I just discovered a fun thing. One of my best collaborator, Ayu Sakata (Flower Shop’s writer, voice actress / proofreader in Bionic Heart, Heileen 2 and more) and I are both of The Tiger in the Chinese Horoscope. This means that this is our year! 😀
It surely started well with The Flower Shop who is getting a positive response and nice reviews everywhere.
Now she is working on editing what should be my next game (unless I manage to finish Vera Blanc first but I doubt it). It’s a manga visual novel / strip poker game called Card Sweethearts. I started this project last year, asking Ren’Py main programmer Tom to create a poker engine out of his card game system for Ren’Py.
The poker is the classic Texas Hold’em, and will become a classic strip poker (featuring only tasteful images though) when you challenge one of the four girl depicted in the title screen image below:
I absolutely like how Ayu is reworking the original game texts (written by another collaborator of mine who had to quit). Just read at Tobias description of Miko, one of the four girl you can pursue in the game and my personal favourite:
“You mean Rocco? That old guy ain’t much, but his woman Miko. Now she’s a fine piece of work. Hottest thing out of the orient since they invented gunpowder.”
Now that’s what I call really top writing! 😀
Below a in-game screen featuring the poker part. That is really fun, and is cool how it integrates with the story itself. The game will also feature a scheduler like my other dating sims where you’ll be able to decide what to do with your week.
So basically I have in production (or planned) the following games for this year:
- Cardsweethearts – a visual novel / poker game mix
- Vera Blanc 1 – an american comic-styled mystery game with several minigames in it (more on this soon)
- Planet Stronghold – probably my biggest project to date, a sci-fi RPG featuring a battlesystem, many varied enemies, an inventory for each character, a training system, a map system, different weapons/armors types, with a romance/VN background and several possible outcomes!
- a still unnamed horror/mystery game set in victorian times that most likely will be illustrated by Zyephen (the same artist of Planet Stronghold characters / enemies)
- a sequel of Flower Shop with a brand new game (not farming sim) seen from “the girls side”
- an hex-grid turnbased fantasy wargame similar to the good old SSI titles
It’s going to be a very busy year as you can see!
I’m also of the year of the Tiger as well. I am really enjoying your games in Linux, and hope that if you have time, that you’ll come by and feel free to post about your titles and any news that you’d like those at my site to know about. I have a forum for Video Game and System Discussions that would really benefit from hearing about your software. Thank you!
Lol. I’m pretty sure Card Sweethearts is a mature game intended for the male audience but if I’m not mistaken, the artist is the same who did Heileen, Bionic Heart, Summer Session and College Romance?
Lol. And I like Poker, so I’d really try this game out. 😛
Yes is the same artist indeed 🙂
Yey!!! 😀 I wonder when this one is gonna be released. 😀
Not sure, probably around June this year if all goes well!
Hello. I am so glad you mentioned a girls’ version of Flower Shop. I’ve really enjoyed Spirited Heart and I love these dating/rpg games but it seems like most are geared for the guys.
A new Spirited Heart (or like it) with lots more encounters (and less job requirements) would be great.
Yes both the writer and artist of the original game are enthusiast about the idea, so I really think is going to happen later this year 🙂
I’m also going to make a new post to announce the new game based on Spirited Heart (but that will be different, so not really a sequel, more like a variation so people that prefer the gameplay rather than the writing/encounters will be happy too).
Hmmm… June? Oh, it’s near anyway. 😀
(Now, I’m hoping everything GOES as planned!) 😀
BTW, just out of curiosity, is the horror/mystery unnamed game like a click and go game? Or is it like an RPG, where you have to move the character around using the mouse or keys?
The horror mystery game is my Vera Blanc game, you can see more info in this blog. It is like a visual novel but with several minigames.