Category Archives: dating sims

Heirs & Graces – Marcel

As some of you know already, I’m developing a yaoi-only dating sim since a few months. It’s fantasy, based on Aravorn, but without a RPG part. The main character is Marcel, pictured below:

So let’s discover more about Marcel, with the introduction by the writer:

“Marcel is the only son of Lord Sandor, an extremely wealthy and powerful noble. While that should theoretically mean that Marcel grew up in a lavish environment having his every desire attended to, the reality of his situation couldn’t be further from it. Marcel may be the son of a noble but he is also his mother’s son and, as it goes, her social status is far beneath Lord Sandor’s. To save himself from scandal, Lord Sandor cut ties with Marcel’s mother when she told him she was pregnant. To make matters worse for the young mother, Maura’s parents cast her out and she was forced to try her luck elsewhere. Her disgrace followed her, making it nearly impossible for her to hold down a respectable job and eventually she had to resort to smuggling and taking advantage of men to make ends meet. Though she tried to keep Marcel out of it, he eventually took up stealing. The situation wasn’t ideal, but it allowed them to live.

By working together, the two of them were eventually able to pull themselves out of poverty. Maura now works as a tailor’s assistant and Marcel has had a few short term jobs in the past. This has done wonders for their stability, but their rocky start has made Marcel a bit cynical. He knows that things can work out, but he also thinks it’s stupid to assume they will. Marcel is able to interact normally with others, but he’s careful not to expect too much from them. After all, if you never placed your faith in someone in the first place it’ll hurt less when they betray you. This line of thinking combined with what his mother went through has led Marcel to swear of romance all together. He refuses to put himself into a situation where he gives someone that much power over him.

While Marcel tends to be overly cautious, he does occasionally take a risk. The biggest one to date is applying to work as Lord Sandor’s servant. He knows it’s a bad idea and he knows he should just walk away, but curiosity has gotten the better of him. While he doesn’t want Lord Sandor to know anything about him, Marcel does want to see the old man for himself just once. Why? Well, even Marcel hasn’t quite figured that out.“

I’ll keep posting about this game and the other characters in the next weeks. The game is still in development but is at good point (all the art is finished) so might even be out later this year 🙂

SOTW DLC “Bad Blood” progress update

This week made very good progress: the coding is almost done, and I’m only missing a few art, including the new ending CGs, which should be finished by mid-April.

I’m currently thinking if to allow the preorders and testing towards end of month even if the ending CGs would still be missing (but just that). Anyway I will obviously announce it on the social networks, blog and newsletter when the game is ready 🙂

Summer In Trigue – Alex

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Time for another intriguing character from Summer in Trigue!! 😀

Alex is a cheerful young singer from Trigue. She started singing while a very young child and kept at it, initially simply because she enjoyed it so much. It was only after much practice that she discovered she had an innate talent for it as well. She later partnered with a friend of hers who was a skilled song writer, and with his help she is now able to make a decent living off of her voice. She spends a fair amount of time singing in bars and clubs, and really enjoys the more personal atmosphere of singing in such places.

Alex is very confident in her abilities, her looks, and herself in general, though she is not particularly arrogant. She simply feels that people should properly recognize their own talents, and that when someone denies the abilities they have been clearly blessed with, it is very depressing and sometimes even a bit insulting. So she like to dress sexily and is never shy about pointing out what she feels are the strong points of others.

Alex likes kids a lot. Despite her fondness for them she doesn’t actually have much of a desire to ever have a child of her own one day, but she really enjoys spending time mentoring or tutoring other people’s kids. She wants to be an inspiration to others, and usually succeeds at that fairly well, though sometimes some embarrassing and unfortunate aspects of her past crop up. And sometimes she still acts against her better judgment and causes complications for herself.

Alex is playful, and can be a bit absent minded and forgetful at times. This, combined with some impulsiveness, has occasionally gotten her into trouble and often earns her some teasing from her friends. When spending time with her friends, Alex enjoys puzzles and games, but in general just loves to be with them regardless of what they’re doing. If she is with some friends who are having a good time, Alex will be having a good time as well.

Heirs & Graces romance sneak peek

As you might know, I’m also doing a yaoi-only dating sim, my first one ever (there was yaoi romances in my RPGs, but never a dating sim). I have made a sneak peek of the romance CG in the image below:

Interesting, right? 😉 Currently doing the backgrounds while writer finishes the various paths. Like all my games, no estimate release though I believe it could be out for this Summer!

PSCD – meet Galina

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Apparently last week’s character, Cristoph (which will be changed into Cristophe thanks to the suggestion of some French friends) has shocked some user because of his abundance of hair in the abdomen part of his body… 😀

So this time here’s a nice and kind lady, Galina. Well, maybe not very kind. Read her introduction:

Name: Galina Litvyak
Nickname: Wraith
Nation of Origin: Russia
Service Branch: Imperial Intelligence Agency
Specialty: Bounty Hunter

Description:
Considered the most taciturn member of the squad, Galina wasn’t always so reserved. In her civilian life, she was a successful bounty hunter. While she started nabbing small-time crooks and thugs, Galina’s expertise had her catching bigger and bigger game. So successful was she, she managed to bring in the head of a criminal syndicate, rupturing his organization in the process.

