In the picture above, Maja when was a kitten sleeping on a mousepad in my “old office”.

What is the unfinished business I’m talking about? Well, lots of games get started every year, and many of them, for a reason or another, are canceled. This doesn’t happens only in the AAA studios, but even at “indie level”.

In the video below, a work in progress of a 3d roleplay game called “Tower Of Destiny”. The project was abandoned about 3 years ago because the coder quit. It should have been a 3d dungeon crawler, with some “outdoor” zones. I think I’ll probably redo it as plain 2d dungeon game sometimes in the future.

In this other video a more recent work-in-progress. It’s the 3d version of one of my older games, Universal Boxing Manager. I didn’t hear back from the coder since June this year, so while I cannot officially say that it won’t be done, I don’t have much hopes as well!

So you might start to understand why I’m making mostly games I can code myself recently? Disappearing artists/writers are a pain, since you need to look for a replacement (and in the case of art, redo even the art that has been already partly done), but when a coder disappear… means the game can’t go on, especially if you’re not able to finish/continue coding yourself or if the coder used a different tool/language you’re not familiar with.

This just to show that being indie it can be a real pain as well, since there are many more problems than people might think. And now, let’s talk about something else…

Bionic Heart promotion!

I’ve updated Bionic Heart to use online activation, and like I did for Heileen 2, I’m offering two downloads: one without voices, which is about 32-35mb, and one with voices which is about 169-173mb!

The game will be only 4.99 for the weekend, so grab it now!
Only $0,2 each ending! (it has 24 endings)

Roommates game

So I got the first sketches from artist for this new game. As you can see, lots of interesting people… the 6 characters below are the dateable one. Max and Anne are the two main playing characters (the game will be playable as male/female). There are two bisex characters, can you guess which ones?

Do you think the male characters are sexy/interesting enough? I have no doubts the females are

And for this week is all. Ah no, wait: there are rumors that a certain game with a winter theme MIGHT be really finished shortly… but maybe is just a rumor! Who knows? Keep following me on twitter/facebook/blog to know more.

In the picture above, Othello sitting in a flower vase with a blossoming cherry tree in the background. Took it in my previous home, during spring.

Sometimes when I have a little time I play other games. Recently I bought Alpha Protocol, and was completely fascinated by it (no wonder, Obsidian is one of the best AAA developers around). It interested me a lot because of the RPG/FPS mix, but mostly because of the dialogue system and the multiple paths/branching typical of VNs.

Here is the problem. The game promises lots of different paths, every decision influences the story, and so on. And it’s TRUE. The point is – is useful? Who is going to replay the game from beginning to see what he has missed (and no guarantees that he will really see everything) ? Very FEW people, believe me. Also, in a FPS/RPG you can’t just skip the dialogues forward like in my Renpy games, so you can’t just do a “quick replay” to see what you have missed.

So I thought if wouldn’t have been a wiser choice to have still some branching, but not so many. Or that would lead to a different subplot completely, like I did with Bionic Heart. Such games should either be quickly replayable to let the player see what he missed, or tell the player “Hey, save now because there’s a big branch of the plot now, so you can reload this savegame later and pick a different direction to see what you have missed”.

I watched on youtube many videos of Alpha Protocol just to see what I had missed, because I really couldn’t afford to replay the whole thing from the beginning. It felt like a “waste of time and resources” to me. The devs could have done a longer game (is already long, but could be even longer) instead of making it so “free-play”. After all, in a story-based game, is more important to KNOW that you can have 50 different endings but that you probably will never replay it to see them all (especially if you can’t play fast-forward), or that the story is much longer?

I’m sure most players would pick the second option. That’s why in my upcoming RPG Planet Stronghold I haven’t opted to have lots of different paths: it will have a common main plot, but with missions/quest that let you have some freedom (do them in any order you want) and several romance subplots that are optional, but can be done anytime after chapter4, without the need to restart from beginning (except if you want to see the romance from another gender). In practice, save the game at beginning of chapter 4 and you can then reload it and see all possible endings/branches for your gender.

