As I wrote in previous posts, I decided to move my otome games production to a more girly site (which I’m still building though). As you can imagine the name “Winter Wolves” doesn’t recall exactly a romantic, cute, girly atmosphere 😀
There are already some games “in progress”, but the first game that is likely going to be released will be called “Remember Me”, and will be a dating sim. I have yet to decide if it will also incorporate a minigame (time management) like the farming sim. If you want let me know your opinion on this with comments or forum posts: should the game be a plain dating sim or have also a minigame?
I don’t want to reveal too much info about it yet, but it will have all the required elements to be a true otome game:
- Romance – the game will be VERY romantic. The starting situation already is very romantic even if a bit dramatic.
- No Sex – the game will be absolutely family friendly like all the games I’ll release on that new domain/brand. For the men reading, don’t worry, if I can find more reliable writer/artists I plan to make some more male-oriented ones to put them in Tycoon Games website 😉
- Manga art – the art will be cute manga, Flower Shop style. I might even combine some comic scenes like Vera Blanc game but still keeping a cute/girly manga style.
- Handsome boys to date – there will be plenty of cool, handsome boys to date. Some will be romantic, some will be workaholics, others will be shallow but who knows, maybe with your help they might change their attitude?
- Cuteness power – flowers, pets like young kitties and puppies. Poems, romantic situations. You got the idea.
- Good writing – I’ll completely outsource the writing so hopefully the quality and style will be much better than my past attempts.
Speaking of this first game, the main character is a sort of homage to a friend developer of mine, Amanda Fitch. Indeed, in this game you’ll control the character of “Amarantha”. A very uncommon name for a girl, it comes from the amaranth flower, which is derived from Greek (amarantos) meaning “unfading”.
She works in a ice cream parlor during summer, she likes to write poems, and her friends call her Amy.
The one below happens right before the main game scene, as you see things doesn’t seem to start particularly well but… with an Otome game the Happy End is guaranteed!
Your gentle touch
The warmth of your embrace
The passion of your kiss
Precious times
That felt ever so divine
I though that they would never leave
But…
Even though I can’t reach you anymore
I can’t open my eyes to find you there
I’ll always have my memories
Though they are not as warm as the hands
That always made me feel so safe
I know they will never disappear
As you now have
My beloved,
My heart is forever yours
Even if you’re lost
Beyond where my trembling voice
Can reach you
Even if your memories fade
Or disappear into the darkness
I’ll never forget the precious times
When we faced the world together
My beloved,
For today,
For tomorrow,
For the days that may never return,
Never forget the words we once exchanged…
“I love you…”
“For the men reading, don’t worry, if I can find more reliable writer/artists I plan to make some more male-oriented ones to put them in Tycoon Games website “.
Hey! We ladies have been known to enjoy sexy-times too! If you’re marketing this new brand towards girls, then I can understand why you’d want to stay away from the raunchier stuff, but not just dudes are fans of adult content. ^_~ Maybe keep that in mind if you want to market a game towards women (not girls, women).
Hah, good to know 🙂 I wrote men in general since I thought the vast majority of women wouldn’t find a sexy game like Bionic Heart interesting (even if thinking better, I know already several female friends of mine who liked it).
But as you said, this new site/brand will be girls-cute-nosexy only, so that’s why I said that.
I was actually thinking to give up “the middle ground” (games only slightly sexy) and take 2 different approach: totally family friendly, and very sexy (nothing XXX rated of course, but involving nudity and such). Probably should make a poll to know what people thinks first 😀
I don’t think your target audience will be GIRLS here. It’s niche, and probably won’t please parents with its romance, so you’re probably looking at teenagers/20s years old. An otome game blog I follow actually had a recent survey:
http://whitebutterfly.kokidokom.net/
So speaking as a older teen girl, and also as a participant in the otome community… I think you’d be smarter to go a little risque (or very sexy, in your terms). Not XXX-rated, of course, and I’m not quite sure about nudity, but uncomfortable situations, innuendos… sealed with a pink kiss. xD Those fangirl tricks, you know. I think that’s what made Re:A++ so popular, aside from the high production value. All the skinship.
Take, for example, shojo manga, which has SO many similarities with otome games it’s ridiculous. The bestselling shojo manga is Fruits Basket, Ouran Host Club, and HanaKimi. The set-up of all 3 allow for quite some risque situations… They’re not family friendly, but it’s the teasing that brings fandom. So I think you should go a little sexy to please those who’ll buy the game (and me. xD I’m not being selfless here).