Unfortunately, this success marked her for death, and in a move to save her life, she joined the military. Not one to squander talent when they see it, her superiors use Galina’s to extract or eliminate personnel when other conventional means have failed.

One incident stands out in Galina’s otherwise brilliant career. While the particulars of the mission are considered top-secret, a whole noble house was brought low as a result, and Galina proudly wears the scar she earned in the course of her mission. Though Imperial medicine is more than capable of healing this wound, Galina refused, since her marking, unlike the mission details, can’t be swept under the rug.

Galina earned the sobriquet of Wraith for her ability to go anywhere, no matter how heavily guarded and achieve her aims. Adding a macabre twist, if her target must die, she will lay two old-time coins on the eyes of her victims, giving Death her due.

It would be wrong to say Galina never smiles, but her tastes runs to gallows’ humor and this is quiet acceptance of the end discomfits most of her teammates.

Short update

So…I’m again in a funny situation where several games are in the making, but each one has an aspect delaying it. One game is advanced for story/art, but behind with coding. Another is behind with art. Another with writing. And so on 🙂

For sure the essential part of (most) of my games is the writing, since without it there isn’t a story, and the game itself. What I’m going to do from now is: with the few very reliable writers, I’ll keep producing stories, so that only art/coding is missing. This way should speed up future games. One thing is to send an artist a clear list of what to do, and a deadline. Different is to commission first some things, then some other, and some other again. Also, seems that writing is the activity that takes more time for each game, so having already some plot ready it’s surely not a bad idea!

Anyways, I also realized that of the upcoming games, except for C14 Dating and Queen Of Thieves, all the others are yuri/yaoi only. It’s not bad of course, but I’ve been considering doing a sequel to my old (but still quite famous) otome game Always Remember Me 🙂 It will be different from the others since will focus on the couple life, and the final goal will be to stay together and not break up with your current partner (in the beginning you’ll be able to select your partner from the four original boys of Always Remember Me). Done this way it won’t be required to having played the previous title at all.

And the best thing is that it would be something I could do on my own (the storyboard of course, writing would be done by a pro writer) so not delaying the other projects 🙂

I’m also working hard on SOTW DLC but now I am missing some art, even if I’ve already commissioned it. If all goes well should have it done by mid-April. By popular request, I’m also going to try adding a “visual novel” mode to SOTW, so that you can skip completely the battles or a least most of them 🙂

Summer In Trigue – Grace

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First of all, ToA: Seasons Of The Wolf is now officially out on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/333390/
If you can spread the word in any way, I’d appreciate it! 🙂

Also if you liked the game, please leave a positive review on Steam since it helps.

And now, let’s talk about… Summer In Trigue! The nice lady below is Grace:

It was about time to introduce the first character of the new yuri-only dating sim I’m working since a few months (sorry, no estimate release date for now!), called indeed “Summer In Trigue” 😀 (the best dating sim name ever!)

Now, here’s the writer introducing Grace:

A young woman who was born in and raised in California, Grace had a fairly sheltered life due to her somewhat overprotective parents and the fact that she was homeschooled since kindergarten. When the chance to do some seasonal work in Trigue alongside a friend came to her, she took it, partially to do something a bit daring and force herself to grow, and partially to get a reprieve from her parents’ hints about how much they’d just love some grandchildren.

She has an introverted nature and struggles somewhat with social anxiety, but despite this, balances part-time jobs as both a waitress and a bartender. She far prefers the latter job, and has found an unexpected talent for mixing drinks, a previously unrealized love of booze, and a penchant for sensing people’s moods have all helped her excel at it. Her high level of patience has helped her with both jobs.

Grace is a huge fan of fiction and loves anything that can tell a good story, but she is especially found of novels, anime, and video games. Though she lives on a beautiful tropical island, her idea of a great evening is usually unwinding in her apartment after a stressful day at work with a drink and a good book. Or relaxing on the beach… with a drink and a good book.

Grace’s friend and roommate who was forced to return to the US a few weeks ago, which has left Grace very much alone. This doesn’t bother Grace most of the time, though occasionally she does feel very lonely. Still, her life is far more exciting than back home, and ironically enough also far more peaceful without her parents and friends trying to set her up with a boyfriend, so she doesn’t have too many complaints.

