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.

Here we are at the latest blog post regarding Spirited Heart Girl’s Love, where we meet the two demon girls, Reid and Hade.

The first video is about Reid. She is without doubt the most sexy character of the game, by her appearance (very undressed as you can see) and for her behavior. I particularly like how the player character personality changes a lot the relationship in this case: both the human and the elf will be disgusted by her actions, while the demon will be actually envy of how she (apparently) manages to obtain everything she wants using her charm. I also like the ending of this romance plot, when you discover Reid’s real motivations and … oops, I’m saying too much!

Lastly, it’s the turn of Hade, probably the most original and together with Yana one of my favorite characters of the whole expansion. There’s nothing better than the video below to show you her personality. When I told the writer about her, I said: she is a sort of medieval/fantasy geek. And I think the result is excellent: she is a genius beyond equals but also a very fragile person with serious problems having social contacts. I think one of her “bad endings” is one of the best pieces of narrative of the whole game, even if very sad!

So all is left is to… release the game! I am currently waiting for some ending voiceovers and also final scenes, not real CGs since are pencils to display over the parchment like happened in the regular game, but still will need about one month of time. Meanwhile I’m hoping on next friday blog post to finally announce The Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook pre-orders…

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.

Recently my blog posts were all focused on my upcoming otome game Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook. However, people that follows me knows I’m working also on several other projects (I’d dare to say “too many” lol). Most of them are new RPGs, though there are also more dating sim and otome games in the works, but they might be done after the summer.

Loren Amazon Princess

After a moment of hiatus, because had to decide what kind of art style to use, I finally found a new artist and I’m going to use manga art for it too. Though will be more “adult” manga art as you can see from the images below:

This is Loren, the main character of the game (which won’t be directly controllable by the player though)

Next two ones are Saren and Elenor, the two playable characters that you can pick at the beginning of the game. Like I already did with Planet Stronghold, the gender you pick at the start of the game will influence which romance options will be available to you during the game.

lastly, this is Dora, a female dwarf scout that will be one of the various characters that will join you during the game story. In total there are 12 playable characters.

There is also a male dwarf in the game though is really not cute as her He’s the classical muscular, axe wielding angry warrior with long beard.

As I posted before, for indies is really hard to find reliable artists, so you cannot really know when the art for your next game will all be finished. Though I must say that if things keep going at this pace, I could have all art needed for Loren finished before end of June, which means I can start working on it at full pace. No estimate release yet, since also depends which system I’ll use for the battles, and the story is only 30% or so done , so there’s still much left to do.

Spirited Heart “yuri” expansion

This is one of the other projects I’m working on, with the help of Aleema from Lemmasoft who is writing the yuri scenes. For those unfamiliar with the japanese term, “yuri” means girl love. I’m going to add 6 new dateable female characters to the base game, each one with her own romance subplot and personality/secrets to discover, and is going to cost $9.99. I believe is a small price to pay for the upgrade since there are lots of new characters and some are *really* interesting.

This expansion is very likely to be out in July/August since things are going well with it.

Planet Stronghold “Warzone” expansion

This mainly depends on the artist speed. So far only a few new characters from the original game have been “redrawn” to reflect the fact that in the story the time has advanced of some years. This will be an add-on, featuring new monsters, items, weapons, but also I hope to introduce a few minor gameplay enhancement, like the possibility to have a strategic map and control resources, so that you can build new stuff with it. Adding some strategy element should make the game even more replayable than the original was. Also, there will be two extra romance option, Prince Cliff – Lisa (got sooo many requests for this!) and Shiler – Joshua (this is interesting).

I really cannot know about this, however I believe in June artist should be free of conventions and in theory, I could finish this one by September or so (I hope!).

Undead Lily and The Elemental Avengers

This is also going well – though is a very ambitious game and has lots of animations/character poses (there are already 12 basic character pose with eye/mouth animations and 10 battle poses done). So while I cannot complain about artist speed, it is still going to take a while because is a big game. I really hope to have this done by next Christmas, though I’m not sure, really!

See the full gallery on Posterous

I have a few more games I’m working on in parallel, but I want to keep those “secret” for now

Trent is Susana’s “big brother” (in all senses!) and when Natalie first meet him we discover that now he works at the library, helping Marian (one of the dateable characters of the first game) in her duties. Though as Natalie immediately notices, he seems a bit too happy for someone that’s working! Right, usually people who work are not in a such good mood… there must be something else! But what? Sorry I think you’ll have to play the game to discover it…!

