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 photo above, my cat Orfeo (italian name for Orpheus) in a curious pose (to say the least)!

What’s about the promo sales in the title? Well, the game engine I used for all my recent manga games, Ren’Py, got a big update recently, improving the speed, compatibility and adding the DirectX support (requires DX9 installed though).

So I am slowly rebuilding all the games I’ve developed with it in the past years. The first one to be updated was Heileen 1, the first visual novel I developed myself. For each game update, I’ll have the game on sale at very big discount, with the idea that many people will buy it and report eventual problems (there really shouldn’t be any, but you never know!)

As I’m rebuilding the games I am also adding some small features, like for example I added the infamous relationship bar (see the image below) that was missing on the first two Heileen games.

I’m also going to switch all the old one to the new popular online activation, with the exception of big games with voices like Heileen 2 or Bionic Heart (which would require demos of over 100mb, and it’s a bit too much!).

To buy the game for only 4.99, simply head to the game purchase page. You don’t need any code, but be careful since the offer expires next sunday!

What other games I will update? well, all of them, but I’m taking it slowly, so not more than one every week or better every 10-15 days. The next ones I have scheduled are Heileen 2, then will be the turn of Bionic Heart, Flower Shop, and so on.

The best way to know when the promotional sale is on is to follow me on Twitter or Facebook, since I announce the offers there first, while I update the blog only once a week.

Apart the promotional sales, I’m working hard on the various games in progress: I’ve written half of the 100 scenes for Heileen 3, the RPG framework for Loren RPG is at good point, and I got new art and ending images for Planet Stronghold: Warzone and Undead Lily.

And, “sometimes before Christmas”, Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook will finally be released (we decided to add a bonus extra scene to compensate the long wait!).

In the image above, my cat Otello looks broken! (in reality he’s just sleeping peacefully)

Three years have passed since I released my first manga game, the dating sim Summer Session, made in collaboration with Hanako Games. It was July 2008, and was my first attempt in the world of visual novel/dating sims. Shortly after I started looking with extreme interest to Ren’Py, the library/tool that was used to make that game. I remember had never heard about it, the documentation was scarce, and had so many questions/doubts despite being a C/C++ coder! Questions that could be answered only by asking directly on the official forums.

After the initial “shock” though, I was quickly converted into a fan, the possibility to code in python, which was a breeze to work with compared to C, and the instant delivery on three platforms were awesome features!

Summer Session indeed was also the first of my games to fully support Linux, the first of a long series (in practice, all my next games used Ren’Py so they all support Linux!).

Around September 2008, I was also writing the last chapters for a small, ambitious attempt at making my first visual novel ever, Heileen. I always loved to write and the game was overall well received, but soon enough I found out that writing in a foreign language was something really hard for me, so for the next games I started using editors/proofreaders, until the most recent ones, where I hire writers to write the game texts for me based on my storyboard/scene descriptions (which is without any doubts the best solution!).

And here I am, three years later, still writing about Heileen, in the third installment (and very likely last) of the series. Same character, same setting, same artist: even if Rebecca told me that won’t be able to work fulltime on it until January, so this means that sadly Heileen 3 will be out only next year (I hoped to release it around October to celebrate the third anniversary…).

As some of you might know, the kind of games I was making before was quite different. Sport simulations, tycoon games, wargames. However, I always loved to write and tell stories, so when I saw the opportunity I didn’t think twice. Being paid to tell stories? There’s hardly a better job for me!

Recently I tried going back to an old interest of mine – RPG or roleplaying games – and I think the first one, Planet Stronghold, was a good result. But I’m not satisfied, and even if those games are really hard to make, I want to try and make even better ones!

I sell mostly directly, and my products are a niche: I might not become famous, I might never get on Steam or any other big portal, but slowly but steadly I’m building a following of people that keeps my morale up, gives precious suggestions on gameplay, art, design and motivates me to wake up early every day to work on my games.

So, if those three years were simply amazing it’s only because of you who are reading this post, you who played one of my games, you who decided to support my efforts financially. So to you, I say a big THANK YOU! And stay tuned, I still have many more stories to tell!

In the photo above, my dog Nick who passed to better life last sunday.

As the title says, sometimes real life gets in the way of indies. I won’t be lying, this month has been the worst of my life so far. Earlier I lost my uncle Don Giulio, a catholic priest (but religion doesn’t matter, he was a good person and helped a lot of people during his life). It has been a very important figure in my life, and in some way also helped me to become an indie.

As if losing people and pets I loved wasn’t enough, the heat here (but also in US from what I’ve heard) has been insane since about two weeks. I bought an A/C, but even if I turn it on, the noise is too much to concentrate (I am not the kind of person who listen to music/radio while working, I need complete silence)!

