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The revenge of point’n’click adventures

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I’ve always loved point’n’click adventures, of all kinds. First person view, or 3rd person (with the characters walking on the screen).

Unfortunately I’ve never been able to make one, because they are probably the kind of game that require most art assets. Also, I wasn’t sure that there was a market big enough to justify that kind of investment. However, recently things seems to have changed. Not just indies, but even some bigger studios are starting to produce adventure games, even if most of them are full 3d ones, real-time.

I really don’t like 3d real time. It might be good for certain settings, and surely gives more freedom so you can have very complex puzzles. But still I think 2d painted art is the best you can have in an adventure game. A good solution/compromise is 2d pre-rendered backdrops with 3d real-time sprites though.

Does it means that I’m thinking about making an adventure game? Well, for now I want to finish the current projects. Then, I want to experiment with some online games.

But next year, depending also how some things go, I might start thinking about it seriously (depends also if my favourite artist Rebecca will have enough time to do it)!

In the past I’ve experimented with lots of genres, and still I like to experiment, however the main kind of games I like are story-based games: RPGs, adventures and all the VN variants (dating sim, etc). I believe an adventure based on Vera Blanc character might be interesting, with many puzzles and horror-themed situations (zombies, vampires, and so on).

Now better I stop thinking about it and focus on finishing my current games though! 😀 A new alpha of Planet Stronghold should be ready next week for sure (just waiting for artist to finish a few background images).

Simulate my life, please

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Of my upcoming games, there’s basically no “pure-VN” game. Flower Shop spin-off will have mini and meta games (more details in the coming weeks), and the other two otome game projects will have all a dating sim / life sim structure.

I know is a bit hard to define what is a “pure VN” and what isn’t. As practical example, Heileen is a pure VN: mainly text and choices (there are also quests but they’re not complex as the quest you might find in a RPG game). Summer Session instead is clearly a dating sim: you have stats to raise, several places to visit, character relationships, and so on.

What’s the difference then between a dating sim and a life sim? This is really tough. I might say that Summer Session and Flower Shop were dating sim, while Spirited Heart was a life sim. But really in this case the difference is much more subtle! I dare to say that dating sim focus more on the romance/relationship, while life sim have also other aspect. Spirited Heart has romance option but you can play it completely ignoring that, trying to raise your stats and become the best researcher, dancer, and so on.

I always loved life simulation games: I played The sims until the latest installation. However, while they’re very nice and varied to play, they miss completely dialogues as you might know. Making “dynamic dialogues” that change every time is impossible even for EA. However I would prefer some sort of “scenarios” where you have specific character background, life goals, relationship, etc. Sort of smaller scale, but more detailed.

On other news, I might be opening a new website soon specifically for otome games, since in my main website I always focused more on RPG/Strategy games. Games like Spirited Heart are OK, but for the new ones I’ll use a separate website. Beside I’ve read somewhere that if you put too many choices in front of the user he gets confused (I seem to recall the number was 12, don’t ask me why!).

So makes sense to keep in homepage only the best selling games, but some games deserve space anyway. So, better start a new domain with a new specific market in mind.

Point of the situation

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It’s almost end of July, and this year so far I released 3 of the 5 planned games for 2010. The Flower Shop and Card Sweethearts were already in production since last year, while Vera Blanc: Full Moon was entirely made this year.

I am quite satisfied for how things are going looking at my planned releases, a lot less about the actual revenues 🙂 But to be honest it’s not something under my control: the crisis and the return of middleman are making the life of indies way much tougher than was just 2-3 years ago…

Unfortunately it means that some things are very likely not going to happen. A 3rd episode of Vera, despite the game has received unanymous praise from all the press, isn’t going to be made, at least this year, and surely not in this format. But let’s proceed with order:

  • this September 2010 the 2nd episode, Vera Blanc: Ghost In The Castle will be released since it only need proofreading and the person doing it assured me would be made in time
  • probably this October/November I should be finished with Planet Stronghold, at least the initial release. I might do add-ons and updates on it depending how it will perform
  • about at the same time (hard to tell really) the Flower Shop spin-off, “Winter In Fairbrook“, should be finished, in time for Christmas (it would be perfect themed game for it)
  • then there’s also Spirited Heart spin-off! That will be HUGE, but at the moment I’m still thinking if to make it as regular downloadable, or as online-only games (more likely the latter)

So if I actually manage to mantain that schedule, I would release 6 games, and not 5 as originary planned. It would be cool 🙂

Then, what next ? What will happen to the character of Vera? Will I keep doing downloadables?

I don’t know. I have lots of ideas in my mind right now: following the rule #4 of my “Five Golden Rules” post, I want to experiment:

  • I’m thinking about doing a 3d game with Unity3d. Which one? Hmm… what about a remake of Universal Boxing Manager with the fights all in 3d? sounds cool eh? 😀
  • I’m also thinking to make a HOG/Adventure game. Yes, you heard me right 😀 Not sure yet if using Vera, or with another setting, but story-driven games interests me, but to make decent money is obvious that VN isn’t the right choice anymore…
  • Make some online games in JS. I have someone porting a game of mine online… but I woud like to make a game from scratch thought to be played online. What kind of game? I would love something steampunk/post-nuclear, playable like Urban Dead. No, not a full 3d MMORPG of course! 🙂
  • I said that lots of times: I was also thinking to make a webcomic based on Vera Blanc, but first I need to raise some money to pay good artists. I don’t want the comic to look bad
  • I would also like to make a sort of sequel to Magic Stones. I have already lot of art ready, but probably that will be used to make another webgame idea I’m working on since some time
  • I have an idea for a dating sim, but for girls. I think the plot is very nice, I have to see if the writer I found is reliable enough to work on that until the end

That’s it! I don’t know yet which of those ideas will turn into concrete games and which ones will just remain ideas… but for now, I’ll finish all the project I started, and then will have to seriously think what to do next.

