In the photo above, my cat Grillo under a small Christmas tree 🙂
Haha the post title sounds a little scary, doesn’t it? 😀
But it’s actually the pure truth. This year, as you might know, I didn’t release any new game, since I don’t consider SOTW DLC a “full game” (even if was moderately long), and while PSCD is almost done, it’s still not officially out. Dead But Alive wasn’t made by me so doesn’t count.
Luckily, I still managed to stay afloat because of all the games I made in the past, but my income basically dropped more than half vs 2014! Though I had no hopes to match that year again, getting 14 games both on Steam AND iOS at once… was some rather unique combination!
SOTW DLC
Talking about the only released game, SOTW DLC, while doing it I realized the big mistake I did with SOTW main game. Yes I know that many people love it. I love it too! But from now on, for obvious budget/time reasons, but also because I don’t want to get burned out, my future games will be much more story focused. Gameplay, sure, but not too complex or breaking the narrative too much.
Back to the post title, what are the reasons behind the lack of releases? Keep reading.
Reasons behind this
Anyway, this is what happened this year: I’ve invested a lot on producing new games, and this also include getting back to work on some old games like Queen Of Thieves or Undead Lily. In practice, I decided was time to finish what I started YEARS ago! Since I don’t like to leave unfinished projects.
It was a very good year because finally I found out several people who I can count on. Artists, writers, musicians, coders. People who are reliable. Wait, I know what you’re thinking: if those people are reliable, how comes that you’ve not released any new games this year? Well, it’s because some of them were busy on long-term projects (like Loren 2) others were hired only recently (you can’t expect to write a 200,000 words game or draw 16 CGs in 4-5 months!) and in general, the quality and amount of content in my games has increased a lot, as you’ve probably noticed.
A bright future!
So while is true that there was no new game out this year, 2016 is looking to be a really “fun” year 😉 Here is what I have estimated. Of course, nothing is set in stone, in this world is really hard to meet the deadlines and there’s always some unexpected problem, so take this list with a grain of salt, but here it goes anyway:
- January (end of it) – PSCD base game
- February/March – C14 Dating
- March/April – PSCD DLC (which will be 1/3 of base game so not so small!)
- May/June – Never Forget Me and/or Heirs & Graces
- July/August – Queen Of Thieves (this depends mainly on testing so it’s hard to give an estimate, but I really hope will be out by next Summer!)
- Fall – the CURSED GAME and/or Undead Lily
- Winter – Summer In Trigue
Then, at the end of year, I’ll collapse exhausted and die 😀 haha joking, of course I’ll need also to reserve some time to take breaks between each game release, to avoid being burned/stressed out. So obviously I won’t release ALL those games above!
But even if I’ll manage to release only half of the games listed, it would still be an amazingly productive year compared to 2015. So, here’s hoping.
And the list above doesn’t even include some secret projects I’ve been working on since a while… so depending how things go, there might be a few surprise announcements!
Happy New Year!
I have a suggestion…
I recommend that you adjust the release schedule of your game so that you do not end up with “dry” years when you are not able to release any new games.
This is just like you started posting news about your games every Friday after someone asked you to post news about your games at a regular schedule so that visitors know when to expect something new.
Instead of releasing all games at a short interval (of one month), release games at an interval of three/four months maybe, but try to stick to that schedule.
The previous post you talked about indie gamers. Well I also have one thought on that…
I think the games you make go under advertised. According to me, the salient features of your games include RPG, VN, dating sims and LGBTQ friendly, but it took me two years of searching to land on your website!!!
Well unfortunately I cannot decide my release schedule! Nobody can. Otherwise for sure I wouldn’t have had this year without releases 🙂
Remember that most other indies release 1 game every 2-3 years, so that shows how hard is to just release 1 game/year.
About promotion, I try to do it, but after a while I noticed that was pointless trying to chase the press, since very few journalist wanted to talk about my games, so I’d rather spend my time and money to make new games 🙂
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you! I’m hoping that I can get finally back to playing your games again next year. Kinda bummed that I can’t be testing the new PSCD right now. ?
Yeah, other indies do it slower still. I was shocked that I saw 2 other devs putting games out last week after a loooong silence. I had actually forgotten that I had a preorder on one of them, lol…
Anyway, still love your games *cough*SOTW*cough*, despite my silence on the forums. All the best to you and meow to your cats!
Why you say you can’t test PSCD now? you mean you don’t have time, or? because the PSCD beta link is in my forums 🙂
Thanks for the support as always!
Time, space and hardware problems. My phone is my main computer currently, lol. I saw some posts about the beta on your Twitter earlier, looking good. 🙂
Ah I see! haha. Well hope you manage to try the demo later. I think there are some characters you’ll really like 🙂
You’re really going to suck my wallet dry next year aren’t you? Ah well. I don’t have a PS4 or XBOX One or a very powerful computer, so I can dedicate my game budget almost entirely to indie PC games.
And I think some of the unannounced things might also catch your fancy 🙂
Definitely some interesting stuff going behind the scenes 😀
Happy New Year! Looking forward to 2016!
Thanks 🙂
Happy Xmas 🙂 I’m surprised, but no chance for Nicole yuri release next year?
What? that name must not be spoken! 😉
Now you’re just teasing… 🙁
Which is “the CURSED GAME”?