That’s all for this week. More character introduction (both of this game and the other ones in progress) coming soon 🙂

2015 releases plan, and Loren vs Seasons Of The Wolf

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This is a fun mockup image I made a while ago to promote SOTW 🙂

It’s the first post of the year! I imagine people’s main question will be: which games will be out next? since I don’t know myself, and after the big fail of last year (I announced like 5 games but I finished “just” 2), I’ll just say which ones should be definitely out this year (not tomorrow though! could be even Summer or Fall! but still technically 2015).

2015 Possible releases

– Nicole yuri: the game is at a good point. I don’t want to say “first quarter” officially, but it should be really out by April/May max!
– C14 Dating: even this game is at good point, missing some extra outfits and CG scenes, but not much else. I don’t think will be done before Summer though.
– Queen Of Thieves: much depends on the yuri routes writing. This game should be smaller than others (for story’s length) so I think could be out this year!
– PSCD: story and art are at very good point. All depends on the gameplay. I have some ideas but need to make experiments first. I include this on the list even if might be out very late this year!

So that’s it. As always, remember there might be more, or different ones finished. For example, SOTW DLC could be out, depending how much extra art is needed (will be more focused on story-relationship than battles). But as I said I only wrote about those that should be really out this year.

Loren vs SOTW

Back to the title, those who follows me since long time might remember that when I finished Loren, I did a “Loren vs Planet Stronghold” post.

Here I want to try doing the same analyzing the various aspects of Loren and SOTW. Before I start I want to say that personally I don’t think one of the two games is better or worse than the other, simply they’re DIFFERENT 🙂

Story

Many people complained about Loren’s story to be clichè. I think 99% of stories ARE clichè nowadays 🙂 Anyway, with SOTW you cannot really say the story is clichè. Still most people liked the first two chapters, there are many mixed feelings about the third (for some being too open is good, for others bad) and many felt the ending was a bit rushed (the DLC should fix this hopefully).

I still think that SOTW main story is better than Loren’s. SOTW 1 – Loren 0

Characters

Hehe this is quite an unfair comparison, simply because Loren has so much more characters! I read some reviews about SOTW saying that the “characters aren’t memorable”. What? Rowinda isn’t memorable!?! Chalassa? Krimm? Riley!?

Ok Jariel might be too much “classic good elf”. Althea and Shea’s personality aren’t well developed for gameplay/plot reason (since you can play as both). Still is true that Loren’s characters are awesome. Draco? Mesphit? Karen? I could go on… 🙂

So, I’m not going to argue on this. Loren’s big cast and characters is what made that game successful, so here Loren is a clear winner. Loren 1 – SOTW 1.

Gameplay

This is another not very fair comparison since basically SOTW is Loren’s engine but greatly updated. Random items, more advanced skills, custom battle cut scenes, etc etc. And the difficulty had much more meaning. Hard difficulty is hard, and Nightmare… a nightmare 😀

But is not just that, there’s the isometric map, and several small or big improvements. SOTW is the clear winner here. The only thing some people didn’t like is the “prevent grinding” feature I added. I am not sure if I’ll keep it in future games, even if that means that the boss battles will never be balanced (because if you can grind unlimited time…). But if that’s what people want… who I am to argue? 😉

Loren 1 – SOTW 2

Soundtrack

This is a close one. I really like SOTW main menu music, and even the theme song is much better than Loren’s (hehe), but overall Loren’s soundtrack is awesome.

Listen to those Loren’s tracks:

Or those SOTW tracks:

I really don’t want to decide, but if I have, Loren’s is slightly superior in my opinion, but is a very close call! Loren 2 – SOTW 2

Artwork

Hard to say: Loren’s had a different coloring style, but more CGs. SOTW has a better (in my opinion) coloring, A LOT more variety of backgrounds, the isometric map art which I think is beautiful, but less CGs (even if the ending ones are nice, but the romance one can’t match Loren’s).

I think this one is really a draw – if you liked more romance/event CGs then Loren (obviously, since had more romances!) but if you liked more variety of backgrounds and isometric map, SOTW.

Loren 3 – SOTW 3

Longevity

Loren has shorter RPG gameplay, since has no maps and less battles, and most are optional (unlimited grinding). It has much more dialogues between characters though, even if the base game text is just slightly higher than SOTW (I’m not including the DLC).

If you like RPG combats, SOTW is a clear winner. If you like romance/camp talk, Loren is much better, again if only because of the bigger cast.

Another draw? yes, since this really depends on people’s tastes! Loren 4 – SOTW 4

Conclusion

What, the conclusion is a draw!? Really? Yes, really! And believe me is not a diplomatic solution. Even if SOTW took me a lot more time than Loren, I don’t think is vastly superior overall. It depends only on tastes. I have many people who were disappointed because SOTW was more a RPG than a “fantasy dating sim” 😉 but also many who were pleased to see that the RPG gameplay was much deeper and the difficulty better balanced.

It’s like asking: is better apples, or oranges? 😀

Of course, you might disagree with me. In this case feel free to post a comment with your opinion either here, or in the forums!

Computer Games

Development diary of Celso Riva