Five golden rules for new indies

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I thought to take all the years of experience as indie, and write down five ESSENTIAL rules/tips to follow if you want to be a fulltime indie, focusing on direct sales:

  1. keep your IP / retain control – seriously, everyone agrees on this. Cliff posted about it a while back on his blog, and I want to reiterate this concept. There are SO many examples of people carelessly giving up their IP (Intellectual Properties) to find out a big company XYZ had made a fortune from what they just sold. So, if you think you have a good IP, think twice before selling it. Or ask for some big money upfront 🙂
    Also: whatever tool you use, be sure that you have FULL CONTROL over it.  Some examples: you can let a portal carry your downloadable game, but be sure that you agree with their terms. If they’re going to sell it at $6.99, you won’t have much success trying to sell it directly at $19.99.
    Another example: someone just published a new platform to build games online easily. Awesome! But does that platform let you publish the games ON YOUR SITE? No? Then, it’s not that great. Remember that promoting YOUR site, building up YOUR mailing list, YOUR fans, will let you survive even through really tough periods (like this year of crisis). See Jeff Vogel posts about getting “1000 true fans”. Also, don’t forget that if you build up your site, you can later resell the domain if has enough traffic / relevance.
  2. marketing – this is a very controversial point. I see to many people wanting to burn thousands dollars investing in a marketing firm or simply Google Adwords. It’s a wrong choice and I tell you why: marketing/advertising works but ONLY in certain situation you’ll get a decent ROI (return of investment).
    Example: a MMO. The nature of MMO, with his increased revenues per user, makes advertising much more viable than trying to promote a single-player-downloadable game.
    I get decent ROI from ads because over the year I built a catalog of SEVERAL games. So people that come to my site from a Spirited Heart banner, might end up buying also Flower Shop and/or Vera Blanc. It is not uncommon to see same person buy 3-4 games at once. Now what would happen instead if I had just ONE game for sale? Probably wouldn’t recover the costs. In the beginning, the best thing you can do is either release several games or partner with some affiliates.
  3. partnership & affiliates – Affiliates can be PURE GOLD: find someone that has a similar user-base (sells similar games to yours) and ask if he is interested in selling your game. Or, look if he is affiliating his games. I regularly promote other people’s games in my newsletter and I get a nice chunk of cash from affilite sales, plus I remind people of my site and sometimes they even end up buying games of mine (it’s really like if they forgot about them, and sendind a newsletter about other games reminded them!).
    Also, build up relationships with fellow indies. Over the years I got to know some people and now I have several business relationships with many of them. I did games together with Phelios, with Hanako, with Sakevisual. We didn’t even need a contract, because everyone had a reputation to keep (of course, be careful about people you just met). We exchange tricks and tips, and we keep updated about the latest news. What you learn through those relationship is often priceless.
    It’s a pity that not many people see the enormous potential in doing partnership and affiliate other developer games, especially niche games!
  4. differentiate / experiment – I started making sports games, then RPG, then simulations, then wargames, and now visual novels, dating sim… unless you have a fixation for one specific genre, and unless that genre gives you good sales (in this case would be pretty stupid to try another!) you should really try to differentiate.
    In my example I’m talking about game genre: another way is to change platforms (iphone, android, flash) or system (microtransaction, social games). I’ve heard so many stories of people that changed completely field and made a fortune…
  5. no epic projects – this is true especially when doing the first games. Doing an awesome 3d space battle should be done ONLY AFTER you built up a good catalog of games and lots of experience in doing indie games. I’m not saying that they should be avoided: only that if you go for the “big hit”, it can work but can also be a “big miss”, so you could end up with a unfinished game (because you’re burned) or run out of funds, or simply have to get back to daily work and then not have time to market it properly, and so on.

Of course, this is based on my personal experience! I hope you found this post informative, and if you did, spread the word about it 🙂

Announcing Vera Blanc: Ghost In The Castle

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I’ve already uploaded two teasing videos on youtube (you see one above) and now I’m officially announcing the next episode of Vera Blanc, called Ghost In The Castle, that will be released this fall, probably in September. The game story is being proofreaded/edited, so all is need after that is some testing and reviewing the plot to be sure that there aren’t big mistakes (plot holes and such). As you can see from the video, there’s a new comic artist for this game, Ricardo Mendez from a Brazilian comic studio.

This time, Vera and Brandon are investigating a mysterious ghosts that is haunting a castle in a town in middle of italian countryside.  A local famous businessman, Roberto Anastasi, wants Vera to solve the ghost problem, because he doesn’t want the town filled by tourists. The first day seems to be rather quiet and relaxing, but as soon as the night comes, Vera will have a short encounter with the ghost! A short chase in the woods that ends up in a opening and a man hanged on a tree!

Stay tuned for more details and a more accurate release date for the game.