Time for another character from Roger Steel world. Please note that all those images are still work in progress: for example we’re thinking to make Arthur’s hair light brown to match Ann’s. His “devilish look” will still remain though 😀
Introducing Arthur
Up until now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Roger Steel is a yuri title given that all the characters we’ve introduced so far have been women (not that there’s anything wrong with that!); but you’d be mistaken as our next character attests.
Arthur is a rather outgoing fellow who’s probably a bit too clever for his own good, especially with his tongue (and get your minds out of the gutter right now: that is not what I meant!). Along with his partner in crime, Neville, genius inventor whom we’ll meet in a couple of weeks or so, Arthur is something of a whiz with gadgets, although you, his esteemed players, might prefer to develop his sharpshooting, archery, martial arts, or sundry other non-combat skills.
Whether Arthur indulges in romance or simply becomes the star of his very own action buddy movie VN-TBS RPG, is up to you; as is whether he treats the rescue of his sister as a true coming-of-age, or simply a great excuse for a damn good time with lots of handsome gents and lovely ladies to party with during those long evenings camping beneath the stars in the wilderness.
Seasons Of The Wolf update
Work on SOTW continues, last week I finally had the last missing images for Dingirra, like the big Arena:
And the artist who was busy with another project now can resume working on this, he’s currently doing the 3rd Act tileset (won’t be more specific for people who didn’t play the game yet to avoid spoilers!).
Another big new feature was the improved AI, which gave me a whole new array of possibilities to make the player think “wow this computer opponent could even seem smart sometimes!” 😀
Currently coding battles against Ghosts and Wraiths, Zombies and Liches, and so on. (the background on the battle screen above is temporary obviously).
While I cannot give any estimate yet, also because a lot of art is still missing, I’m guessing that could be done with Act3 for end of September 🙂 I also have two new games approved on Steam (Roommates and Bionic Heart 2) so adding them to the portal will take some time too!
One last thing, do you remember that preview image I posted last week? still not announcing the game officially but I’m facing a tough choice. More info and a poll in my forums: http://winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=3418
I’m curious to see how this PS will do sales-wise: assuming that the features are on par or superior to its predecessor (for the sake of the argument), I’d really like to see if the particular kind of audience that would go for this kind of game would prefer a more realistic/painterly art style to a manga one. I know you’ve said in the past that (or I think you did, I might be misremembering, please don’t bite me if I’m wrong!) you think that manga is more popular, but I’ve seen several comments on Steam suggesting that a part of the audience is tired of cell-shaded anime style and big eyes, so I’d be pleasantly surprised if this style found a bigger audience than it currently has for people who like VNs.
As I understand it, Cinders did fairly well, didn’t it?
I personally draw in a more manga style myself, but I like to see different styles, so I’m curious to see how things will go with PS and RS. Do you plan to analyse your results and maybe share some insight on style in particular, once they’re both ready and have been sold for a while? It would be quite interesting!
Yes I’ll try to analyze the results, but is always difficult, because there isn’t just the different art, but also the writing, combat system, music, etc. Is really hard to compare two games (and RPGs in particular). For example SoTW so far is doing very well, but has much less romance than Loren, but a lot more gameplay, isometric map, etc. To do a good comparison I should just do two games with identical system and only different art but is not my style 🙂
But Cinders showed that you can do a VN wihout manga art and sell. Actually, is the best selling VN ever produced in the west I think, so that must mean something ! 😀
I love the art in SOTW. Super excited about the release. Maybe it will be Winter Wolves new flagship title. 😉
I hope so 😀
I’m pleasantly surprised by Arthur’s appearance, totally not what I was expecting.
I do hope you change the hair to match Ann’s though, might give them a bit more of a familiar look (when I first seen the image I – before looking up to the title – thought, ‘Oh, cool, who’s this guy? Arthur? Really? Doesn’t look much like Ann).
Man, gonna be hard choosing which Roger Steel protagonist to go with first.
Yes definitely going to try the hair color change. Just wait for the others, there are more cool characters to come 🙂
the “steampunky” shoulder pads for Arthur and Svetlana give me an after-thought tacked-on feeling – I think it would look better without them (or more diverse ideas, say backpack straps with a chimney behind one shoulder?)