was still at art school so took a lot to finish them all, almost 1 year. Then, when I had the characters I realized I needed also the backgrounds! so asked her to draw about 20 different ones, and she was faster this time.

In beginnng of 2007 I had almost everything for the game: the idea/main mechanic, all the characters with their backgrounds and personalities, but when I started to write the game itself I realized it wasn’t easy as I thought: I built up my own adventure engine, but the main reason was the writing itself.

While I can read and write a decent english, creating a compelling story and using the right words is really another world. So in the beginning I thought to just write it in italian and then have it translated, but I wasn’t really sure all the translation money would have been well spent.

So in the end, in spring of 2008 I decided to contact Georgina of Hanako, knowing that she made already lot of adventure games, figuring that she would have been the “right man” (or better woman) to finish my project! and indeed, she did it, and also pointed me to Renpy, a really nice Python-based tool to write visual novel/dating sims.

Recently adventures seems to have gained popularity, and Summer Session sales surely prove that there is a market for adventures (of any kind). So, here I am, ready to finish Heileen, a 17th century visual novel in which you play the role of a girl, trying to discover herself with the help of a voyage to the New World. Sounds cool eh? 😀

I really hope the game will be like I have in my mind. So far, after playing it several times, I am very satisfied. Stay tuned for a beta version coming out soon. Well, as soon as I get my new background pictures delivered! 😉