Category Archives: roommates

2017 and you never stop learning from your mistakes

I’m writing the naga storylines now and yes, I’m having fun!

I decided to break my “a new post every 2 weeks” rule today, and will also do another the 5th of January to make the usual two posts where I review the year and I write my goals for upcoming year. It’s a tradition and I don’t want to stop doing it 🙂

Let’s start from what I posted earlier this year, my goals for 2017.

What went bad

Well, I did release Amber’s Magic Shop. I didn’t finish Love Bites, but at least it’s half done. And even if it’s not finished, Cursed Lands it’s at good point and I’ve personally invested at least six months of time on it (only the character creation phase with the custom portrait generator took me over a month to code). So even if I haven’t anything else finished doesn’t mean that it was a unproductive year, not at all!

Regarding my only release, Amber’s Magic Shop. The game didn’t do bad, and to be honest in current climate where you’re lucky to break even, it did much better than the average, but still… I have the feeling of a missing opportunity, that it could have been something much bigger.

I know the game got several complaints about the writing (especially on Steam) but I don’t want to talk about the writing quality itself but my own mistakes. First of all, doing a new game genre like a crafing/sim game, and having the story written BEFORE the gameplay. That was a totally stupid move and I am banging my head on the wall every time I think about it. Second and related to this, if I do a dating sim or a visual novel, there’s no problem in using external writers, but if I do a game where the gameplay is so interwoven with the story, I HAVE to write at least the storyboard myself. Otherwise, as many people pointed out, the story feels too detached from the gameplay.

Still, as I said it could have been much worse. Many people loved it, maybe I’m being nit-picking, not sure 🙂

What went well

Planet Stronghold: Colonial Defense manga version. I was unsure if to do it or not (investing a non trivial sum of money to redo almost all the art of an already released game was risky) but the reception was amazing, and the sales increased by 300% (so now are in line with my other games more or less). I’ve said it many times: you won’t ever see me do a game with non-manga art again! 😀 I also felt relieved because I thought both the gameplay and writing of that game were good, and the results of the manga version just confirmed that the main/only issue was the art style.

Roommates extra nudity/sexy patch. This time was a smart move since the costs were much smaller (the original CGs were just edited and not redone from scratch, so much less work involved) and people obviously liked the possibility to (re)play the game with optional sexy content. I might try it again with other games but depends how quickly/cheaply it can be done.

Cursed Lands. As very often happens, some projects remains are there, unnoticed, slowly making progress in silence, I even forget about them, until one day I check all the writing already done and I’m like “DOH! this game could be finished relatively soon!” and then I start working on it full-speed (also because I don’t like to stay idle as you guessed). The game is in beta and so far people seems to love it, even if of course it’s still early days. I know for sure that we put a lot of effort in it 🙂

Volleyball Heaven. Yes the game is not even in beta yet, and there’s still all the CGs to do, but I was particularly happy how the new writer finished all the story in basically 3-4 months! It’s also a very different game from my usual ones, so I’m curious to see how people will react to it. An experiment, but personally I like it. Hopefully you’ll like it too.

In Summary

Things didn’t go as planned, and I’ve learned a lot of things which should prevent me from doing the same mistakes in the next years. The main thing will be to get back writing one game a year myself with help of an editor.

This will also help me reduce considerably the amount of games I’m working on at once, because I noticed in the last months that I’m being too much stressed and health comes first.

It’s also “fun” for me to see how there’s a sort of pattern for my work which repeats almost every two years, alternating a good/lucky/productive year with a bad/unlucky/unproductive one:

2012 Loren+DLC, good
2013 Nicole, bad (not for the game, but because I just released one simple dating sim and it’s not much in a whole year)
2014 Roommates and SOTW, good (probably my best year ever since both games did great)
2015 No games, very bad!
2016 Five games!, very good
2017 One game, bad

The good news is: based on that “magic pattern”, 2018 should be a good year!! Let’s hope it is. Happy New Year to everyone!

