First of all, as the blog post title says, the zombie-survival game Dead But Alive ! Southern England is now officially out. More info and a demo download link here: http://www.winterwolves.com/deadbutalive_southernengland.htm
By the way, did you miss that we added 2 more male romances? the image below should remind you! 😉
I can’t make a real “post-mortem” for this game since I didn’t develop it myself, but for me was an interesting experiment mainly for two reasons:
- the game setting. I wanted to make a zombie (or at least horror) VN since long time. A setting more serious than most of my games, with mature content, death, etc.
- the game artwork. As you know if you follow me since long time, I tried only once to have a non-manga art with my game Vera Blanc, and let’s say that the results weren’t particularly encouraging 😀
Regarding the first point, you could say that some of my other games, like Loren, SOTW or Bionic Heart 2, had already “serious settings/theme”. It’s true, but they weren’t really “horror” or dark, with very tough choices (well, maybe Bionic Heart 2 was, but just that one). Since I like to differentiate, beside funny/comedy games like Roommates, I definitely want to do more games like this one in future. In Amber’s Magic Shop or Cursed Lands, there will be definitely more “serious” stuff, including the writing. I want to offer more variety of content in my games, to suit everyone’s tastes.
About the second point, while it’s clearly too early to say (the game has just launched officially now!) already the early weeks of pre-order/beta had a positive feeling. People like the art and are buying the game. This is a sort of relief, since means that definitely there’s space for different art-styles, beside manga, for a visual novel game.
Black and white art?
This also brings me to another idea. I recently noticed there’s a new interest in games involving mostly text, like Choice Of Games, or 80 days, just to name two famous games/developers. I am thinking to do something like that: a SMALLER game (for real this time!!!) which could be finished in less time (since a complaint of some users is that my games are too long), to be sold at cheaper price. However, I really don’t want to have only texts, so I thought to use a nice black and white art style, which reminds me of some old illustrated books.
I posted this image a while ago on twitter:
And now I can add another mysterious one:
It’s from a new game in development in collaboration with Highcliffe again, but it’s still too early to talk about it in detail. However, I am thinking to try making a game using this art style myself too, maybe in fantasy setting. I personally love the “comic” black&white style, as said it has an “old book charm”… what do you think? 🙂
Remember to try the demo for Dead But Alive! It seems some people have trouble getting it to run.
Yes the only solution that works has been posted in the forums. It’s weird because I have no issues at all on my computer 😐
“…a SMALL game…” – so only about 150k words this time?
Haha no! The goal is to stay under 100k!! I can make it 😀
I love Choice of Games’ stuff, so I’m in favor of this. I like the artwork a lot, even though I usually prefer color art.
Doing colored wouldn’t be a problem, but I think it would lose part of its charm 🙂
I have nothing against black & white, you can produce very stylish stuff with just two colors. However, I have to say there’s nothing wrong with long games!!! Or short games, for that matter. As long as they are worked on with love and dedication, it always shows!
Good luck with your latest releases and future projects!!
PS: DBA has been sitting on my pc for a little while and I haven’t find time to play it… yet somehow, this post makes me wanna go how and play like NOW! I wonder why… ^_^!
Thanks 🙂 yes short doesn’t mean “bad”. Just a smaller game at lower price. Some stories are made to be longer, other to be shorter.
If it means anything I don’t think your games are to long although I personally prefer long games so maybe after this short one make a super long one just joking. 🙂
If it means anything I don’t think your games are to long although I personally prefer longer games so… 🙂
If it means anything I don’t think your games are to long but then again I like the longer games so… 🙂
Oh no, I used to be happy with Choice of Game’s stuff but those images would be SO perfect for a game of that style that now I’ll be disappointed that they’re not there.
One thing to keep in mind though,The Choice games work really well while being short by having many options in the story that can drastically change it. This focus on replying to get very different stories is their selling point.
Yes I plan to have a “shorter story” (well shorter than SOTW or Loren :D) but with many different choices that change the outcome. A bit like my old VN “Bionic Heart” 🙂
An awesome, promising game. I’m glad to followed your dreams and went for the horror/dark theme. I’ve just finished the demo, and am considering purchasing the full game but have some concerns. This includes:
– The text font. Especially for the tutorials, feels a little primitive.
– The combat. I personally am not fond of it so skipped it, but if others enjoy it then no worries. I’m glad there is a feature to through like it was a visual novel. I was quite fond of the turn-based combat in Seasons Of The Wolf.
– Dialog. I feel it’s lacking, not from the characters you interact with, by all means the character designs and backstories are great. But the player’s dialog is bland and rather boring.
-Character’s expression. I do find this art style to be interesting, but I think there was more expressions drawn. Such as smiles, frowns etc. Maybe blood stains if they are wounded?
I’m not sure if you will continue to update the game or not, but I just wanted to give my feedback. That said, I do enjoy the game and other games made by winterwolves. I hope in the future you will consider dipping into the horror theme once more. 🙂 take care and thanks for the awesome games!
I’m just wondering if maybe it’s just my computer but I can’t find the Demo to redownload this game and i bought it so id like to be able to play it.
The game rights was sold back to its developer so for any question email: nielsbauer@hotmail.de