Monthly Archives: August 2015

Summer In Trigue – Liz

lizdate

Since the whole game takes place on the Island of Trigue, the scene above with Liz is part of a series of flashbacks that Sybil has during the game. That one above in particular is when Liz confesses her love to Sybil during an apparently innocent night out to watch a movie… 😉

Introducing Liz

Liz is a somewhat shy, nerdy woman who dreams of becoming a successful author one day. In particular, her imagination was captured by the great fantasy epics she read as a child, and she hopes to be able to write similar stories herself. Thus far, she has failed utterly at achieving her dreams. But thanks to the encouragement of someone very close to her, she has not given up. She continues to work hard on her stories, while holding down a steady job in retail.

Liz is Sybil’s girlfriend at the start of the game, and the two have been dating for quite a while. Though they were classmates in high school, they never interacted with each other much back then. Instead they later encountered each other as adults, and almost immediately hit it off at that moment. They now live together in Liz’s apartment, and have a fairly comfortable and happy life together.

Or at least that’s what it seemed like to Sybil. Unfortunately, Liz was not actually sharing everything with her. Sybil and Liz’s relationship comes crashing down, and does so very badly. Thus Liz ends up staying behind as Sybil goes off heartbroken, on what was originally supposed to be a two week romantic vacation in Trigue for the two of them together.

This “two week vacation” of course turns into a stay much longer than Sybil originally intended. Despite this, Liz’s influence on Sybil’s life, and perhaps even her presence in it, may not be entirely over.

A few updates

I posted about this in forums already: brace yourself, Nicole yuri won’t be out this year! 😀 Haha OK, OK wait. The game writing it’s at good point: however it needs to be fully coded/scripted, and even going at full-speed that will take at least 1 month or maybe 1 and half.

Plus, the new ending CGs needs to be done: the story has been greatly revamped from the original idea. I knew it, and approved the choice, since having same culprit as the otome game would make the game less fun 😉

I plan to put the game in beta and do the pre-orders even if the final CGs aren’t ready in any case. So, maybe the beta will be out before end of this year.

Work on Queen Of Thieves instead is making progress fast: I almost finished the last level, it’s taking a bit more because I want to have some very tough battles. Below you see the final boss of level 8:

lichbitch

Can you imagine what there’ll be on level 9 then!?!? A Lich King? Uhm… yes, but not just that! Also, I’m happy about the catacomb backstory that the writer and I put together. This part can be played independently from the main game, but if you do it you’ll discover “a secret about a character and that will help you during the final stages”. Can’t say more than that for now 😉

There are still all the romance CGs to draw, so I’m unsure how long that will take for the artist, but I believe it should be done by end of year. Even in this case I could surely start beta testing even without them, since there’s all the RPG/robbery/catacomb exploration to test carefully.

Last but not least, PSCD cards are at good point and will be probably done by mid-September. Coder has resumed working on the system, and I should have something to show next month maybe. Still need to commission the GUI but that will be last once I made my mind on the card rules, etc.

Damn it, I knew it. I’ll probably have at same time two games with all texts, art and coding framework done, only awaiting me to finish them 🙂 Then I guess I’ll flip a coin and decide which one to finish first!

Summer In Trigue – Shiori

shiori

Today is Shiori’s turn to be introduced! But before that, two things:

  1. The new beta for Dead But Alive is ready, with Mike and Carl romance added. For more information check this forum thread: http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=3668
  2. I wanted to announce a special “End Of August” sale I’m doing, with discounts from 25% for Seasons Of The Wolf and its DLC, and 50% for the remaining games.
    For technical reason this time the discount is not automatic, but you’ll have to use coupon codes during checkout:
    CVOU000I1 to get the 25% discount for Seasons Of The Wolf and Bad Blood DLC
    CVOT001A6 to get the 50% discount on all other games

    As the name says, the promo sale will run until the 31st of August!

And now, let’s proceed with Shiori’s intro by the writer:

Shiori is a Japanese woman in her mid twenties, and someone who has had a rather interesting life. Though much of those “interesting” parts involves things in her youth that she’d prefer never happened, her current life is very much to her liking. Thanks to a fairly large inheritance and some success in her photography career, she is able to indulge in her hobbies and travel frequently. And her most recent travels have taken her to Trigue for an extended stay.

Shiori can be a bit sarcastic and blunt at times. She is fluent in Japanese, English, and French, and takes great pleasure in the fact that she knows insults and curses in multiple languages. Indeed, she specifically learned just the insults and curses of seven additional languages. She is quick to speak her mind when provoked and has no qualms with being incredibly harsh when she feels it is deserved, but she is also usually willing to forgive and give someone a second chance. Or even a third chance, or a forth chance. This willingness to forgive has gotten her in trouble before, but she still tries to practice it.

She is very competitive, and loves playing games against other people. She favors video games for this, but also loves card games and board games. Regardless of format, such games sometimes give her a chance to try out her many foreign curse words. Another interest of hers is food and cooking, but since she is a fairly skilled cook, this one does not
result in her trying out new curse words. Well, not usually.

