Author Archives: admin

Karaoke contest winner and Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook update

Dsc01134

It was a while since I last posted a picture of my cats, so here’s Otello in a very uncomfortable pose…! And here are the latest news:

The Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook release date

I know last week I said that on next blog post (this one) I could have made an official announcement… well, I am making one but unfortunately is not the beginning of the pre-orders ! As some of you that follow Sakevisual blog already know, Ayu (the writer of the game) had a car accident while driving back from a convention. She’s fine but need to rest, so the game release is going to be delayed by a few weeks. We hope at end of this month to have at least the pre-orders though, since there isn’t really much left to do!

As you can see from the portraits below, even Natalie was shocked when she heard the news!

Nat2_preview2

And now for some good news:

Always Remember Me karaoke contest winners!

The winners have been already notified, I waited some days to see if Cristina Vee could make a video announcement but she’s too busy right now so I’m officially posting the winning videos on my blog. I have to say that was amazed when I listened to them (and also to many other videos submitted), the response was awesome! Thank you everyone <3

Note that the winners are in no particular order. All 3 deserve fame and glory, this isn’t a ranking, I just list them in random order:

For masterful singing and mixing, especially impressive use of transposition and harmony. A natural and credible rendition from a male vocalist.

For vocal creativity, spot-on harmony, and dynamic mixing. We especially loved her “lalala” melody during the introduction.

For an endearing and youthful vocal presence. Bringing earnestness and a beautiful vibrato, this emerging talent shows a lot of promise.

 

Loren Amazon Princess base classes

Chapterone Lorenelenor

This week finally started working on Loren Amazon Princess RPG ruleset. I want to be very clear that this is going to be a more casual RPG! So nothing complex as Planet Stronghold. However this time I’ll design it in a way that I can easily add more features later. Working for 6 months on Planet Stronghold helped me to understand the various coding problems you can encounter while developing a RPG, but I had to hurry up to finish that game (especially in the last months) so the resulting codebase can’t really be “re-used” with other games as I hoped.

It was a mistake and something I don’t want to repeat with this RPG. So don’tΒ  be shocked if I tell you that very likely the game won’t have an inventory. Yes, you read it right ! But before you delete my site from the bookmarkΒ  “indie RPG”, read on πŸ™‚

The game will focus, like Planet Stronghold, mainly on battles and character relationships. The main features of this new RPG will be:

  1. the overall polishing level: is very likely will have another custom theme song, will have top quality artwork (as you can see from the screenshots) and I also want to include more cinematic scenes during the battles. For the battle itself I have an idea how to make it, in a way where you’ll be able to see the heroes positions on the battlefield (more info about this later after I’ve done some tests to see the feasibility of this feature).
  2. the skilltrees system: every character starts with 3 skilltrees, each of them has 3 or more skills. Of those three skilltrees, one is the character Class (which can be Warrior, Thief and Mage), one is a character specialization (for example Loren has Dual Wield, the playing character has Healer) and a unique skilltree for each character. This way every character will have a real personality and will be much more fun to play each of them (you can use 12 characters in the game). Below is a work-in-progress flowchart of the three base skilltrees:
    Loren Amazon Princess RPG base classes For a more detailed explanation, check the game official forums here.
  3. game currency: when you defeat enemies, you’ll get money, and items. Wait, didn’t I say that the game won’t have an inventory? yes, indeed the items will be resource materials that you’ll be able to use to upgrade your weapons and equipment, increasing your character power. During the game you’ll encounter several places with blacksmiths or enchanters that will be able to improve your equipment if you bring them the right materials. This way, even without a real inventory, you can still grow your characters.
  4. choose male or female character: yes, even Planet Stronghold featured two genders. This time though, the gender you choose will influence the gameplay. Saren, a human male warrior, will have unique melee combat skills. While Elenor, elf female thief, will have unique long-range combat skills. Obviously, like my other games, the gender will also influence which romance subplots you’ll be able to unlock in the game.
  5. better movement map: I plan to have some scripted scenes, to advance the story, but also allow freedom of movement in a bigger map. I’m not sure yet about this last feature since would require some work, so for now this is the only thing that falls under the category “maybe if I have enough time/budget”!

I really think that if you liked Planet Stronghold, you’ll like Loren The Amazon Princess RPG! And for those waiting for The Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook or more otome games, don’t worry, next week I might be doing an official announcement… stay tuned! πŸ˜‰

Winter In Fairbrook – Meet Ryan

Ryan

This is the last blog post about Winter In Fairbook cast, and I’m pleased to introduce you Ryan, the only male character what wasn’t present in the main game. As you can see from this video, he doesn’t seem to take himself in much consideration, thinking that talking about his personal life is not an interesting subject. I have the impression that Natalie will have to try her best to get something out of this boy!