Winter is over! A Roommates postmortem

crocus

Today the 21st March, is the first day of Spring!

I have to say that this was a very mild Winter, so I didn’t had to shovel snow for hours, nor had problems to drive in icy raods, and so on. Overall under this aspect was a very good Winter! Lots of things happened, first game on Steam and Roommates release. Speaking of it…

Roommates postmortem!

As you know if you follow me regularly, earlier this month I released the comedy dating sim Roommates.pushing

Like Max in the image above, I can say that I wouldn’t be where I am right now without your constant support and motivation/push (some people are more or less nice regarding this, but it’s effective in all cases!).

Roommates is a special game, for several reasons:

  1. was the first game to have a full soundtrack, including theme song, done by a popular group, Leetstreet Boys
  2. was the first dating sim I made where you could play as both genders, and have a variety of romances including yuri/yaoi
  3. was the first comedy game. Is true that many other games had many funny scenes, but if you’ve played even only the demo you can see the difference!
  4. was my most expensive dating sim to date (full soundtrack, 200.000 words of script, 16 CGs, 27 background images, sprites with normal, spring, winter, summer clothes, etc)
  5. was the first one that I coded using the new Ren’Py, incorporating mobile code changes directly in the script without the need to have two separate code-bases

So as you can imagine, with such an ambitious game, there were good chances that something could go wrong! Luckily, everything went rather smoothly: I’m proud to say that even after only a month, it’s clearly going to be my most popular dating sim ever!

I’m particularly happy because I also found a good and reliable writer, Michael Van Horn, who is now working on Loren’s next games. He was supposed to write Undead Lily next, but Loren has higher priority. Maybe he can still work on it after the second chapter of Loren’s saga is out though 😉

In summary: I wish all the next games’ releases would go as smoothly as Roommates! I have doubts that this will happen though 😀

Quick SOTW update

I have also good news about this game: finally finished designing/coding/testing ALL the skills of Seasons Of The Wolf!

Which means that now I can go back adding all the content for the Winter Season (the first act of the game). I am still aiming at finishing that in time for my birthday (11th April) but of course I’m talking only about the beta/preorder version.

The final / full game is more likely to be out in August/Semptember, depending how testing goes (also still have a few images and music to finish).

I have also got some new ideas on how to implement items while playing Diablo 3 on the PS3, so I need to implement that new system too. More info coming in next weeks!

Roommates officially out + video!


Here’s the official Roommates video trailer with theme song “My Name In Light” by Leetstreet boys!

That was the last thing missing to officially release the game Roommates. More info and download/buy links here: http://www.winterwolves.com/roommates.htm

I have also submitted the game to Greenlight, so if you liked it, please vote for it:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=233332314

The game is also available for iOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/roommates-visual-novel/id827116639?mt=8

and Google/Amazon appstores for Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.winterwolves.roommates
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IK44NA6

Meanwhile…

…work on the other games continues! C-14 Dating is coming along nicely, found a new writer for Nicole yuri to speed things up, but fans of RPGs will be pleased to know that I’m going to add more unique skills to my next RPG Seasons Of The Wolf, for a total of 108 unique skills!

I’m also going to remove the “skilltree” system and just make all the skills available to learn in any order, like you see in the work-in-progress screenshot below:skills

So in summary, combined with the more attributes (6 in total vs the 3 of Loren) the game will offer much more customization possible for the party, hopefully increasing the replayability / fun 🙂

This is the project that personally I’m working on, and I have almost everything needed (I just got the lineart of the kissing scenes!) so you can expect quick progresses in the next months. My current deadline is to finish the first Season of the game (Winter) and begin the beta-testing/preorders in April.

This doesn’t mean that the game is going to be split in parts, but simply that I’m going to begin testing as soon as I complete the coding of a part of the story (Winter in this case). Then, as testing continues and I finish new parts of the game I’ll make them available as well, until the full game is ready 🙂

C-14 dating casting!