With this video we have almost discovered all of the characters of Winter In Fairbrook. The only one left is the “new entry” (not seen before in the first game) Ryan. Watch this blog next Friday to see who we’re talking about. I don’t want to reveal too much but his ending scene (maybe because of the setting, or the situation itself) is one of my favourite of the game

Here it is! The first video I want to show you of Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook is about Steve, the character who was the protagonist of the first game:

When I first wrote the main plot draft of the first Flower Shop (Summer In Fairbrook) game, Steve was the typical lazy, playboy, irresponsible boy who every girl is mad for, but very few girlfriend would want And it’s fun to see how it has changed in the sequel. This second game is completely written by Ayu, even the plot, and when she told me how Steve would be different, I thought “that’s a nice idea”. Natalie (the main character of Winter In Fairbrook) meets him in a funny way, as you can see. From the first dialogues you immediately understand he is another person now: not only he tries to come to Fairbrook as often as he can, but now he really cares about his uncle Sam! Those who played the first game know how much conflictual was their relationship, especially in the beginning.

And while he still has unsolved issues with his father, he is much more responsible and helpful to the others than what it was before. I’m really curious to see how the Steve-Natalie relationship will blossom…

p.s. as you might notice this time I made the usual “Friday post” one day late. I had some serious problems with PC and the only solution was to reinstall Vista. I used to brag that I never had to reinstall Windows in the last 4 years, but seems like yesterday my system had enough and wanted a “clean install”. Was a good test for my backup/restore system though, since I didn’t lose a single email/file

Those who follow my blog/twitter might know that I’ve been working since beginning of March on a new otome dating / life simulation game called “Remember Me”. I am probably going to change the game name when is officially released with “Always Remember Me” just to avoid confusion with a movie that was out last year (not for copyright reasons since are completely different things).

So, today can announce that the game is officially available as pre-order! Some of you might wonder what does it means? It means that the game is complete, but there might be some small bug, or some unbalanced gameplay or other minor text errors. But since I’ve been getting numerous request to play this game as soon as possible, I decided to open a beta pre-order stage: you pay and can start playing the game immediately, and if you want you can help to improve it by posting feedback/suggestions in the game’s own forums which you can find here. Obviously, once you buy you’re entitled to lifetime free upgrades, so you’ll be able to redownload the final version without bugs.

Also the first 50 pre-orders will benefit of a generous 20% discount simply entering the following coupon code on the order page: BOIO000X9

Check the official game page – where you can find more information and download the beta demo to play the game!

I plan to have the game on pre-order until the end of the month, when I really should be able to make the official release: considering that the game, while very detailed, is surely not as complex as Planet Stronghold who required almost 1 month and half of playtesting!.

The making of Remember Me

The main game idea was born last summer, while my girlfriend was watching an episode of the TV series “Ghost Whisperer”. I don’t follow it so I’m not sure if those were main characters or anything, but basically there was a man who lost his memory and forgot who was his girlfriend, and his girlfriend for some reason couldn’t force him to remember. I found this situation particularly interesting from the storytelling point of view, so immediately started to brainstorm about a possible otome dating sim plot.

This time I decided to outsource all the games texts (most of it anyway) to external native English speaker so there would be less grammar/texts mistakes, and I think it was a wise decision, since it also allowed me to concentrate more on the gameplay, which is much more advanced than other dating sim I made in the past. In practice, there is a full life simulation game, with several places and several activities to do, which can change based on your current energy/morale levels, on your skills, on specific plot conditions, on week of the day, and more!

So one of the key aspect of the game is that the players will have to explore the game world and discover all the secrets, to find the best tactics to win the hearts of the four dateable characters. Of course the “best ending” would be the one that reunites Amy and Aaron, but being a dating sim I have also to allow the player to pursue other boys I also think all the boys have distinct personalities, and you’ll have lot of fun discovering them in the various scenes where you’ll have to pick a choice to influence their relationship.

