Category Archives: development screenshot

Nicole’s cast: Kurt Madry

It’s the turn of another character introduction from my upcoming otome/mystery dating sim Nicole. His name is Kurt Madry and is a very popular player of the college football team.

You can see a few images of him below:

Kurtmadry

About his personality, he’s quite arrogant and spoiled, and very successful with women.

Unfortunately for him, his grades at school aren’t as good as his skills on the other fields. But for that, Nicole will be able to help him 😉 An excerpt from the game story:

    “All the students in the classroom were getting ready to go when I heard someone sigh heavily. I looked over to see who it was and spotted Kurt.”
“I wonder what’s wrong…”
“We did get our test scores back today though.”
“Maybe it has something to do with that.”
“I gathered up my supplies before walking over to his seat.”
Nicole “Hey there! Is something wrong?”
“He glanced up to see me as he irritably shoved his books and supplies into his bag.”
Kurt “Everything sucks today.”
Nicole “Aw, I’m sure it’s not so bad. What happened?”
Kurt “I failed the damn math test.”
“He cast the paper another dark look before roughly tossing it into his bag.”
Nicole “Ouch…I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I suppose it’s better not to mention that I thought it was the easiest one we’ve had so far…”
Kurt “You don’t know how bad it really is.”
Nicole “They won’t make you repeat the class, will they?”
Kurt “It’s even worse than that!”
“He slung his bag over his shoulder and started stomping over to the door. I followed him quickly.”
Nicole “But what other repercussions are there?”
Kurt “I can get suspended or even kicked off of the football team if I don’t keep my grades at an acceptable level.”
Nicole “That’s so extreme…”
Kurt “It is! They don’t give a crap about how important I am to the team if my grades start to slip.”
Nicole “It’s not too late to get things turned around though, right?”
Kurt “That’s a hell of a lot easier said than done.”
Nicole “Not necessarily…”
Kurt “If you have a point you’re trying to get to, then spit it out.”
Nicole “Maybe I could help you out and tutor you in math.”
“He was already angry but looked at me skeptically.”
Kurt “I don’t really want to get a tutor.”
Nicole “It could help a lot though! Sometimes having someone other than the professor to explain everything is really beneficial. Their explanations practically need translations.”
Kurt “I don’t know…”
Nicole “I’m sure I can help you.”
Kurt “But you’re so new.”
Nicole “So what? We’re in the same math class.”
Kurt “Are you really the best tutor I can get? If I’m going to deal with having a tutor, I need the absolute best.”
“He certainly sounds spoiled…

Later in the game, Nicole will also discover some traits of his personality that will seriously make her think… but you’ll have to play the game to discover what I’m talking about 😉

That’s all for this week! Progresses on all the other games (including Loren’s expansion) are being made but I want first to finish Nicole’s characters introduction before talking about something else 🙂

Let’s talk about Nicole

Who is Nicole? is the main character of my new mystery otome game that will be out… “soon” (probably after the summer though).

I know that during the past… 6 months? Loren has monopolized my blog and forums, and even if I wasn’t able to advance the other projects as I hoped, some of them made good progresses, such as Nicole (the game will be very likely called just that “Nicole”).

How Nicole looks like? she’s pretty cute I think, check below:

As you can see, this time I decided to have lots of options, both in hair style and clothes. She has more clothes and hair styles than those showed above.

Nicole studies law and she just entered college. However, as soon as she arrives, she discovers something. An excerpt from the game story will explain better than my words:

    “This is going to be wonderful…exactly what I needed! A prestigious university like this will be perfect for me to study at.”
“I sat down on the bed and reached for the bag that contained my netbook. It didn’t take long to get it connected to the college’s internet and I clicked around to see what kind of local websites I would want to have bookmarked.”
“I clicked a link to the local newspaper, humming cheerfully as I saved the page. I scrolled down, my eyes zipping across the headlines quickly. One in particular caught my attention.”
Nicole “Multiple disappearances…? Could it just be some kind of rumor?”
“I frowned slightly when I saw it and leaned forward as I clicked to read the full article.”
“My eyes widened when I read more of the article. Some of the worries I carried with me onto the campus lurked around in the back of my mind as I continued reading, my frown deepening with each line. The writer of the article looked credible, as did the information it contained.”
“Three disappearances…why would so many students just want to leave so suddenly? Or is there more to it than that…?  I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about it before…but I suppose they do their best to keep this sort of thing quiet.”
“And these journalists all try to use scare tactics. If it was too bad, they wouldn’t be able to conduct the classes normally like they do now.”
“Still…this isn’t a very reassuring thing to read on my first day…”
“While simply learning that there had been numerous disappearances was an unpleasant thought, the chilling closing of the article was what stuck with me the most.”
Nicole “And they were never found…”
“I pushed my netbook aside and wrapped my arms around myself as I shook my head quickly.”
Nicole “Well, it shouldn’t be anything that I have to worry about…I’m here to learn. I just have to be careful…people disappear all the time.”
“It’ll all be alright. I just have to find my ways to the classes and everything will run smoothly from there.”
“But…”
“Maybe the people here won’t be exactly what I was hoping for…”

