Monthly Archives: March 2013

Happy Easter

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a relaxing image of a sunset on the Mediterranean Sea I took several years ago 🙂

Happy Easter to everyone! Hope you’ll have a peaceful and relaxing time with your family/beloved ones!

First of all you can celebrate with a 40% off discount on all my games using the coupon EASTER until the 3rd April. It doesn’t work for preorders (Bionic Heart 2 in practice) and for bundles which have already their own discount schemes in place (though you can still buy single games at discounted price, like only Spirited Heart, or only Heileen 3: Sea Maidens for example).

Regarding Bionic Heart 2, I should have some news very soon, and of course a playable beta. As always will announce it first on my twitter or facebook and in my forums.

News about Nicole

This is very likely to be the next game to be finished, at least I hope 🙂 There’s only the writing missing, and once that is done will probably take me 1-2 months max to code everything, since the game will reuse the Always Remember Me gameplay.

I also remembered that I never made any sneak preview for that game… unfortunately I can’t show much because might spoil the story (it’s a mystery game) but I put together something nevertheless:

nicole male preview

Once I have the female romance images will do the same of course 😉 Stay tuned for more news about this game and Roommates in the next months.

Regarding RPGs, there are many discussions going on in the forums. Work is being done on Planet Stronghold 2, featuring a new RPG system that is quite innovative I think (for more info check this forum thread).

And for everyone’s happiness, Aleema is going to include a codex in the game:

Planet Stronghold 2 codex

Everything is still work-in-progress but as you can see, is looking good 🙂

Progress update

First of all, I redid my website layout, I think is much better and functional than the previous one (the shopping cart layout needs to be updated but don’t worry, it works fine and is safe!). Second, the big update for Planet Stronghold is now out of beta, so you can grab it from the official page: http://www.winterwolves.com/planetstronghold.htm

Third, it’s been a while since I last posted a cat picture and did a progress report of all my games, so here we go:
tofu snowIn the image above, my cat Tofu looking at the snow from her little wooden house

As you know I have always several projects going on at once. Let’s make the point of the situation. I’ll try to order the games in the orders they’re likely to be finished, but of course it’s not a definitive list:

Bionic Heart 2

As you know everything is ready, but there are some serious plot bugs. Hopefully out at the end of this month, at least the beta testing stage!

Nicole

The otome version is at a very good point. It has all the characters/background art, and it’s only missing the soundtrack (but that can be done in 2 months) and the writing. After that is done, I’ll need to put together the gameplay, but shouldn’t take long since will mostly reuse the one already coded for Always Remember Me.

Roommates

Even this game is at good point, but since is very big, it will be probably out after Nicole. Story-wise there’s the last part left to write, but then we’ll need to playtest/edit everything so that’s still a lot of work. All the backgrounds are still missing, though I have already contacted a person to do them, and we decided to add several more CG images for the Spring Break event where most love-stories will really begin to flourish 😉

Then there’s still the soundtrack to do, which very likely will also consist of a theme song, since one of the characters of the game (Max) is a singer in a band.

Planet Stronghold 2

This is a very ambitious game, so while a good amount of work is already done, like all the romance scenes, we will add more enemies and probably camp talk images like those that will be present in Loren sequel. The RPG framework is also being rewritten completely and will take some time because the coder want to make it more flexible than previous one (so it can be adapted and reused for future games better).

The other games

Even if I don’t have time to post regular updates, progress is being made for Amber Magic Shop, Queen Of Thieves, Roger Steel and all the others 🙂

Planet Stronghold deluxe version available

I know many people after last week post are eagerly awaiting Bionic Heart 2 release. I asked Aleema to take care of it, since I was really burned out from weeks of continuous testing. I’m sure she’ll do a good job and I think the game should be out before the end of month!

Meanwhile take a look at the screenshot below:

createitems

It’s from the deluxe version of Planet Stronghold which is currently in beta testing, you can download it here: http://www.macgames.biz/games/PlanetStronghold-1.5.2-all.zip

What is this deluxe version? I needed a break from the testing, so I thought to update this old game with the latest Ren’Py version (which should improve the speed by a lot).