Speaking of Planet Stronghold, the next version 0.8 will be out hopefully next week, I don’t know the exact day yet because I had some eyesight problem recently, and with the Christmas busy schedule you can never know. Anyway, as I wrote several times, with version 0.8 the pre-order price will increase permanently to $19.99 so if you are interested in the game, be sure to buy it now

Actually it’s not even a normal, regular bundle. But it’s a SuperBundle! ™

What’s in it? Well, there are the two Heileen games (two visual novels with over 80k words combined), Summer Session (a very fun and replayable dating sim) and Bionic Heart (a fully voiced dark-sexy-creepy sci-fi visual novel with 24 different endings). So as you can see, there’s a game for every taste!

And what about the price? it’s just the price of one single game. Yes, four games for the price of one!

What are you waiting? Go check the offer now!

Superbundles like that are said to be seen only once in a human lifetime. You should really take advantage of it now

(Don’t worry, tomorrow I’ll make the usual friday cat blog and will get back to writing like a normal indie developer)

While talking with some other developers last day, it appears clear that to survive in the struggle that is happening right now in the shareware games (in which we are seeing the return of middlemen, cutting indie revenues even more) there’s only one effective way: do online / MMO games.

As a player personally I hate them. I was a long-time player of Everquest, but when I started working I didn’t had hours to spend (waste) into that kind of game anymore. Anyway, as developer, I can clearly see how this is the only viable solution for long-term revenues nowadays.

Problem: how do I integrate online/multiplayer/MMO with a story-based game ? I’ve come up with some ideas, nothing really new of course:

• making simple flash / JS singleplayer online games – this would mainly have the purpose to eliminate completely piracy, but no particular advantages for the player
• do some sort of series of games centered around a character – somewhat similar to what I’m doing with Vera Blanc, but not simple offline downloadable games, but a series of games connected each other, using achievements and maybe even some RPG elements. However this is a big risk since if the first episode for some reason doesn’t sell, it’s really not worthwhile to continue the others
• a MMO based on missions, each mission with a story, still playable as single player, maybe with some limited player to player interactions (but not real-time) – I like this idea, like a collection of stories, each story representing a mission (like in a fantasy or sci-fi RPG) that the player must complete, playing as single player game

I think it is possible to come up with something like that, keeping in mind to focus on the single player experience. I would love for example to do a sequel for Bionic Heart, but apart some art problems (I would still need to wait for the artist Rebecca to be free, which will be next year anyway!!) I would need more guarantees to make it. The first game was VERY popular amongst male, sci-fi userbase, as much that I got lots of emails asking me about a sequel. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, there’s also lots of piracy in that market segment: so much that clearly damaged the direct sales, demotivating me from even just considering the option to make a sequel!

This is one of the most common situations for a developer and I hate it: have a game that has a good following of “true-fans” (people who would instantly buy a sequel) but that unfortunately has also a lot of piracy, so that makes me think twice before starting a sequel So it’s really not a surprise that many of my developer friends completely abandoned the road of single-player offline games, and I believe many will in the near future.

I would love to start something new like this. Imagine a normal game like my others, but that could connect and auto-update, downloading new chapters, books or missions. I could add the new content anytime, after 2 weeks, after 1 year, of the initial game release (of course with some sort of notification like email/newsletter). Each content could be only a small fee, so there would be less risk for me and less money to pay for the player.

Yes I like this solution, maybe I could try it already with my next game Planet Stronghold… by the way an alpha is coming out very soon!

I’m very proud to announce that finally Bionic Heart is ready! You can click the images above to get directly to the game download page. It was a long journey to add all the voices but I’m sure that you’ll agree with me that adds a lot to the game’s atmosphere. I’m also very pleased about how the game turned out, since it has many plot twists, and a really dynamic structure. The 24 endings you’ll have to unlock are quite different from each other, and they vary from dark, oppressive endings to the classic “happy endings”, to the more “what will happen next” ones (which are my favourites).