So, while it won’t be a horror game, it will have a bit of suspense. It will still be a family friendly game though!

What about the other characters? Here’s Chandra, Nicole’s roommate:

Chandra

She is friendly, and she’s one of the best cheerleader. Her goal is to dual major in education and athletics so she can become a cheer leading coach. But perhaps she’s hiding something…

Lastly, there are 3 more male characters that you can meet and date. However for now I’ll introduce only Ted:

Ted

He works in a convenience store near the campus. His father is a police officer, and wanted him to major in law, but he is also working to raise money for his studies. Later in the game, thanks to Chandra you’ll discover some rumours about him and his father…

Being a mystery game, I cannot go too much in details, so will keep the characters introductions quite short, since there are many hidden secrets beyond the surface 😉

Crunch mode

Fogmap

In the image above, the map (still work in progress) with the new fog feature. When you start the game it will look like in the image on top but as you discover new locations, it will slowly become like the image at the bottom.

Why Crunch Mode ?

Today’s blog post will be short, because I’m in a sort of “crunch mode”. Those who worked in companies know well what does it means – it’s a period (usually lasts some days or weeks) during which you work non-stop like crazy to finish an important project.

Obviously in my case, the project is Loren The Amazon Princess 🙂 But also, I need to get back on managing the various other projects going on, since I’ve been “away” (busy working on Loren) for too long!

For a small indie like me, releasing games regularly is very important, since it’s one of the most effective way to get attention. The last game I’ve released is in December (Winter In Fairbrook), so not too long ago, however if I look back at the past year, during this period (end of March) I had already released Love & Order and was about to finish Planet Stronghold!

Now I know I’m not a machine, so I need to take breaks sometimes, but I usually reserve the summer for that (when it’s too hot to work much anyway).

So my goal would be to release 0.9 this weekend, or no later than end of the month. Today I managed to finish scripting the 3rd chapter of Loren, and will take tomorrow to test it again. Meanwhile Aleema is finishing the last touches to the romance scenes, since we’re trying to include many of them for the next beta update, the 0.9.

The Bionic Heart sequel

Bionic Heart was one of my early visual novels, but also one that was most popular (was featured in some big japanese websites and that was the first time for a VN made in the west). However, commercially speaking, it wasn’t a big success.

Almost 3 years later, I think I know the reasons. It was a pure visual novel, aimed at males, and with my writing (lol). Definitely I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes in the sequel, even if I want to make this game mainly for my personal satisfaction than money.

In the image above you see sketches of the main characters, plus there will be new ones which I don’t want to show yet. I have written already a generic basic plot, but need to go in the details. For now all I can say is:

  • won’t be a pure visual novel, but will have statistics, even if won’t be a RPG
  • you’ll be able to play as different characters (differently from the first game)
  • it will contain nudity, both male / female
  • will have all possible romances (straight & gay / male & female)
  • will have lots of endings 🙂

Now remember, I am NOT working on this game right now, but I am producing / supervising the art production. I don’t know yet when I’ll have time to start working on this, maybe for Christmas, or maybe later next year!

“Nicole” game

Nicole’s plot continues to make progress, and I got also a new characters images. Below you can admire Nicole in her various outfits (yes, cheerleader is also an option!):

Nicole

That’s all for now! Stay tuned, since next month I plan to definitely release something 🙂

Past, present and future

The Past

Magicstones02

Don’t worry, the picture above is NOT of any upcoming games! 😉 It’s from one of my early fantasy/RPG games called Magic Stones, which has still a special place in my heart because was the first game I made to become relatively successful. That though represent the past, what I was doing several years ago. I used royalty free poser 3d models because I couldn’t afford decent artists.

