If you’ve followed me on socials you already know about the beta testing phase of my new game, Thieves of Dingirra. The game is currently already available on itchio, with all the content (no censorship). You can find it here: https://winter-wolves.itch.io/thieves-of-dingirra
The beta is already in a very good shape, I believe most of the bugs have been fixed and I know that many people reached the end of the game without problems. Regarding Steam, as usual things are a bit more complicated, but while I haven’t heard back from them yet, I’m hoping that the game can be released in early November! You can wishlist the game from this page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/617990/Thieves_Of_Dingirra/
The biggest game I’ve ever done
Yes, I said this many times in the past, and I can surely say that this game is the biggest game I’ve ever done, by a wide margin. Not for the amount of narrative content: for that, Cursed Lands and Planet Stronghold 2 are still the biggest ones with over 300,000 words each (though even this game has 200,000 words on top of everything else!).
But for gameplay there’s no match: beside having the usual RPG combat, I’ve added a roguelike missions (with branching choices), each missions concludes with a custom boss fight, and of course there’s the whole town conquest/management with all the related stuff (NPC management, upgrade buildings, etc).
You can’t imagine how much time this game took to make. Even though the Kickstarter only launched earlier this year, I’ve actually been working on the project for 5–6 years. As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes you have a game idea but lack the technical skills, or you hit burnout, or your favorite tool (in my case, Ren’Py) just isn’t advanced enough yet to bring your vision to life. When that happens, you end up waiting, hoping the right opportunity will come along.
And this happened this year. I must be honest that I’m surprised myself I was able to code such a complex game without burning out completely (well, I am a bit now, but I am taking breaks !). I had also to do several tricks to make sure the game would run fine on Ren’Py and also on moderately older hardware (and on Steam deck, for example). I think I made a fairly good work, using tricks like hiding the building buttons/icons when they’re off-screen and so on.
It made me go back in time when I used to code on much older/slower computers, and had to resort to those tricks to keep speed reasonable. Honestly, I had a lot of fun doing this part. I also had fun in writing/adapting the story (original draft was made long time ago and without considering to run a party or a complex gameplay) and I hope I did a good job with that too.
I’d like to make more strategy/simulation games mixed with VN/dating sim mechanics. Indeed, my next project will be exactly like that (albeit this time much simpler!).
The Glamour Photographer gameplay
I’m sure most people looking at the Kickstarter page will be mostly drawn into this game by the beautiful manga art. But there’s much more. I plan to have a full simulation gameplay, but very simple/user friendly, of the whole glamour photography business.
Of course, being a comedy game I’m not aiming at it to be super historical accurate or anything but I want to offer a nice gameplay beside… you know, the main attraction of the game! 🙂
So it will have a full simulation in which you can schedule photo shootings, go around to find new potential models, choose a location, check local magazines to see the latest trends (if you make photos following the current trend you’ll earn bonuses) and so on. All from this screen:
Each item above has a in-game function, but don’t worry it won’t be particularly complex. The photo shoot will be done in a match3 style minigame, which should offer some break from the management part. This game has a lot of artwork and I hope the Kickstarter will do well.
If you want to be informed when it launches, you can bookmark the game by visiting this page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/winterwolves/glamour-photographer
I’m also talking with another indie doing adult games for a possible collaboration on this game to make it even better/bigger. Stay tuned for more news next month!
Lookin forward to backin, Jack! 😀
Comedy is my fave genre in games, after all!
Haha awesome!
Hi Jack,
I am playing Thieves of Dingirra. I mostly enjoy it so far, but there are some problems that I have questions about.
The first question is how to have platonic friendships with the male characters. I want to develop a romance with each of the women. As for the men, I am open to either ignoring them or having a platonic friendship. But in a previous game (Curse of Mantras), I played the male character (Ace), and I developed a close relationship with all of the female characters (including romance). But I ignored the male characters. I then lost the final boss fight against Mantras.
So for Thieves of Dingirra, I started by thinking that I should develop a platonic friendship with the male characters, and a romance with the female characters. But then with the blacksmith, he indicated that he felt sexual attraction to my character, and my character seemed to indicate that the feeling was mutual. I did not like that! Since then, I have avoided having personal conversations with the male characters. If I continue to not talk to the male characters, will that interfere with me winning the game? And if I want to have “platonic friendships only (with no romance)”, then how could I do that?
The second question is how to complete the brothel liberation quest. I defeated the wizard who had taken over the brothel, and my characters gained control of the brothel on the building management screen. But then a couple of turns later, I checked the quests. The brothel quest is still displayed as a current quest and not as a completed quest. How can I complete that quest?
A third question has to do with building management and upgrades. For some potential upgrades, I need cloth as a resource. I do not see any way of gaining cloth, so that I can upgrade the buildings. How can I do that?
Hello, regarding your questions:
– you can have a friendship relationship with anyone, simply never pick the “Flirt” option. Picking the flirt in any dialogue means you’re interested in more than just friendship. Since the main character is supposed to be bisex they might say some lines like the one you saw, but never go above that (it was written like that from the beginning so hard to tweak it)
– very likely you haven’t conquered the whole Central Market district. As the quest says “Seize the whole Central Market district…” so not just the Traveler’s Delight but all the other buildings in the district needs to be conquered
– the cloth are generated by Dyehouses, and you’ll acquire your first one shortly after this quest. It will be easier to upgrade later, or you can go in Labwa’s status screen to buy resources if you prefer
Hi Jack,
Merry Christmas!
I have encountered a bug (an “Exception”) in Thieves of Dingirra.
Years ago, we exchanged emails, so I will try to find the last email you sent to me, and then reply to it, and past the full text of the exception into my email.
If there is anything else that I should do about a bug/exception, then please let me know.