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!).

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone! I have released Planet Stronghold alpha 0.8, which features lot of new content! If you’re interested in trying the demo or buying the game please visit the game website.

Then, a quick update on what you can expect in the next months:

Role Playing Games

Beside Planet Stronghold, which will be finished at end of January 2011, I plan to start 2-3 more RPGs. I love RPGs and I always wanted to make them, but in the past I was lacking proper funds and/or technical knowledge to make decent ones. Now, using Planet Stronghold RPG framework I can expand it and create new RPGs. Most of them will be in fantasy setting though, since it’s the most common/popular one (unless Planet Stronghold is so successful that convinces me to make add-on/sequels). I have already a good collaborator of mine who is starting creating the main game plot, character sketches, and so on. Another one should start hopefully in next months, and I want to do another myself as well. So the 2011 will be surely full of RPGs!

Adventure Games

I am still in love with my character of Vera Blanc, despite the first two episodes not being really topsellers. As I posted several times if I make a third episode, it will be an adventure (first person) and not a visual novel, since the adventure style integrates better with that kind of game. I have already a plot for the story, but since it requires lot of money, it’s still a risky decision, so if I make it, won’t be before next summer, or even later during Fall/Winter of 2011.

Visual Novels / Dating Sims

Of course I’ll keep making them! Flower Shop 2 release is really close, is just a matter of few months. But since is tied to external factors (artists finishing some pieces) I won’t dare to name a date for it. Instead I can already say that very likely the otome game “Remember Me” will be ready around February/March 2011, since the plot is completely written and need only to code the “simulation part” of it and do testing/balancing. Depending how my other projects go, I could make more VN/Dating Sims, but they’ll be mixed with simulation games.

Strategy / Simulation Games

In 2011 perhaps I will finally release the sequel of Spirited Heart. I have yet to start coding it though, so is probably more accurate to say that in 2011 I’ll begin coding it, which is a bit different. It won’t be ready probably before 2012, also because I have in mind some online-features (probably optional) that could improve the gameplay a lot, so I am not sure yet I’ll use Ren’Py to code this one.
There will be for sure more strategy/simulation games coming in 2011 though. A remake of my game Universal Boxing Manager, this time with the fights completlely in 3d realtime, is under production! Is made in partnership with a good 3d coder who is going to use Unity3d to power the 3d simulation. It’s probably my biggest/most ambitious game to date and the 2011 will be mainly focused on it. I hope will do well since I’d like to port more of my old games into 3d or start new ones.
As I said I might also find the time to do a sort of light-strategy/time management game based on Heileen settings. In particular, Heileen 2 settings (pirates, the caribbean). The game could be played as normal strategy game or with visual novel cut-scenes (they’ll be optional). This will be a sort of experiment since I am not sure if/when I’ll finish it. Let’s say I’ll work on it on my spare time and when it’s done, is done

Online Games

Almost every year I say “next year I’ll make one”. So, this time I won’t say it! But, I would like to try making one, even if I am not sure I’ll find the time…or better, if I’ll find the right person, since I’m probably going to outsource the coding (will be most likely done in Flash or HTML5). Or if the new interesting BRL:monkey project from Mark Sibly (creator of Blitzmax) gets released, I might use that and do everything myself.

So in conclusion, looks like the 2011 will be a year full of new releases! Happy New Year again!!

I’ve been working non-stop on Planet Stronghold race quests. I don’t want to say too much because is a spoiler, but later in the game (after chapter4) you’ll have to pick a side, and either submit or unify all the other alien races. Each race will occupy a sector of the map, so each race quest will take several special locations to complete. Considering the races are 6, this part is quite long, probably the longest chapter of the game.

After this, there’s the “final battle”, and the romance subplots. Is fun because even if in this game the dialogues are very reduced compared to a normal visual novel, it’s still VERY LONG, because the story itself is long. I think players should appreciate it, and I hope nobody will say “the game was too short”!

Today I also got some sketches from Rebecca for Heileen spin-off. They’re the pirate clothing for some important characters: Lora, Ebele and Robert. They’re great as always – you can’t go wrong working with her, a pity now she’s making a career in comics fulltime

Maybe will post the sketches on twitter. As I wrote, this game won’t be a visual novel but something ver different. I have yet to decide myself how the gameplay will be but I have an idea in mind. Will be a mix of several genres. There will still be the a main plot and dialogues, but not in form of a VN only.

Probably this will disappoint a bit the VN fans but I want to try something different, and broaden my audience. It’s tough times for indie devs! As for the other games in progress, no news about them this week. So Love & Order, Remember Me, and Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook are still going on- expect them coming out somewhere in the next months, just follow my blog or twitter (or subscribe to the newsletter) to be the first to know when they’re out!

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)

I’ll try to be vague but I have to spoil something so if you haven’t yet played the game, maybe don’t read below

The premise would be that at the end of the 2nd episode, you would end up in the pirate ship with M. Then you would wander around a mysterious caribbean archipelago to find out the missing companions from the first episode. So it would be a sort of “find all the remaining characters”. But it’s not just that: the game would have a bit of RPG (I might even include a VERY SIMPLIFIED version of Planet Stronghold combat) and some adventure parts (use object X on target Y).

