After about a month of beta testing, the game is finally stable enough to officially release it. Like always happens with RPGs, is possible that there are some small bugs left (for example, Krimm’s Fury skill was using a default enemy male voice since LAST YEAR, and an user found out it only a few days ago!), but the game can be finished, all endings reached, etc etc.
So you can now get it from the official page: http://winterwolves.com/SOTWbadblood.htm
Like with Loren or my other games, the base game and DLC are still a single download, and you need to activate/unlock it entering the serial code. The DLC parts plays after the base game story is about to end.
As always, once the game is available on Steam you’ll be able to redeem the key if you buy directly. I’m not sure yet when it will be available there (need to prepare the assets and such), but should be sometimes in May I think!
And now, some rant/ramblings…! 😀
Visual Novels / Dating Sims vs RPGs
Round one, fight! Nah there’s really no match here. I’m talking about the complexity of one or another game genre. The VN/dating sim can be quite complex too, but really nothing beats a RPGs 😉
I was surprised by how long took SOTW DLC testing, so I wanted to compare it to a dating sim/visual novel. I compared it to Roommates which is a very long dating sim with many secret stuff and branches. Well, I couldn’t believe myself but in practice the testing of the whole game took less than the testing of just SOTW DLC. Not SOTW base game, just the DLC! 😮
And Roommates isn’t even a small title, it is over 200k word long, a lot of scenes, many paths and endings based on the stats, so…!
Anyway this is not to say that I won’t make RPGs anymore, no worries. Just to explain why many/most indies just make a RPG every 2-3 years. It’s not only about the time/money needed, but also the amount of testing required. So even if I am working on Queen Of Thieves now, because it reuses SOTW system modified, it doesn’t mean the final game will be out very soon. I am doing it in a easier/simpler way so I hope this will reflect also in an easier testing, but you never know.
I proclaim this “writers’ week”!
I had many updates this week! The most important is about C14 Dating, which is hopefully headed to a release this Summer: GUI artist is going to finish the last missing parts, coder/writer are doing final edits to week 8 (last week of in-game story) and checking the already scripted scenes, and main artist should work on the ending CGs soon. I’ll post some work in progress screenshots next week!
I also got writing for Always Remember Me 2, Loren sequel, PSCD main story is done, Nicole yuri got more paths finished, the CYOA game has already 25k words done, and so on. A very productive week for writers! 🙂