I must admit I had lot of fun coding this game, thinking about all the possible various activities on each place, and then putting together all the scenes at the right moment/place. If the game will be successful, I have already in mind another story which can use the same gameplay system

In the picture above, Lilli sleeping over some straw

Spring is my favourite season. The blossoming flowers, the nature that wakes up, warm but not too hot climate (at least, for now) and so on. They say that the season you like most, is the season you’re born in. Indeed, next monday will be my birthday…so maybe is true! I have lots of things going on, so this post is going to be made in form of “news”. First news is…

Loren to be a manga game too

Yes, after thinking about it a lot, and after seeing that the actual comic author wasn’t doing a great job (sigh…) I’ve decided to use manga art even for this game. I am not sure yet who will do the art but is likely will be the same artist of Undead Lily, so I’ll need to finish that game first (since artist still need to do a lot of art for that game).

I realized I was about to make the same mistake I made with Vera Blanc, but at least this time I changed direction in time

I’m also going to change the gameplay, from card-rpg battle to some more real-time stuff and perhaps even isometric battlefield! But right now is too early to talk about it, since the game is officially on hiatus for now.

Remember Me out very soon + new title!

My new life / dating sim will be almost surely out for pre-orders next weekend (of the next week I mean)! I have finished testing the romance arc of Lawrence, so there are only 3 more characters to check. Obiously the pre-order version might contain a few bugs and some unbalanced gameplay, and the texts won’t be completely proofread, even if the main story was written by a native English speaker, so there are only minor things that aren’t proofread.

Yesterday spent the whole day testing it and I believe is going to be a good game, the “normal” endings are easy enough to get, once you find the right dialog choices (like in my other games) but the special ones are going to be tricky. You’ll need to understand which actions raises which stats, and is going to be fun to discover them all (some happens only at specifc day/hour).

Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook out… this summer!

Technically might be out even this Spring, since Summer starts the 21st June and if I understood well, Ayu of Sakevisual wants to have the game ready by the first days of June You can see a nice gallery of pictures of the game below… this otome game is going to be quite interesting!

See the full gallery on Posterous

So far the word count amounts at around 25,000 words, which is not bad already. There is going to be the usual farming sim, this time with flowers instead, but have yet to discuss about this with Ayu so don’t know exactly how it will be done. More detailed information about this game will come in the next weeks!

So… what’s the plan again?

The new release schedule is:

Mid-April – Remember Me pre-orders
End-April -  Remember Me Official Release

End-May or Early June – Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook

I’m going to list only the games almost ready from now on, since for the others in production many things can happen that can change completely the schedule. I’m also probably going to find the time to release an add-on for Planet Stronghold sometime before next Summer! Featuring the so-much-requested romance options: Lisa – Prince Cliff and Joshua – Queen Shiler!

In the picture above, a big close-up picture of my cat Nina. I wanted her to be present in the game Remember Me, but she’s quite hard to draw. The resulting sprite inside the game only vaguely resembles her…

Today will talk mainly of the decisions I’m making for my next RPG called “Loren – the amazon princess”. But first a quick update about my next otome / life sim game:

Remember Me

Things are going smoothly – all the texts are done, and are being proofread again (even if they were already written by a native English speaker!). I have still to link all the events together, make sure everything works as it’s supposed (some scenes happens only after others) and other minor things, but seems very likely that will be able to do pre-orders at mid-April!

Loren – the amazon princess

In the picture below, the two playable characters: Saren, the human male slave and Elenor, the elf female slave.

I am still writing the plot/storyboard that then will be transformed into script by writers. But I want to talk about the rules first. I’m still brainstorming the ideas but that’s what I have so far:

1. shared inventory. After finishing Planet Stronghold, I had the chance to play some recent RPGs and… well, having a separate inventory for each character is really bad In this game, I’ll have a shared inventory!
2. character customization. Each character will have access only to a specific weapon, like Dragon Age 2. I know this might sound limiting, but in my case I’m doing this for budget reasons: having different sprites drawn with each possible weapon is out of discussion. I think though that it makes more interesting the gameplay and gives each character a specific set of skills related to his weapon choice. For example, Loren will be a massive damage dealer: she uses two swords (dual wield power!) and does tremendous critical strikes. The downside of course is that she’ll have low HP, but thankfully your player character will be a healer!
3. character creation. Again, not much freedom for race and name – for plot reasons you’ll have ot be either Saren (human male slave), or Elenor (elf female slave). Also, you’ll be a healer. You might wonder then “wtf I cannot even choose my class!”. Yes, but you’ll be able to choose the specialization skills. Even if you’re primarily a healer, at low level, as you go on you’ll be able to become several different things: a sort of Templar (warrior/healer) that fight and also heal a bit, a sort of Druid (wizard/healer) who can cast offensive/buff spells and heal a bit, or you can choose to keep your path and become a powerful healer. So as you see, you still have a choice at later levels
4. skill system. I absolutely fell in love with the multiple tree/branches skills! I want to use that method in this game. I have already started designing them and I’m quite happy so far about the variety and results. Each character will have a common skill based on the class (warrior, magic user, scout) and a unique personal skill set, so each character will be somehow unique I think this feature should make the game much more replayable since you might want to experiment with all the various characters skills.
5. romance. There will be of course romances subplots! The main one will be between Loren and your Playable Character, but I plan also to allow some other romance between other minor characters. They’ll be optional like in Planet Stronghold, but I’m not sure yet they’ll have specific quest too.
6. endings. I’d like also to have several different endings, I mean quite different between each other. But is perhaps still a bit too early to talk about this (also, I won’t really talk about this since don’t want to make spoilers!)
7. battle system. This game is more for the “hardcore fans” than casual RPG player, so I’m thinking to move from the first person view of Planet Stronghold and try some card-RPG battle view. You can see a very ugly looking (hey it’s programmer’s art) test layout below:
   

   I’m going to do this for several reasons: more epic battles, you can fight against 12 goblins if you want Also, more tactical choices and the position will influence the battle. The first rows will be the one in direct contact, but all the heroes in the second rows won’t be directly attackable by enemies unless they have ranged attacks. Also, I can have area of effect spells/skills, and you can swap positions of the heroes, like move in the back lines if your fighter is injured to heal him, and so on. Will be much more fun I think, even if inevitably is going to make battle more complex (but as I said, I think the target market for this kind of game will appreciate it).

That’s all for now, as you can see there’s already quite some features to talk about

In the picture above, Gilda in a very cute and funny pose/expression. She’s adorable

In this other picture instead you see the “good” superheroes, led by that mysterious undead girl, who is indeed called  “Undead Lily” (cool name for a superhero, eh??). If you’re put off by the nudity of some characters don’t worry, in the game they’ll be covered “by default” and you’ll have to enable the sexy version in the options!

The game is obviously in a very early stage, meaning that actually there’s only a few pictures and a storyboard, and nothing else. With this game I’m going to mix some genres again, this time a real-time RPG battle system (think about Final Fantasy) with a more strategic / simulation part where you have to manage your heroes headquarter, building new weapons, researching new stuff, and so on.

The main gameplay of this title would be something like this (I am still brainstorming, if you have any suggestion feel free to post in my forums!):

1. you would have to control a team of good and a team of bad superheroes. I think this aspect would be quite fun. In practice the starting plot condition would force the two teams to work together, even if obviously they are opponents.
2. each team is made by 5 superheroes, associated to one of the following elements: Death, Life, Fire, Air, Water, Earth (the elements will be also key component for a rock-paper-scissor mechanic in the battles)
3. At a certain point, the teams will split again. Each team will be lead by the Death character, which for the good side is Undead Lily, and for the evil side is “Big Blind”.
4. Except those two fixed characters, you will be able to recruit a team based on your relationship values with each of the remaining heroes. The relationship will start neutral and change during the first phase, using the usual relationship system present my other games. Most of the choices will be mutually exclusive, since you’ll be forced to have one of the two heroes for the four remaining elements.
5. This should guarantee a good replayability since everytime your choices might be different and you might end up with a different team of heroes.
6. From this point, there will be another good part of the game/story that will see you face the other team and other creatures, and this is also where the strategy part will take place: each team will have a headquarter where they’ll be able to research new blueprints, build new weapons/items and train some unique superheroes skills. To do that, you’ll need resources that you will gather with the fights – so in practice it will be somehow an equivalent of the crafting you see in the fantasy RPGs.

That is the basic idea I have for the game. Of course, from now until the game gets finished (I believe might be next year!) things could change a lot!

One thing is sure: I’m finding myself a lot “burned” after making Planet Stronghold, so the RPG, and simulation part of this game will be very simple/casual, like Spirited Heart for example. I think (and so far my sales data confirm this) that I make my best games when I don’t excessively overcomplicate them. Considering that adding more details/stats/complexity also takes more time in coding and testing, you can see that I’m not really motivated to try making something as complex as Planet Stronghold anytime soon!