On a side note, I found the problem with Bionic Heart to not be the storylines, but the artwork. Very… pandering to male tastes, shall I say? Same with Heileen. Even though the main character was a female, the storyline and art seemed like a male fantasy. That turned me off. Compare that to The Flower Shop, which, despite a male protagonist, I felt appealed to the tastes of both gender (or female gender only) in art and storyline. Very romantic (with some risque, if I remember).
Thanks for the tips! I am still quite new to otome games, but since I am going to use female writers from now on to write the actual dialogues/screenplay (I would play the role of a “director”, just giving the basic idea, the characters profiles and a few scenes description) I believe it should show off on next games.
Flower Shop was totally family friendly though 🙂
I agree on Bionic Heart, but why you think Heileen storyline and art was male fantasy?
I remember Steve oggling at girls with his girlfriend right next to him, and comments about their… um… assets. And other little things like that. Though yeah, probably no more than PG. I’d say 10+, depending on how comfortable you are with that stuff.
For otome games, I think PG-13 is a good rating to shoot for. And yes, if you’re new to otome games, I think Yojinbo is a good otome VN, and you should check out the system of probably THE most popular otome dating sim of all times, Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side. It has a great use of the calendar system & minigames (mostly during special events like school festivals, not everyday). I personally found the farming minigame a little tedious, because I prefer minigames like TMGS, instead of for a specific event or everyday.
Heileen… Well, first and probably most importantly, the art. The exaggerated curves, the clothes… especially for Heileen 2 (I only played the demo for that, so take it as you will). I remember thinking, yes, they’re shipwrecked, but why are the female clothes so PREVOCATIVELY tattered? And the personalities of all the catchable characters. The guys were unappealing, and the fxf pairings… I have no problem with fxf, but comparing the characterizations of fxf pairings in Hanako’s games to in Heileen, I can only say that yes, it does indeed feel like a male fantasy. The rather… lackluster writing probably heightened the problem, because it made the characters one dimensional.
But you’ve changed both, so I am looking greatly forward to this otome game. I also recommend you advertise to these blogs and the otome community (my neo romance forum particularly) to reach your intended audience. No doubt they’ll know anyway, since they’ve been waiting for high quality english otomes… but you never know, right?
Anyway, I’ll shut up now, and can’t wait for this!
I heard about tokimeki memorial, going to check that out 🙂 But to be honest, I believe is rather difficult for a male to write a game that appeals females, and vice versa. Not impossible, but hard 🙂 That’s why I’ve decided that was a wiser move to get female writers for my new otome series of games, while I’ll probably keep doing some more male oriented ones (even if now I’m rather busy with doing RPGs).
In flower shop 2 we’re still thinking about minigames. Maybe could be a good idea not have a fixed “forced”daily minigame like the farming sim, but some triggered one. Anyway, have yet to speak with Ayu about this, we’ll see.
I’ll be sure to stop in your neoromance forum. Maybe also to post my VN survey! 😀
I agreed with all the other comments in that this new otome game should be a little risque. So that said and done, the replay value. As a customer, I would definitely like if there is a good replay value for this game. One where there are multiple endings (horrible [not getting the guy], bad [becoming a friend with the guy], good [decent ending where said girl ends up with guy] and excellent [where there is fanservice. The ones that were mentioned in the above comments]) as well as a neutral ending where it’s like you didn’t make an effort to get with any guy.
Also if you were going to add in mini-games, I rather they’ll be easy enough to help you win the otome game in general rather than fighting to get that one item you need to get the bonus/excellent ending as not everyone is good at mini-games.
Another popular aspect of the otome game is the points system where depending on your answer, the points will add or subtract to the guy’s affection for you.
Are you getting female artists as well?
I hope this isn’t too late to comment ^^”.
Heh is never too late 😉
The game has 8 endings +1 “solo” ending. There are 4 dateable characters, and for each one you get a “normal” ending if you max the relationship, and a special one if you also reach a certain level in a specific skill (there will be only 4 skills so will be quite easy to associate each skill with the right character). The game is a dating sim but will be a bit different: no scheduler, but you’ll play using turns and a map. In the morning you’ll have to work, but starting from the afternoon you can move in several locations, and perform some action on each of those. It’s more close to “The Sims” than a standard dating sim (of course, is not full 3d and is not as good as the sims! hehe).
Once again, I am trying something new! I simply get bored to recycle old gameplay system/methods 🙂 Hope this will work!
Sweet if it’s like “The Sims”. Too bad you can’t cheat in this one (assuming that the main girl is single). Haha, what can I say? I like drama and “The Sims” brings that.
