Category Archives: nicole

Good games takes time!

a classic tavern brawl in Dingirra (act 2). The “throw chair” is a powerful attack!

From the title you could imagine that this is a blog post announcing some delays on my next games. No, definitely isn’t! but erm, yeah there could be delays in the next games 😀

Don’t worry nothing big, only talking about a few extra months but I think is inevitable, as my games become bigger and more polished, I need to put more time into them. If I compare them with the ones I was making only 2-3 years ago, they all have custom tracks, custom backgrounds, higher art quality and more polishing in general. Also if you check other indies, they usually make 1 game a year, or max 2. So far I was still able to release at least 2-3 a year, and I believe of good quality.

RPGs in particular take a very long time, and wouldn’t be really fair to tell people that I can make more than one a year. Who knows, it MIGHT happen, since in practice I always work on the games a bit randomly depending how the various partners/collaborators do (if some works faster, I usually work on those games more). But that would be an exception 🙂

The good news

I have good news nonetheless regarding upcoming games:

About SOTW: I made good progresses on the main plot, made a lot of battles in act 2 up to the point where you have a full party (with Riley and Krimm joining you). Battles with full parties are VERY different from the first act, that’s why balancing was hard: I was focusing on the wrong way, I needed to balance act 2 and then if necessary fix some act 1 battles. Since the game must be balanced with a full party, not with 3 party members (for those who didn’t play it yet, in the first act you can control only 3 characters).

Vaelis and Rowinda background/personal quests are being added. The other romanceable characters already had them, but those two were missing. So Taleweaver (the game writer) is working on those. This won’t delay the game release since they can be unlocked in act 3, and independently from the main story.

About C14, because of my collaborators real-life tasks (relocating, weddings, etc) work will resume in July, but is at very good point and beta might be out that same month 🙂

Nicole yuri and Planet Stronghold 2 writing is going on very slowly, but making progresses at least.

Lastly, I have some news about Roger Steel. I will talk about it next month, when finally I hope to have also some artwork to show 🙂

Happy Halloween

12 Replies

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

10 Replies

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 🙂