Castle Of N’Mar expansion is available on preorder!

The expansion

In case you missed the announcement in my newsletter last week, the Castle Of N’Mar, the expansion to my RPG Loren The Amazon Princess, is available to preorder here. For a limited time, until the expansion is officially released, the price will be of only $7.99.

I know what the next question is: when it will get released? Well, at the time I sent out the newsletter last weekend, I didn’t really know so I said sometimes in August. Now, I got the last missing art piece and the texts/scripting is at a very good point, so I could even dare to say that an indicative date might be mid-August (for the beta version of course).

The expansion turned out to be much longer than expected, with 60,000 words of story and several new zones, enemies, quests, and so on. However we tried to experiment with some non-linear gameplay: some of the quests can be solved in several different ways, so you might not see all the possible outcomes on the first attempt (unless you save before each choice, of course!). So the game length might appear shorter than what I said, but is because there are multiple choices!

The sequel sneak peek

I know sounds odd to be talking about the sequel which will be out next year, but I just got some images of the characters that will be present and I absolutely wanted to show them:

Breza Rei

One is Rei in a more sexy pose, the other is Breza who was a secondary character in the first game, but will have a much bigger role in the sequel 😉 For those interested, Rei is GxB only while Breza is GxG only (being a true Amazon…). There are of course more characters for all possible love combos.

I won’t talk more about the sequel since there will be time for that! I just wanted to show you the new coloring style that will be used in the sequel, comparing the “old image” with the new one.

Codesign crazyness

As of July 25, the new Mac OS “Mountain Lion” is out. If you have installed it, none of my mac games will run by default (and I suspect those of thousands other indies).

While I believe I found a solution to codesign the apps, for now know that you can just turn off the infamous “Gatekeeper” in the System Preferences and play my games just fine, knowing you’re safe like you were before, since my games are indeed clean of trojans/virus/spywares 🙂

To turn it off, open System Preferences, then click on Security & Privacy, and in General tab click Allow applications downloaded from: Anywhere.

I’m honestly not sure how many people have upgraded to the new MacOS yet, but in the next months I’m going to reupload all my games signed and updated with the new Ren’Py version that will include a much practical autoupdater!

Meanwhile if you also want to test if my codesigning works, I uploaded a signed app here: http://www.winterwolves.net/SpiritedHeartTrial.zip

11 thoughts on “Castle Of N’Mar expansion is available on preorder!

  1. Kinka

    I’m fangirling Rei right now, don’t mind me, he looks awesome. : >

    I really loved what I’ve seen of Loren so far. Still saving money, but it looks like a good, old school RPG – sometimes boring, but all for teh character development and plot. I’d actually prefer characters being more crazy and less typical, but I suppose that can’t be helped.

    Reply
  2. Louis A.

    A sequel? Whatever for? I do vaguely remember something at the end hinting at a sequel, but how do you solve the cannon ending for the first then? This is why I generally dislike multiple ending games. When a sequel comes it causes unnecessary problems. And I think I’m not looking forward to it, I am generally opposed to sequels as it is milking the franchise. But good luck anyway, I’ll stick to the first game only. Sequeles just aren’t my game.

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      Well many people like sequels (see Mass Effect series). The multiple endings will have multiple starting point in the sequel, will be some extra work but possible 🙂

      Reply
      1. Greenie

        I definitely do like sequels to games I love. And I love this game for all the beautiful graphics and story-/character-development. About the expansion: I hope it will also work with the game bought via Desura?

        Reply
        1. admin Post author

          Once the expansion has been tested carefully and is officially out, I’ll try to see how I can do a DLC on Desura. I am not sure since I never tried it, but should be possible! 🙂

          Reply
  3. Spectral

    A sequel…… Damn, and here I thought I’d be able to have just one complete story…Well as I see it there are two options only to tie with the first part and one of them is an option I hope will not be the case: introducing new Heroes, instead of the previous one, I rather liked Elinor but I will dislike it if you decide to make her into the Totally Noble Idiot syndrome in order to make the sequel possible. I am not sure whether to look forward to the sequel at all. Also, I rather like the current graphics of characrers, the updated Rei is less appealing to me, actually. Breza, however, does gain new light. But I don’t think I will bother with the sequel, I think I will forget that I read this post in the first place. Also I though you said somewhere that you weren;t going to bother with a game of this sort for the next few years…..? I also thought that if a sequel happened it would be thousabds of years into the future and someone else dealing with…well with THAT Stupid Thing.

    Reply
  4. Spectral

    Also I though you also said something about planet stringhold sequel first 😉 Anyway, I’ll probably keep observing this despite what I said. 😛 I just want more rep quests- I really enjoyed those and the skills are really nice- I love thise in rpgs, though my model rpg is either Baldur’s Gate or Quest for Glory series – I so loved that you could import the hero from game to game and make him grow further all five games were brilliant.

    But I digress; You;d better make the sequel all explosive 😀 especially if you’re intending to replace the Heroes. I am only following the facebook app thingy as I only check back from time to time, wondering what;s up with the man who dishes out so much fan service- but fan serbvice which has some stratey meat in it too and is generally well designed. Keep on filling the niche, you are doing a good job.

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      The heroes will not be replaced, but only some of them will take part in the sequel, there will be new additions to the party 🙂
      As for Planet Stronghold sequel yes, but while I plan all my games, ultimately I have to decide which one to make next based on the speed of the people I work with. If an artist works faster than another, once I have all the art I will start working on that game even if maybe was scheduled later. The cool thing of being indie is that you really have no fixed rules, you can do whatever you want regarding planning/schedules etc.
      As for what I said, that I wouldn’t make a new RPG for several years, it was during development time in a particularly stressful moment and couldn’t wait to finish Loren and be done with it. But I really like making RPGs 😉

      Reply
  5. Spectral

    Ah yes, I quite understand. Ok, ok I am interested in how you end up doing it, multiple endings will have multiple starting points? sounds like a LOT of work but I’ll be interested in seeing how you end up doing it. Good luck…I’ll keep my eyes peeled, after all 😀 I’l; be also waiting for that planet stronghold sequel, I really liked the set-up in that one.

    How about a PS-Loren joint game? That could get interesting 😀 Just joking.

    For now I”ll be happy with the expansion. You know what I really liked about loren was the choice of strategy vs standard – I still haven’t got to try all of the skills…I always end up chosing my favourite skills for being effective, but..working on a little rpg story of my own, I have the most fun coming up with weapon names and levels and with skillsets, it;s more fun than playing sometimes.

    Anyway, have fun with working on those rpgs…and thank you for replying, super nice 🙂

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      Yes but the multiple starting point will be mostly related to the player romances 🙂 Anyway while we have the main plot outline done, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

      Reply

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