For now is all just pure fantasy since I have nothing written down yet, but if this happens it might be:

• fully voiced – this mainly because the game would have MUCH LESS text, so in this case it might be possible to voice it all. But don’t worry the story would still be intriguing and full of plot twists like the previous ones!
• multiple endings – well, this is almost a classic. However, the multiple ending part would mostly be in the final part after you have regrouped with everyone
• simulation – you would need to travel with a ship, you could play the evil pirate or good trader as you want
• RPG – as I said I might include even some very short combat. After all since I coded all that combat system I need to reuse it in more than one game!
• adventure - in some location you would have to use items and solve some simple puzzles
• strategy - I was thinking it could be cool some sort of meta-game like Risk. Nothing that would affect the game/story TOO much, but a bit yes (you could either try to win it or ignore completely)

so yes a rather unique combination as you can see. I like a lot the idea/setting and the kind of resulting gameplay could be quit interesting. If this goes on the game might be done probably by next summer, depending how other projects evolve in the mean time!

Everyone that bought the game before can simply log-in to my server (not BMT one) and redownload it. The link is on the purchase email

Now going to explain a bit my choices when doing the voiced version. As you might know (at least those who reads my twitter or blog) there were LOTs of troubles when voicing the main character, Heileen herself. In the end, I decided to leave her unvoiced. Several factors influenced my choice:

• after trying 2 voice actress that both gave up on the project (mostly because of the length) I started to think if I would ever find one that would finish the job
• even if I found one, the game wouldn’t have been finished before next summer (or even later)
• leaving the game unvoiced was like leaving a “unfinished” game on sale, and I didn’t like that!
• there are many mainstream games (Dragon Age, Mass Effects and probably some less known japanese VNs) who leave voluntarily the main character unvoiced

So even if my initial idea was to have the game fully voiced as Bionic Heart, I decided to go this way. I think you’ll agree with me that the actors involved did a great voice acting job, so I want to thank them all, in sparse order:

• Ayu Sakata – Ebele, Marie
• Steven Mane – Elias, Marco, Adam
• Lucien Dodge – Black, Morgan, Otto
• Morgan Barnhart – Lora, Juliet and Heileen kid (which unfortunately had to cut, since the main character won’t be voiced)
• Erica Mendez – Magdalene, Marcus kid
• Dan Conlin – Robert, Jack and some minor male characters
• Mauri “Darkblade” Majanoja -  John, Jonathan

As you can see, quite a large cast Doing the voices was a great task though, and I don’t think I’ll repeat the experiment anytime soon! For sure not for games with lots of texts, because it’s really time consuming !

Then, the Flower Shop game is nearing completion, I’m programming the farm-sim minigame, which is turning out rather difficult (I want to make something decent to play). Deji, the game main artist, is drawing the final screens and they’re really beautiful, probably the best ones I’ve made for any of my games so far

The RPG game Planet Stronghold project is on hold for the moment, since the character artist disappeared, right when I needed some more characters to start building the main system of the game (doing missions, selecting the party, and so on). However the backgrounds are being done right now, and the sketches looks promising.

Lastly, I have a top-secret project going on for my Winter Wolves brand. Really topsecret since nobody knows about it (not even my most strict collaborators). It involves a VERY original art-style, which I think was never tried in a computer game before, and a interesting couple of… special detectives. I am trying to find the right artist for this, and I’m still experimenting with some prototypes etc to see if the result could be interesting.

More info coming soon…

Anyway, now beside the full game, there’s also the unvoiced demo so everyone can try the game to find out more what it is about. A big thank to all the people that bought the game without a demo when was in pre-order!

So you can go to the official page: http://www.tycoongames.eu/adventures/heileen2.php

Or just use those direct links:
http://www.tycoongames.eu/downloadgame.php?id=Heileen2Trial.exe (Pc)
http://www.tycoongames.eu/downloadgame.php?id=Heileen2Trial.zip (Mac)
http://www.tycoongames.eu/downloadgame.php?id=Heileen2Trial.tar.bz2 (Linux)

So yesterday I released a Beta pre-order version of Heileen 2! Since I had many people waiting for it, and since the game is basically done (except some last-minute fix) I thought I could release it this way, without voices.

Of course, people that buy the pre-order now, will also receive for free the updated voiced version once is ready (but I believe we’re talking about January).

So, if you bought the first game, or some other of my games, you know what you can expect:

- top quality manga artwork: the amout of art in Heileen 2 makes it my biggest game so far!
- intriguing story with many mysteries: you’ll discover many things from Heileen past. Who she was, her surname, her parents, her early relationships with Marie, and more
- quality writing: the game texts have been proofreaded by a very good native english speaker, so no more mistakes
- 15 unique endings: discover the 7 sins  or the 7 virtues ending. And the bonus “limbo” ending too!
- 21 dreams, each one with two possible outcomes that leads to two or more different paths: a guarantee of big replayability

So what are you waiting for, go to Heileen 2 webpage and preorder the game!

I’m reviewing several parts of the game to add some cinematic effects (zooms, pan, etc) and reviewing the plot (is easy to get lost with so many choices!) and everything seems good. I also finished to put all the male voices inside the game, so I’m only missing the female ones and then the game could be considered ready to beta-test and then release.

It’s a bit discouraging that it will probably coincide with the pre-Christmas period: however I’m not sure yet, the game might even be delayed to January. Anyway, I’m still going on with my other projects, and hopefully if I can find the time I’m also going to do a decent update to Spirited Heart (nothing special, but I promised I would do one!).