The Present

The present is of course represented well by my recent manga games, and Loren in particular. I never invested so much time and resources in a game before, but now that the game is currently in beta stage, I can say it was definitely worth it!

Lorenaffection

In case you missed my Twitter/Facebook announcement, I released version 0.8 which lets you play through the whole chapter 1. The game has also a very long demo, so you can try it before preordering it!

We have added a lot of new features to version 0.8 based on early tester/players’ feedback, and I must say that the game now is much better. I liked a lot in particular the feature to double-click to repeat last action (very useful in battles, making them much more smooth to play!) and the new “Tasks” feature, in which you can play battles to raise your Fame in a specific town, to obtain discounts in the town’s vendor.

Brezacastle

The. plot is also going on very well, with Aleema (the writer) finishing the last chapter. I can assure you that the final battle will be something epic, and also have a surprising end! But for now, I’m concentrating on finishing the chapter2, since adding all the new enemies and battles is quite time consuming, since I have to test them all.

I also reduced the difficulty on the Easy level so much, that I can say that playing Loren at easy level is almost like playing a normal visual novel. So I think that even if you don’t like RPGs, you should try playing it in easy mode just to read the story, which I think is very good!

The Future

As I said, after Loren I plan to take a break from very detailed RPGs. But of course, Planet Stronghold sequel will be still done this year, since in this case the RPG framework is already tested and finished (and also, is more simplified vs Loren).

Below you can admire a new sketch from the artist for a Marada Shaman enemy:

Marada_shaman

Planet Stronghold: Warzone should be out this summer, though is more likely will be this fall. As for my other projects, beside Heileen 3 and Nicole, I didn’t make much progresses, since my last two months were completely absorbed by Loren!

But hopefully once Loren is out, will have more time to devote to those games, which compared to the complexity of making a RPG could even be considered “relaxing”! 😉

I also have more surprises coming out next months: might do my first online/webgame, and if I can find the right partner also a webcomic. Stay tuned!

The light at the end of the tunnel

Dsc01594

In the picture above, Othello looking at the new arrival, our dog Skipper.

I’m starting to see the light at the end of the Loren Amazon Princess tunnel 🙂 If you follow me you know that last week I made public a sort of sneak peek, to see what people think. So far the response was very positive. People like the art, the story/writing, and beside a few bugs (all my fault though!) even the gameplay.

After the public preview, I made a big spreadsheet document with all the bugs and suggestions. I spent the following 2 days fixing them and evaluating the suggestions, and today finally I started to get back into the “content creation” phase.

Yes, because even if the plot is done until chapter4, as I play the game I’m adding the fights, creating new enemies, and also adding some extra movement steps on the map to make the game seem less linear (even if in reality it is, but nobody complained so far!).

The goal is to have the plot fully scripted by mid-March, and Aleema (my writer) said it would be possible, and I self-imposed myself the deadline of end of March for the almost-final release. It won’t be easy, but I’ll try to make it!

The next appointment with Loren is 1st March when I’ll start pre-orders and release a new improved demo.

And the other games…?

I know that not everyone who follows me is a RPG fan, and they might be wondering what happened to the various games I have announced!

Well, to be honest I underestimated the amount of work that was needed to make a huge game like Loren. So while I am still waiting for the artwork and the writing for most other games, I was so busy that wasn’t able to use my traditional “motivational techniques” to encourage my collaborators. In other words, the famous “spanking lazy collaborators”! 😀

So the progress speed for my other games has been slower than usual, but until I finish Loren I don’t think will have time to follow/encourage them.

Also, this week I decided to move the main Winterwolves site into a cloud server, so this added some extra delays (those kind of things are always problematic!). But better do that before Loren is released, just in case somehow it becomes a popular game!

Anyway, just to reassure that the other projects are still going forward, here’s a sneak peek of Heileen 3 male romances:

Heileenmaleromances

From top-left to bottom-right: Heileen with Sebastian on the shore at night, Heileen with Jonathan in an artist atelier, Heileen with Morgan on the ship bridge, and Heileen and John… in bed! 🙂

Heileen 3 is still missing some art, and the whole Marie subplot, but I’d say that is 80% complete (of course, I still need to put everything together and test it).

And below is Jeff, one of the four pursuable characters of the mystery/otome game “Nicole”:

Jeff

I am at good point in this game too, story and art is about halfway finished, even if being a sort of mystery/detective game I’ll have to review everything to make sure that there aren’t spoilers early in the game or plot holes.

That’s it for this week, see you next Friday!