Shiori is very found of animals, though her frequent travel interferes with her ability to have pets. She especially likes birds, and finds crows and ravens in particular to be beautiful, intelligent creatures that she feels have an undeserved bad reputation. Part of her reason for going to Trigue is she hoped to observe a species of crow native to the island.

I like this character in particular because she has some secret hidden, related to her past. You’ll need to wait for the final game to know what is it! 😉

Summer In Trigue – Mia

mia

What is better in this hot day of August to introduce a “hot” girl from Summer In Trigue? 😉

Introducing Mia

Mia is an outgoing and athletic woman who works in Trigue as a tourist guide and instructor for several activities. This is much to Mia’s liking, for though the work can be tiring, it allows her to constantly experience the beautiful sites that can be found in Trigue. Mia loves the outdoors and is especially found of scuba diving, and so she is super happy to have been born and raised on an island like Trigue.

She also likes living in Trigue because the island’s name lends itself to puns. Mia is a huge pun lover, and enjoys making her friends groan with them. Her overall sense of humor is a bit dark, and she often jokes about how her job lets her know the perfect places to hide a body. At least most people assume she’s joking. She is pretty frightening when angry though…

Mia loves spending time in nature, but she has other hobbies. She is a fan of books, particularly those that have dark and disturbing stories with a hint of optimism. She also really enjoys watching terrible movies and laughing at them, especially if friends and alcohol are involved. And she has an interest in art, especially tattoos, and though her own skill at drawing is pretty basic she is interested in learning more.

Mia’s work with tourists often has had her interacting with stressed out couples and families, and so she has seen how ugly things can get between the people closest to each other. Her own personal experiences with both romance and family have also been complicated, and they have left her a bit jaded and cynical. But she doesn’t let that color her interactions with people, and tries to remain friendly and pleasant most of the time.

Queen Of Thieves update

After almost two months of “forced break” due to the crazy climate here (every day was over 35°C !!) I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things. Currently coding the sixth level of the catacombs, where things starts to get tough:

airelementals

The minor elementals that were boss fights in level 2 are now regular enemies, and they brought their “big brothers” this time! Don’t worry thought since I’m testing the party progression for each level, battles should be balanced. It should be 3 party levels each catacomb level, so something like:

level 1 => party level1
level 2 => party level3
level 3 => party level6
level 4 => party level9
level 5 => party level12
level 6 => party level15
level 7 => party level18
level 8 => party level21
level 9 => party level24+

and so on. So while on catacomb level 2 your party should be around level 3, when you’ll encounter the battle above your party should be 12-13 levels higher, and that makes quite a difference!

Of course that might be slightly tweaked during the testing, but I don’t want the player able to “clear” the catacombs in one single try. Something to do in-between the various robbery missions. Also they’re optional, so not required to win/finish the game.

Writing is going well too, the only thing slightly behind is the art, since usually I liked to have it almost finished at this point. Anyway, beside the ending CGs, the base game art is basically done 🙂

Summer In Trigue – Sybil

sybilfate

I’ve noticed that I never introduced the main character of Summer In Trigue: Sybil herself! So here’s the Sybil official introduction by the writer:

Introducing Sybil

The protagonist of Summer in Trigue, Sybil is a young woman with a very particular view about fate. Back when she was a child, Sybil often noticed a lot of strange coincidences occurring in her life. Her friends told her it might be fate or destiny, but Sybil didn’t believe such things actually existed… not at first that is. Now that she is an adult, Sybil has become convinced that Fate with a capital F does exist, and that it hates her guts.

Or, at the very least, she feels it enjoys playing oftentimes cruel jokes and tricks on her, as shown by the fact that the “strange coincidences” have continued to occur with alarming frequency throughout her life, and have often been unpleasant and oddly specific. Sybil has developed a strong sense of determination and perseverance by weathering all the stuff Fate has thrown at her. No matter how many times life beats her down, she gets back up, usually a bit stronger, and perhaps a tad bit more paranoid as well.

Sybil can sometimes be impulsive and rash, as experience has shown her that all the best planning in the world sometimes doesn’t matter, and she wonders if doing something spontaneous sometimes makes it harder to Fate to mess with her. She has a very morbid sense of humor and a moderately active imagination, and sometimes indulges both when people piss her off too much. But she is very much a good person at heart, just someone with a few quirks.

Before her arrival in Trigue, Sybil was quite happy with her life, as she had a stable if boring job, a loving girlfriend, and a nice apartment. Those were enough for her, plus she was very much looking forward to her and her girlfriend’s planned two week romantic vacation in Trigue. After her arrival in Trigue, with Fate having reared its ugly head again, Sybil is initially sad and angry and alone. But she is hopeful that maybe she’ll catch a break for a bit, and the vacation will go smoothly and give her time to recover.

Sadly, she has no way of knowing she doesn’t star in “Two Weeks in Trigue”…

The other games are making progress steadily. I am still somewhat unable to work reliably because of heat and some life problems: had a cat with health issues, had to drive around town, etc. I’m starting to believe in Fate like Sybil! 🙂