It’s time to talk about my next game. Like many of my projects, its origins go back several years. I won’t deny that HuniePop has been a major influence, especially its match-3 mechanics, but once the game is out, you’ll see that it’s a very different experience.

The managerial / simulation part is bigger in this game, while not being particularly complex. I’d say is a “casual style simulation”. Yes you’ll have finances to manage, a roster of models, different locations and all that, but I’ve finished doing the tutorial now and I believe I’ve presented the information in a very simple way so that even players not used to this kind of games will have an easy time.

In the past, when coding my games, I used to skip tutorials or do them quickly. But it’s wrong, because not everyone is a fan of a certain genre or in general what it’s obvious to you as coder/designer of the game, could be counter-intuitive to a player who is not used or new to the genre.

And so I made a step by step tutorial showing the main screens of the game and what they do. For example below you see the trends screen (accessed by clicking on the magazines in the main desk hub):

In this case it’s a “unique trend”. Unique trends require a specific combo of location and model, indeed each model has a flavor/trait that matches each unique trend, like in the example Anna, the first model you encounter (your former schoolmate) has the Rustic flair, and you’ll do your first photoshoot in her family barn.

During the tutorial the trends are fixed to let players understand better the mechanics, but of course later in the game they’ll be randomized (they update once a month).

Beside the unique trends there’ll be “generic” ones that require only a specific location/set, but work with any model. For example we could have a location like the beach that will work with Outdoor, Vibrant, Public trends, or a location like the Kitchen that will have Indoor, Intimate, Cozy, Soft, etc.

The trends will be useful because when you sell the photos to magazines, if you match the current trend you’ll get bonus money, adding a bit of strategy. There’ll be other things that boost the photos value, like the model’s fame (a famous model’s photos will be worth more), the outfit (ahem, naked pictures will get a big bonus!) and so on.

There’ll be several other aspects that will influence the gameplay. During the photoshoot, which takes the form of a match 3, you’ll get bonuses depending on the model:

For example Miyoki likes Mystery (black) and Romance (light-blue) and dislikes Passion (red). Matching those gems will give you a multiple bonus (or malus, in case of Challenge).

On the right instead you see that each location has an impact on the chances of certain gems to appear: in this case the kitchen increases the ligh-blue by 15%, green by 10% and decreases purple by -10%. So certain locations works better with certain models.

The camera and lighting are two kind of upgrades you can buy, the first one reduces the timer of the move suggestion (gems will blink suggesting the move) and the other adds seconds to the photoshoot timer.

Last but not least, at the bottom of the screen there’s a bar that fills as you match gems and indicates the photo’s quality: the better the quality, the more valuable will be.

As you see, even if I just released Thieves of Dingirra last month, I’ve been very busy on this game. In the following months I hope to introduce each model (I’m still writing the story though) and share more screenshots and also announce the Kickstarter date!

See you towards the end of the month when I’ll do my usual “end of year post” in which I’ll discuss how this year went for me. And if you’re interested in Glamour Photographer be sure to bookmark this page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/winterwolves/glamour-photographer/