Since I was there I also decided to do a real update, consisting of:

  • removed the “super easy” difficult level, since even at Easy mode the game was easy enough, and added a new Nightmare mode, which could also be called “prepare to die”. Since there seems to be a new trend in making very-ultra-difficult games, I thought to do my part too!
  • but the real new feature, depicted in the image above, is a new screen that you can access by visiting the laboratory where Lucille is. You can ask her to build weapons and armors using “metal scraps”, which you can obtain looting enemies and salvaging other items you have. Some items are worse than those you can get through questing, others are better. You’ll have to find out which ones, there are about 80 new items 😉
  • last but not least, a new GUI for the game, as you can see from the screenshots below:

The update is free for anyone who bought the “Official Strategy Guide” for the game. If you have bought only the base game you can get the strategy guide here: http://www.winterwolves.com/buy.php?prod=17030044

That’s everything for this week. Work on the other games continues, and I hope to have new interesting updates next Friday!

Making wrong choices

grateful
I wish I had someone like Tanya to help me out, because I would really need it.

Today I hoped to announce Bionic Heart 2 beta testing. After two months of coding/testing, would be about time!

Instead no. I have bad news. I’m at one point where I fix a plot hole, and a new one appears. I check a variable, one path works, the other doesn’t. A scene that before was fine, now plays out of order.

I’ve worked like crazy in past 3 days, I’m stressed like never before and then I came to a simple conclusion. There’s no hope to make this work. Every time I open the script I have a headache now. Writer doesn’t have time to help.

So I’m thinking what to do. It’s really embarrassing for me. Despite all the efforts, I know that I can’t make this work, unless I make some really big changes. And I’m not used to release half-broken games. Testing to find the bugs is one thing, but the version I have currently is not even to be considered “testable”. Only 3 days ago I thought I was at good point, but then I discovered that is like a house of cards, if you move a piece, everything falls apart.

It’s the first time I find myself in such situation in my life, and I’m the sole responsible of this. I should have followed more carefully the situation, instead I was busy with other projects. A wrong choice, trusting too much someone else capabilities, thinking he can do it all on his own without supervision, and that’s the result.

A pity because the story itself is really good I think.

Not all is lost though!

However don’t be afraid, I’m already thinking what to do to solve the situation. A simple solution would be to eliminate the “multiple path” feature and just have a continuous story, where if you fail the Mars or Earth path the game ends. Less cool than the original project, but probably in this case I wouldn’t have to do a total rewrite of the story, and would be faster to solve it.

Don’t worry, the game WILL be out, you will only need to be patient for a little more! I am still aiming to finish it by the end of March, even if I’ll have to rework the game structure a lot.

I’m really sorry about what happened and will make sure this won’t repeat in future.

Bionic Heart 2 preorders open

Bionic Heart 2 update…

Good news, after months of hard work Bionic Heart 2 is almost finished!

I am coding the endings in those days, and doing some extra testing because the game has so many paths that I want to test them all to make sure there are no mistakes (even if probably will miss something, but that’s what the beta testing phase is for!).

Now check this cool image:
tanyahelenwallpaper

Helen holding Tanya’s hand, eager to show her something (this image will be present in one ending as well).

Anyway, this is one of the many wallpapers you’ll get with the “bonus content” edition of Bionic Heart 2 (the real ones have resolution if 1920×1200 so will fit even the biggest monitor/resolution!). There are much more steamy images, both of female and male characters from the game 😉

Beside the wallpapers, you also get a full atmospheric soundtrack with 10 original tracks.

You can preoder the normal version clicking here. If you want the version with bonus content instead, please click here.

But there’s no hurry, both versions will be available at same price, so you can wait to play the demo first if you are unsure 🙂

…and the other games!

The other projects are advancing, more or less. Some faster, other slower, but of course depends on the game type. RPGs take a lot of time to make, as you well know 😉

Speaking of RPGs, you can read the latest sneak preview of Roger Steel in my forums here: http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2887
(and catch up with the other sneak previews if you missed some)

Planet Stronghold 2 artist is working on more enemy sprites, and the last task is to draw the camp talk poses.

Roommates is also going well, writer is finishing the script and in the next months will try to talk more about this game, since I should start to decide its gameplay. Below you can see 4 new secondary characters that you’ll encounter in the game:

Finally, do you remember Queen Of Thieves? got in touch again with the artist who said will finish the latest ending scenes (they were made in a very unique style as comic pages), so I should have all the artwork needed for the game in the next months 🙂

What’s Next?

As always when people ask me what will be the next released game (apart Bionic Heart 2 of course), my reply is that I have no clue because depends on how fast are the artists/writers. Once I have everything done, usually takes me from 2 to 4 months to finish a game, depending on the complexity of course.