That would be Nicole (yuri). Not to be confused with the Tales of Aravorn: The Cursed Lands 😉
Haha correct! 😀
Why is it cursed? Besides the obvious release delays. No writer?
Yes because of that. The delays are due to lots of problems with writers, like changing them 5 times or more. Now we’re almost at the end, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore until is done 😀
Grillo is so cute!
First cat in your newsletter/blog in ages 😀
Certainly looking forward to 2016 for sure (-much- because of the goodies we can expect from Winterwolves), -really- looking forward to a few in particular, and happy to see Colonial Defense is shaping up nicely too
PSCD should really be out next month. I must say I’m quite pleased, I got very positive response so far about it 🙂
Nice tabby cat.
“(you can’t expect to write a 200,000 words game or draw 16 CGs in 4-5 months!)”
I drew 18 in a couple of months, once. :3
The garden got really messy this year, though, I had no time to tend to it at all…
Pfft… well it can happen, but!
Actually I think Deji for C14 Dating did 16 in about 30 days or little more (even if some of them don’t have detailed BG).
So yes it’s possible, but not really common, you’ll agree 🙂
I’m not sure, I don’t think anyone ever tracks these things!
Generally, I only hear about the time it takes for someone to get all their assets only when they’re late, so I don’t know how common it is (actually, I checked again – 2 months was with the sprites, the CGs took a month and a half).
Then again, my garden was a mess! I didn’t have the time to tend to it at all for those two months. :/ It got invaded by brambles and those are mega spiky.
Haha I see. Remember that gardens are important! 😀
I am so excited to see more! I love a lot of the diversity you allow with options and such, as it inspires me on how I angle my relationships and what I’d like to do myself as I write my games. I’ll support you all for a long time! Thank you. :>
P.S. I’LL WAIT FOR NICOLE GL FOREVER
Thank you for the support 🙂
I’ve bought quite a few of your games, and I’ll continue to support you and your wonderful otome/otome-ish games for as long as I can. Keep up the great work~!
Cool. Next year I could release two otomes (C14 and Never Forget Me) 🙂
Well even PSCD has otome routes to be fair…!
Ops: I’m a bit late…
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Thanks same to you 🙂
I love your games (dating/ has dating option ones) And I am happy to see C14 is close. I will buy that as soon as it is released! I have gotten the Helien serries, Loren+ expansion(replay this every few months love this game), colnial defence, SOTW(just got the expansion for it today ^.^), winter in fair brook, Remember Me(replayed this so many times excited about sequal), Roomates , and Nicole and I hope to keep adding to this list.
I also hope you think about releasing more of the dating ones(since you said they are faster) because I love how well written and fun they are. And I’m all for adult content simply for the fact I think you would have it done very tastfully if that is what you decided to add.
and I just got Spirited Heart. Realized I had forgot to get it before(not the Yuri version though. I think it’s awesome you offer it it’s just not my thing.
And a late Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you!!!
Thanks, indeed the plan for future is to make more dating sims 🙂
Hi Winter Wolves Team ! In that case i wish you a good year of prosperity ! You can count on me to buy all of your games to go on next year. 😀
Haha thanks! 🙂
Hi :). As a player who discover most of your games via Steam I have a few words to say. By means, I don’t want to by rude or act like a know-it-all, but I think you’re making a mistake. Not with the bundles – I got few of your games this way, but I can see how this is not good for your business. With discounts. I think you should made them dependable on the game age/quality. Your “Love and Order” is for 5 euros during discount. And once again, not being rude, but this is your worst VN and quite honestly, one of the worst VN available on Steam. You may say know: “Well, don’t buy it then”, but that’s not my point. Very little people will buy it in the time when during the sale, for this 5 euros you can have Talos Principle or Vampire Masquerade or The Banner Saga, tons of other great VNs and even text-based game that slowly getting more and more popular and give a lot of players more choice and more consequence that any VN. And that’s only one example. So if your other games like be like 10-15 during sales there will be plenty people (probably including me) who won’t buy them. Why? I have a few of your games on my wishlist and every time sale start I look through it and see what is the best deal. 80% of the time when game isn’t discounted at least 70% I don’t even pay attention to it, because it means that for the price I would have to pay for it (with exceptions of very cheap games) I could have two or three others. And I fully understand, you’re an indie company, the costs is bigger etc. And yeah, giving new games like 80% discount is not a good tactic. But maybe the older ones could be cheaper? I have almost all of them, so I don’t make an advocate here for myself. I just look from the perspective of people who just starts with VN and may very easily be negative towards genre/company after spending a lot of money on something of a worse quality. I’m an example of that, not with you guys, you’re great, but with Cherish games – both truly awful and cost so much money, I will never buy anything else from this developer.
No I think you’re right, but there’s one thing also to consider and it’s support: if you have a big discount and sell it cheap, more people will buy and so as consequence more people are likely to have issues with it (even basic stuff like drivers). And unfortunately I have really LIMITED time nowadays, so that’s not good 🙁
Though proabbly with Steam automated refunds, if people can’t make it run can probably just ask money back, without the need of my intervention, so yeah you could be right. Will think about it 🙂
I hope you guys are having a fantastic new year!!!
I liked to ask,when do you think Loren 2 will be coming out.
I absolutely love the first game and would love to get my hands on the sequel
I’ve a big backlog of games to finish first, and the story is still being written. While I don’t know yet, is safe to say that for sure not this year!