Luckily, nowadays I use a lots of external people to work on my games. So even if this month I was mostly unproductive, I was still able to communicate with the writers, coders, artists and keep my active projects moving. But is scary to think how the life (and career) of a lone indie can be at risk when “the life gets the best of you”.

This friday I wanted to have the pre-oders of Spirited Heart Girl’s Love ready, for example. Everything is done: the art is ready, the story has been finished since July, the ending voiceovers redone. There are only a few sprites left to put in the game, test it a bit and do the various installers and upload them. Probably a day of work, but in the last 3 days was able to work on average 2h a day (and also had other projects to keep going that required my attention).

I think if today I worked at maximum speed I could have made it – but I don’t like to realease things in a rush. I like to polish my games, adding small details and making sure everything works. But all those little things take time! I’m sure many of you that follow me are wondering what happened to the other game Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook. That is another example of what happens when the life gets the best of us, in this case of my friend and partner in this game, Ayu of Sakevisual. She had many problems too recently, and even if a “pre-order” version was ready at beginning of this month, there were still several smaller things out of place, so we decided was better to wait until everything was perfect.

However, talking about Spirited Heart Girl’s Love, I can definitely promise it will be out this weekend – even if I can work only during the morning, in two days of work the game should be 100% finished and ready for pre-orders. So stay tuned and follow me on twitter for the announcement!

First of all, Ayu of Sakevisual just told me she is attending a convention today, and Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook is going through the final stages of proofreading/balancing (it was a bit too difficult). So… no pre-order links yet, though keep following twitter because I could post them during the weekend

Second, I’d like to introduce you a friend of mine, called Undead Lily. You can see the first promo trailer below, which introduces a bit the story and the first two characters, Undead Lily and Mantras.

As you can see, this is probably my most unconventional game I’ve ever made. A undead girl, ex burlesque dancer, that in the afterlife becomes a superheroine? Yes it’s bizzarre, and you haven’t seen the other characters!!

On startup, you can either take a short quiz to “shape” your character, both the personality (Good, or Evil) and also the starting statistics. Yes because Undead Lily and The Elemental Avengers, while not a super detailed RPG like Loren Amazon Princess, is going to have a RPG gameplay element. You can see the work-in-progress for the character creation screen below:

The game plot-wise is at good stage, with all the romances for the “Good” version finished. As for the gameplay I’m still in the brainstorming stage, since I’d like to have a map similar to the old game Archon, divided in sectors each one linked to one of the game elements: Death, Life, Air, Water, Fire and Nature. The character would move in turn and when two teams are on the same sector a battle triggers, which is a sort of turn based tag-team battle, 3 vs 3 characters.

Obviously everything is still only an idea, since I have to see how fun are the battles done this way. What is going to be fun for sure is the dialogues and general mood of the game, with many incredible superheroes each one with a different personality. And the romances, like Planet Stronghold, will have lots of variety too: the current plan is to divide the game into two separate ones, the first one with Undead Lily as the main character and Ace as the main antagonist (so the “female” version) and then one with Ace as main character and Undead Lily as antagonist (the “male” version).

You can see a flow chart of all the various romance options below:

As you can see there’s something for every taste! And of course, the release dates I wrote on the flow chart are going to be inevitably missed!

See you next week for more news about the upcoming games.

See the full gallery on Posterous

At least the pre-orders! No I didn’t went insane because of excessive work (even if it’s not a remote possibility after all!). I’m talking obviously about The Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook, which we’re currently testing and polishing. I know in the past I posted the game will be out soon, but this time is really soon. Before starting with pre-orders there are only minor things to do, like adding sprites and some backgrounds but all the assets are ready. So we only need a bit more time to put everything in the right place and test it so that every ending can be reached.

As always, follow my twitter / blog / facebook / google plus for the early announcements! For those who yet haven’t played the first game, during this weekend we’re running an amazing promotion: the first title, Flower Shop: Summer In Fairbrook will be available for only $9.99 ! Spread the word and if you haven’t already, buy the game and play it to get introduced to Fairbrook and its people!

Other news…

Queen of Thieves art is also progressing really well, below you can see Kira, the Warrior. Again, there will be lots of possible character customization available in the final game.

Planet Stonghold: Warzone won’t be “an expansion” anymore but a real full-length stand-alone title. I worked already on improving the Psionic Powers by adding Area Of Effect (hits two targets) and mass target (hits all targets). This both for the offensive and defensive Psionics, which means now you can do a “group Heal” to your party or also a “group Harm” to the enemies. Just beware that the enemies won’t like this sort of thing and they’ll aggro against your poor Psionic very quickly

It’s now the turn of the elf girls. In the video below you can see Thym: I’m sure that many people will consider her the most annoying of the characters, since she is quite snob and spoiled. However, the romance plot with her is full of cool moments (like “impossible love”), because in the second part of the romance (when you work as maid in her villa) you discover that you have some “serious competition”…

Leah’s path instead is very different. I think is also probably the most original character of the game. She’s older than all the other girls, and I think the sprite manages to picture her perfectly, a very classy and cute person who is excessively obsessed by her age, thinking that she doesn’t look attractive like she once was… Also Leah’s personality is dominant, and this will lead to very interesting (and different) choices in particular if you choose the elf (she will submit to her) or the demon (she will become the dominant one, obviously!).