So using turns and a map? Hm…this reminds me of the PS2 Prince of Tennis dating sim games out in Japan. Something like moving on the map of that sort. I also heard about this game where if you ignore the person, their affection for you decreases because they’re not getting any attention from you ^^. Though I imagine the coding for that would be hard.
But I wish you the best of luck in finding something new :).
Ah no I don’t want to lower the relationship, because when I tried lowering stats in Spirited Heart people were on rampage 🙂
Though I suppose I could allow two levels of difficulty easy/normal. I am still in prototyping stage, so lots of things can still change right now. A little spoiler, the game actually starts with you (Amy, the main character) not being single, but then something happens…
I saw the trailer at youtube and was devastated that I learned about this NOW! O.O
The art at the trailer/teaser was awesome – especially since this is an indie game. I swear, it reminds me of some of the male characters for idea factory and others. O.o
Anyway, to the game. I’ve only finished a few otome games (under the “G->B” subcategory but I’ve played other female-targeted games (B->B)) and have seen/read several anime/manga based on otome games.
Mini-games are a must (for me – but opinion varies with others) since I easily get bored with the choose and click. But not to the extent where the mini-games get annoying or repetitive.
What the others said above, I agree with. The multiple endings, too. With the bad, normal & good – though, not to be too cliche where bad is no guy, normal is with guy and the good is with the guy with extra scene. But like, bad could either be comedic in a sense but still sad or like, you get the guy but something bad happens, etc.
And are there CGs for this game? B category. ^^;
Oh! And is it okay for me to ask who the artist is? I love the art (as I’ve said above)! I must say, it fits perfectly for otome games!
(But I also like the Heileen art, I found it unique. Though, I’ve always liked the what’s it called? “Male-fantasy”? But to a limit – I don’t like it if 90% of the female’s clothing looks as if it’ll get blown by a light breeze. Heileen’s was OK. I like the “female” art, too. With all the sparkly and dark good looking guys and shota’s. But in female art, mostly the girls are plain looking – most of the time! Same could be said for the male art, with males looking plain or boring.)
Oopsies, that was LONG. But I hope I don’t sound annoying – just sharing some ideas. I’m really excited for this one! (Especially since I’ve been on a visual novel marathon since Sunday – and I suffer sleep deprivation. :P)
-Vani
Thanks for the comments 🙂 The artist is a thailand girl named “Zaphylla”. There will be CGs for all the endings (8) and will have quality similar to the images you see in her category. I probably will also have some voices during cutscenes/important moments of the game, even if have yet to see if add this or not.
I personally liked more Heileen’s art but that’s up to personal tastes of course. Both artists are really awesome 🙂
I am not sure yet if there will be minigames or just a simulation part. Something similar to Spirited Heart stats raising, you go in certain parts of the map and have a list of actions that you can pick to improve your skills. I might have a minigame about Amy working in the ice cream shop though, that might be funny.
I have to say, as a guy, that my favorite of the Tycoon/Hanako/Winter-Wolves games was Summer Session, followed by Flower Shop, both of which I purchased (along with Magic Stones). I’d love more games along those lines for the Mac platform. Again, as a guy, I wouldn’t want games tamer than those two (I think those were pretty tame), and I certainly wouldn’t object to racier games. I’m not so interested in the games designed around seducing men… though I actually enjoyed the demos for the Heileen games, so maybe I should try them out further. Bionic Heart I also only played on demo, because the characters weren’t likeable enough, though, again, maybe I should give it a deeper try. Spirited Heart,which I only played on demo, didn’t feel as character driven as Flower/Summer, which is why I haven’t purchased it.
I like the idea of the mini-farming game in Flower Shop, though the balance never felt quite right… the resource management in Summer Session felt more balanced, where the improving on test scores and interacting with characters felt more integrated. The Flower Shop mini-game starts out quite well, but became a little monotonous once you raise enough money to buy the best plants… maybe if you could interact with characters to improve farming skills, or have more interaction with the shopkeeper when buying seeds, or even have different plants do best in the early game versus the late game (eg, tomatoes and blueberries early in the summer, strawberries in mid-summer, corn in late summer, kind of like a real farm).
Anyway, thanks for some great games, I’ve really enjoyed them, and I look forward to more guy-centric and yet romance-based dating sims. =)
-M
Thanks for the support! I’ve been thinking about doing a Summer Session 2 someday, as soon as the artist is free to work again (she’s booked until next year sadly). The sequel of Flower Shop is for girls so I guess that won’t interest you much, but for male-centric games, have you tried CardSweethearts? that should be quite good and the story interesting (the only problem is if you don’t like poker). As for Bionic Heart I think is pretty male centered, especially when you go on with the story – there are some fun scenes where Tanya and Helen fight each other for you 😉