In particular, one of the endings I consider it to be the “true” one. I won’t say which one it is, but relates to a planet very close to Earth…

That’s all, go enjoy the game now!

Bionic Heart – Today got some new voices for Bionic Heart, so we’re almost finished with it. I’m really looking forward to this release! I already sent out the beta demo out to some people and so far got very positive responses.

Planet Stronghold – I asked Deji if was possible to do some digital coloring of some old sketches another artist sent me. He is talented but he doesn’t have any digital tablet so isn’t able to do digital stuff…! I also found a character artist, she does an interesting realistic/soft-shading manga art, I think would work well in a space game.

Tower Of Destiny - Just got the new build of engine from the programmer. With it I should have enough to start creating the game maps. I’m going to add a graveyard to that town map I already posted before. Once it’s done I’m going to post another video on youtube

Heileen 2 - I’ve just commissioned new art. The game will feature some really nice art, and some small nudity too. If I have to label a game under 14 for the content, then it better be not just for the texts/description! Everything will still be of course very raffinate and soft like in the first episode. Will post more screenshots, and when the voiceover by sakebento is ready a short video maybe.

The Flower Shop – I got Marian sprite, and is really cute. I want to post shortly a sort of summary with all the characters in the game, like I did for Heileen and Bionic Heart (“The Cast”). Deji drew some really cute girls, hard to pick one…!

and there’s still another mysterious card game I’m working at which made great progresses recently too! I’m going to officially announce it when I have made a video or taken some screenshots.

The actors did an oustanding job so far, so certainly isn’t their fault for anything. Simply if I make voiced games in future I’ll need to start the voiceovers as soon as the scripting is done (before getting the final art). Or maybe I should avoid adding voiceovers to such HUGE games!

Another good news is that I am having a friend of mine doing a “dungeon game engine”. So yes, FINALLY Tower of Destiny will see the light! I have only a very early alpha version of the engine but it already rules. Full 3d means that I can move and even if the movement is “in blocks” (with turning of 90° degrees), being in full3d means that is very fluid, can have dynamic lightning, animated textures, and many other features.

I can’t wait to finish some projects I still am working on right now to concentrate 100% on that game. Finally, doing a dungeon crawler RPG is a reality! Hurrah

I’m looking forward on a release coming around the end of this month, depending how long takes to voice the remaining texts The work is about 70% done, so I really hope to be able to release the game at end of June at least.

About other projects, at the moment I’m working on Heileen 2, and two more “top-secret” games. One that will mix a popular card game (poker) with a visual novel, and another that will be space-themed.

Yes, the voiceovers actors are doing a great job. And I can officially announce that I’m going to release Bionic Heart fully voiced, unless some really unfortunate events occurs (which at this point I really hope doesn’t!).

In the short clip above you see part of the introduction and the first choice you have to make in the game. You can notice a system similar to those used in Summer Session, each character has a relationship value towards you that can change during the game based on your actions. Don’t be surprised if later in the game there will be unpleasant consequences to your early choices… characters remembers how you have treated them in the past!

A quick preview without any real spoilers:

“Luke quit his job at Nanotech, and went help Helen to run the shop. Meanwhile, Tanya would take care of Othello and the new bigger flat they bought together. Now Tanya has a real goal: make Helen and Luke’s life as longer and happier as possible.”

Of course, now I’m sending all the texts to be proofreaded/edited to improve the quality, but the meaning will be that one

Meanwhile I started to contact the voiceover artists. I probably won’t release the game with all the voices, even if will have to test it carefully, so who knows… maybe the actor are faster than I thought, and will be able to release the game “fully voiced!”.

Stay tuned for more info an an official release date for Bionic Heart. The adventure game all science fiction fans shouldn’t miss!