Today was supposed to announce the official release of Roommates, but since the video is not yet ready, and today was a very hectic day for me for personal reasons (I am writing this blog post at 8PM when I usually have it ready early in the morning!) I think today will just show you the FULL CAST OF C-14 DATING instead!! Woohooo!

Melissa is the protagonist, while the other are the romanceable boys. Click the thumbnails to see a bigger image.

melissaMelissa Flores

Occupation: 3rd year anthropology student
Languages: English, some Spanish
Not afraid to get her hands dirty, Melissa is an aspiring archaeologist who has signed up for a summer internship supervised by her professor. She’s an upbeat, friendly person who lives for the moment and enjoys new experiences. Although studying and theory may not be her strong points, she learns aptly through social interaction and getting involved. Loves dancing, meeting people, and asking questions.

deandreDeandre Guillaume

Occupation: Rugby player, 4th year English student
Languages: French, English
Social and cultured, Deandre knows what it’s like to stay in a foreign country and reaches out to Melissa. He may seem carefree most of the time, but he’s serious about his education and has a back-up plan in case his rugby career cuts short. Although generally cheerful, he can get easily frustrated when irritated or stuck. Loves to cook.

hendrikHendrik Luikenhuis

Occupation: Geologist
Languages: Dutch, French, English, a little German
Hendrik is the head geologist of Calen Cave, working under his uncle, Augustin Dupont. Rational and down-to-earth, Hendrik is very approachable and loves teaching the students participating in the excavation. He has an avid passion for his profession, often getting lost in his work. Loves good food and, of quartz, can’t help throwing in a geology pun or two.

kylerKyler LeGrand

Occupation: 4th year anthropology student
Languages: French Belgian Sign Language, French, English
Kyler is a goal-driven and diligent person planning on a career in archaeology after he graduates. He tends to keep to himself, only speaking willingly when it’s about… archaeology. It’s hard to see underneath his aloof exterior since his stubbornness and judgmental attitude makes it difficult to connect to people. And what luck, he’ll be stuck digging next to the outgoing Melissa!

shojiShoji Toussaint

Occupation: 1st year university student, major undecided
Languages: French, English
Shoji is a quiet, timid individual who prefers to have his nose in an e-book, handheld, or sketchpad. Although reluctant to engage in conversation, he opens up when the topic involves video games. He’s extremely sensitive and empathetic to the people around him, and gets easily overwhelmed in social situations. Likes being helpful, but struggles with his lack of confidence.

There can be other minor characters, but those are the main ones 🙂

Happy Valentines Day!

embarassingisabella
Wait, what!? What Isabella just said? this is craaaaaaazy!

Happy Valentines Day to everyone!

As you can see from the funny screenshot above, Isabella likes to joke. There are many other embarrassing/crazy/hilarious situations like that one thorough the game. Want to find out more? You can now preorder the game here:

http://www.winterwolves.com/roommates.htm

And if you don’t mind a few bugs and are eager to play the game, you can participate to the beta testing currently going on in my forums: http://www.winterwolves.net/viewforum.php?f=34

Promo sale with 30% discount

To celebrate Valentine’s day, until Sunday (included) you can use the coupon VALENTINE in the shopping cart to get a 30% discount on all the games!

(This discount doesn’t include Roommates since it is just in beta!)

The discount doesn’t override the automatic bundles discounts either. For example, if you want to buy the Flower Shop bundle, you need to purchase The Flower Shop: Summer in Fairbrook and The Flower Shop: Winter in Fairbrook individually for the 30% Valentine’s Day discount to work.

Sorry about that, but I didn’t have time to make a fully automated discount!

Coming soon

Once Roommates beta ends, I’ll focus on the RPG Seasons Of The Wolf which hopefully will be available on beta around April. Meanwhile, next week we will begin talking about a new game in the works that features awesome people like these:

c14