Anyway, we discover some information about him: that he studies biology in a college out of state, and he doesn’t live in Fairbrook all year round. Since he runs the general store of Fairbrook, and that’s where Natalie can buy lots of stuff including flower seeds, I’m sure that our heroine will have many more occasions to talk with him again.

Lastly I have some good news about the game release. Since Sakevisual wants to sell this one at the June conventions in USA, is very likely that a pre-order version will be available before next weekend. Of course, the best way to keep up with the latest news is to follow me on twitter or facebook.

Summer Sneak Peek

Recently my blog posts were all focused on my upcoming otome game Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook. However, people that follows me knows I’m working also on several other projects (I’d dare to say “too many” lol). Most of them are new RPGs, though there are also more dating sim and otome games in the works, but they might be done after the summer.

Loren Amazon Princess

After a moment of hiatus, because had to decide what kind of art style to use, I finally found a new artist and I’m going to use manga art for it too. Though will be more “adult” manga art as you can see from the images below:

This is Loren, the main character of the game (which won’t be directly controllable by the player though)

Loren_color

Next two ones are Saren and Elenor, the two playable characters that you can pick at the beginning of the game. Like I already did with Planet Stronghold, the gender you pick at the start of the game will influence which romance options will be available to you during the game.

Saren_copy
Elenor

lastly, this is Dora, a female dwarf scout that will be one of the various characters that will join you during the game story. In total there are 12 playable characters.

Dwarfdora

There is also a male dwarf in the game though is really not cute as her πŸ˜€ He’s the classical muscular, axe wielding angry warrior with long beard.

As I posted before, for indies is really hard to find reliable artists, so you cannot really know when the art for your next game will all be finished. Though I must say that if things keep going at this pace, I could have all art needed for Loren finished before end of June, which means I can start working on it at full pace. No estimate release yet, since also depends which system I’ll use for the battles, and the story is only 30% or so done , so there’s still much left to do.

Spirited Heart “yuri” expansion

This is one of the other projects I’m working on, with the help of Aleema from Lemmasoft who is writing the yuri scenes. For those unfamiliar with the japanese term, “yuri” means girl love. I’m going to add 6 new dateable female characters to the base game, each one with her own romance subplot and personality/secrets to discover, and is going to cost $9.99. I believe is a small price to pay for the upgrade since there are lots of new characters and some are *really* interesting.

This expansion is very likely to be out in July/August since things are going well with it.

Planet Stronghold “Warzone” expansion

This mainly depends on the artist speed. So far only a few new characters from the original game have been “redrawn” to reflect the fact that in the story the time has advanced of some years. This will be an add-on, featuring new monsters, items, weapons, but also I hope to introduce a few minor gameplay enhancement, like the possibility to have a strategic map and control resources, so that you can build new stuff with it. Adding some strategy element should make the game even more replayable than the original was. Also, there will be two extra romance option, Prince Cliff – Lisa (got sooo many requests for this!) and Shiler – Joshua (this is interesting).

I really cannot know about this, however I believe in June artist should be free of conventions and in theory, I could finish this one by September or so (I hope!).

Undead Lily and The Elemental Avengers

This is also going well – though is a very ambitious game and has lots of animations/character poses (there are already 12 basic character pose with eye/mouth animations and 10 battle poses done). So while I cannot complain about artist speed, it is still going to take a while because is a big game. I really hope to have this done by next Christmas, though I’m not sure, really!

Undeadlily Magmateaser

I have a few more games I’m working on in parallel, but I want to keep those “secret” for now πŸ˜‰

Winter In Fairbrook – Meet Trent

Trent is Susana’s “big brother” (in all senses!) and when Natalie first meet him we discover that now he works at the library, helping Marian (one of the dateable characters of the first game) in her duties. Though as Natalie immediately notices, he seems a bit too happy for someone that’s working! Right, usually people who work are not in a such good mood… there must be something else! But what? πŸ˜‰ Sorry I think you’ll have to play the game to discover it…!

With this video we have almost discovered all of the characters of Winter In Fairbrook. The only one left is the “new entry” (not seen before in the first game) Ryan. Watch this blog next Friday to see who we’re talking about. I don’t want to reveal too much but his ending scene (maybe because of the setting, or the situation itself) is one of my favourite of the game πŸ™‚