I also got some very good news related to my other games in development. Not only Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook should be out at end of this month, but the artist of the game Queen Of Thieves, which I announced back in February (time flies!) is finally back and he is working fullspeed to recover the lost time. Below you can admire a few of the many clothing combinations possible for Joanne, the wizard:

But fear not, I’m not going to cook my sweet cat Gilda, who in the picture above found a new way to use my pot

Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook

We’re getting close to finish it. I know I’ve been saying this already, but there are still a few backgrounds missing, and some more testing needed, but definitely not much! Is really likely to be finished in July!

Spirited Heart Deluxe Girl’s Side

Even this expansion is at a very good point. Only a character subplot left to finish and then will need to test and check everything. This is very likely to be done either in end of July or August. The sprites are not yet all ready, but what has been done so far is absolutely lovely. Check the image below:

But don’t think all the girls will be like Reid, the sexy demoness dancer. Each one has her own personality and different life goals: cute princesses, fearsome thieves, anti-social genius and more bizarre characters will be present in the expansion, who is going to be as big as the main game! I think there’s really a very good variety of situations in the game and even if the theme is girl’s love, I think some scenes are really beautiful and everyone should play it

Loren Amazon Princess

This is going to be delayed a bit, since I’m getting a complete RPG framework done by a “real coder” (that’s not me! lol). This way I can re-use it for future games or add-ons (even in different settings/game worlds). I should have done this before, but as they say, better late than never! Meanwhile, right now the romance scenes are being drawn, the first ones are Loren and Elenor/Saren. Everything will happen during a full moon night, when Loren goes in a lake nearby to take a bath… As said already the scenes will be completely optional because will be more sexy than usual, and you won’t see them at all if you disable the option in the preferences screen.

Undead Lily and The Elemental Avengers

The final battle poses of the last two heroes are being made right now! Though there are still all the romance scenes, and probably will also need more art for the strategic map… this game is becoming really bigger than I thought, hopefully my efforts and investment will be rewarded!

More news and surprises coming soon…

I’ll be also promoting soon some games made by indie game developers friends, and I am also getting ready to launch an interesting promotion somewhere in July, offering several themed games that will make sci-fi fans happy. Stay tuned for more news!

It was a while since I last posted a picture of my cats, so here’s Otello in a very uncomfortable pose…! And here are the latest news:

The Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook release date

I know last week I said that on next blog post (this one) I could have made an official announcement… well, I am making one but unfortunately is not the beginning of the pre-orders ! As some of you that follow Sakevisual blog already know, Ayu (the writer of the game) had a car accident while driving back from a convention. She’s fine but need to rest, so the game release is going to be delayed by a few weeks. We hope at end of this month to have at least the pre-orders though, since there isn’t really much left to do!

As you can see from the portraits below, even Natalie was shocked when she heard the news!

And now for some good news:

Always Remember Me karaoke contest winners!

The winners have been already notified, I waited some days to see if Cristina Vee could make a video announcement but she’s too busy right now so I’m officially posting the winning videos on my blog. I have to say that was amazed when I listened to them (and also to many other videos submitted), the response was awesome! Thank you everyone <3

Note that the winners are in no particular order. All 3 deserve fame and glory, this isn’t a ranking, I just list them in random order:

For masterful singing and mixing, especially impressive use of transposition and harmony. A natural and credible rendition from a male vocalist.

For vocal creativity, spot-on harmony, and dynamic mixing. We especially loved her “lalala” melody during the introduction.

For an endearing and youthful vocal presence. Bringing earnestness and a beautiful vibrato, this emerging talent shows a lot of promise.

This is the last blog post about Winter In Fairbook cast, and I’m pleased to introduce you Ryan, the only male character what wasn’t present in the main game. As you can see from this video, he doesn’t seem to take himself in much consideration, thinking that talking about his personal life is not an interesting subject. I have the impression that Natalie will have to try her best to get something out of this boy!

Anyway, we discover some information about him: that he studies biology in a college out of state, and he doesn’t live in Fairbrook all year round. Since he runs the general store of Fairbrook, and that’s where Natalie can buy lots of stuff including flower seeds, I’m sure that our heroine will have many more occasions to talk with him again.

Lastly I have some good news about the game release. Since Sakevisual wants to sell this one at the June conventions in USA, is very likely that a pre-order version will be available before next weekend. Of course, the best way to keep up with the latest news is to follow me on twitter or facebook.