Author Archives: admin

Battlecry!

Shagala the healer in her shop by night. The candle lights are all animated 🙂

Sorry about the blog post title, I just got the battle voices for Seasons Of The Wolf and I’m a bit excited! Ayu (my trusted VA manager) has always done a good job (she did the voices for past RPGs as well) but quality keeps getting better and better.

Just check for yourselves (for Althea/Shea I just put two samples but there are many since each class has different ones):

Althea Druid / Hunter

Shea Ranger / Druid

Chalassa

Jariel

Krimm

Riley

Rowinda

Vaelis

Other news

In other news, I got new “covered version” of Loren romances so once I finish the new update, even those playing in the covered version will be able to enjoy the romance images (some will still be sexy despite the characters fully dressed!).

From my site you’ll get the “full deal”, with covered/uncovered images. On Steam and other portals is more likely that I’ll make only the covered version available, to avoid getting any age rating / limited exposure (but I’ll try to have same version there too if possible!).

Where your money goes?

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Today’s blog post will be a bit particular. I don’t have many news about my games, so for a change I thought to let you know where YOUR money goes. When you buy one of my games, what I do with the money?

Of course, I spend it all to buy fast cars and expensive luxury vacations! 😀

No, not really. Check the images below to get an idea:

Gilda when we found her on the left, and today on the right. Quite a change!

Grillo was literally starving. On the left his first meal, on the right how he is today

Nina is my favorite cats. On the left, she was very sick when was a kitten. On the right, she recovered well!

Yes, I saved many stray cats (and a few dogs from dog shelters) from a sure death, even if in recent years I had to slow down… I have 11 already and is starting to become a bit hard to manage them all and at same time get some work done!! 🙂

Before you think “he’s one of those crazy animal-rights activist who only help animals”, check my Kiva (a popular charity website) lender profile:

http://www.kiva.org/lender/winterwolves

As you can see, I do something also for two-legged animals! I donate to other various charities but I don’t want to make this post too long about myself in particular.

Why I felt the need to talk about this topic? I don’t consider myself a special person, and of course I don’t spend all the money I earn on charity (I need to live and pay people that work for me too!). I did it simply because I think is customers’ right to know how the companies spend the money they earn. Be it big or small, composed by 10000 employees or just one, I think is important to show the people what you use their money for.

I know that for most people the only important thing is the final product. Company A makes a product I want, and I buy it because I like it. It’s fine, I have nothing against this. But what if Company A treats employees badly? or uses money to buy patents to force other smaller companies out of business? or does other bad practices?

I believe the users should ask themselves those questions. I also think customers have a big power, they can influence the companies. They can tell them “what you’re doing is wrong” and that won’t buy their products anymore unless they change. Being transparent about how you use their money, trying to make ethical decisions whenever possible for your employees, the environment, animals and people is not a secondary thing in a world that sadly seems only ruled by “let’s make more profit!”.

OK before I turn into one of those self-motivational gurus, I’ll stop here. Don’t worry, from next week I’ll be back talking about the games 🙂

Happy Halloween

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My cat Gilda is wondering how high she must jump to catch them…

Happy Halloween to everyone! This was an incredible week for me.

First of all, Nicole is officially out (but you probably already know this). In any case, I just want to remember that you can grab the free demo here: http://www.winterwolves.com/nicole.htm

The game was very well received and if continues this way it could become my most popular otome game so far 🙂

But the real news was the approval (finally!) of my RPG Loren The Amazon Princess on Steam! 😀 it was a bit shocking to be honest: not because I wasn’t expecting it, at the pace they’re greenlighting new games I knew it would eventually get in, but I thought it would need more time.

Anyway what does this means? my life is changed? I’m going to retire? Nope.

Steam gives a very big exposure but I’m an old indie (ahem) and I know well that you must not get too big expectations, and that if your game doesn’t match Steam audience you might not even earn that much. In other words if the game is good, will probably do well, but there are a thousands other factors that can influence the outcome.

Here comes my decision to take it easier and wait to release it. From now until Christmas will be an insane rush to release new games, top AAA titles, and so on. The biggest amount of money you make on Steam (as well on any other platform, including your own site) is at launch. So if I launch the game together with 3-4 new titles, and maybe one of them is a big AAA title, and then a week later there’s the Thanksgiving/Christmas sale, it could pretty much screw up everything.

Also, I want to polish the game a bit: I’m redoing the soundtrack to have only custom music, will put the latest version there, I want to include achievements and possibly use the DLC system for the N’Mar expansion.

So as you can imagine is a lot of work to do, since I need to learn everything from scratch and the last thing I want is to rush things!

Ah before I forget: I’ll also add a “censored version” for all the romances. So the game available on Steam will be playable by everyone and not require any age ratings. I was forced to take this decision because getting an official rating (ESRB, PEGI) is out of discussion for a small indie like me (too expensive, too much paperwork). The best way will be to buy the game from my site so you know you can play the “naughty version” if you want, and still get a free steam CD-key 😉

In short, Loren will be on Steam but very likely after Christmas, since I think that is the best for my game 🙂 Meanwhile, maybe some other titles will get in… both Planet Stronghold and Spirited Heart are close to the top100, so you might go and vote for those games as well:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92939065

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93093446

Next week, will talk about the Roommates and SOTW status/progresses… stay tuned! 😉

Nicole beta officially out

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Nicole main menu image

Get the demo and buy the game in the official game page at: http://www.winterwolves.com/nicole.htm

After a long wait, Nicole is finally in beta! The beta actually started last Monday, so this version is already very stable! The latest 3 updates consisted mostly of typos and wrong images, so it should be perfectly safe to play this version (I got report of people who finished all the endings).

So what are you waiting for? Nicole needs your help! 🙂

Update on the yuri version

As you might know, a yuri version is also in the works. This time the yuri will be a completely separate game. Once it is ready, I’ll make a new demo where you can choose in the beginning which kind of content you want to see in the game.

The art is at good point but the writing has just started, so right now I can’t make any guess about when it will be available, though I hope worse case scenario Spring 2014!

…and the RPGs?

There’s no doubt that the RPGs have become my most popular games, so don’t worry I haven’t forgot about them. Right now the new Planet Stronghold 2 writer is busily working in the mines under the iron fist of my whip… ahem I mean, I’m motivating him to work fast 😉

Regarding Seasons Of The Wolf, writer should resume working on it in November and I still have to code almost two seasons of the game story. I plan to do like I did with Loren, and release the game as I’m working on it. So once I finish the full first season (Winter) I’ll release a beta demo for it, then when I finish the second I’ll update the demo to include the second season as well and so on.

I think that at leas the first season should be ready for Christmas 🙂

Computer Games

Development diary of Celso Riva

Author Archives: admin

Battlecry!

Where your money goes?

Happy Halloween

Nicole beta officially out

Crunchtime!