Category Archives: development screenshot

There’s something cooking…

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Dsc00596

But fear not, I’m not going to cook my sweet cat Gilda, who in the picture above found a new way to use my pot 🙂

Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook

We’re getting close to finish it. I know I’ve been saying this already, but there are still a few backgrounds missing, and some more testing needed, but definitely not much! Is really likely to be finished in July!

Spirited Heart Deluxe Girl’s Side

Even this expansion is at a very good point. Only a character subplot left to finish and then will need to test and check everything. This is very likely to be done either in end of July or August. The sprites are not yet all ready, but what has been done so far is absolutely lovely. Check the image below:

Reid

But don’t think all the girls will be like Reid, the sexy demoness dancer. Each one has her own personality and different life goals: cute princesses, fearsome thieves, anti-social genius and more bizarre characters will be present in the expansion, who is going to be as big as the main game! I think there’s really a very good variety of situations in the game and even if the theme is girl’s love, I think some scenes are really beautiful and everyone should play it 😉

Loren Amazon Princess

This is going to be delayed a bit, since I’m getting a complete RPG framework done by a “real coder” (that’s not me! lol). This way I can re-use it for future games or add-ons (even in different settings/game worlds). I should have done this before, but as they say, better late than never! Meanwhile, right now the romance scenes are being drawn, the first ones are Loren and Elenor/Saren. Everything will happen during a full moon night, when Loren goes in a lake nearby to take a bath… As said already the scenes will be completely optional because will be more sexy than usual, and you won’t see them at all if you disable the option in the preferences screen.

Undead Lily and The Elemental Avengers

The final battle poses of the last two heroes are being made right now! Though there are still all the romance scenes, and probably will also need more art for the strategic map… this game is becoming really bigger than I thought, hopefully my efforts and investment will be rewarded! 🙂

More news and surprises coming soon…

I’ll be also promoting soon some games made by indie game developers friends, and I am also getting ready to launch an interesting promotion somewhere in July, offering several themed games that will make sci-fi fans happy. Stay tuned for more news!

Loren Amazon Princess base classes

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Chapterone Lorenelenor

This week finally started working on Loren Amazon Princess RPG ruleset. I want to be very clear that this is going to be a more casual RPG! So nothing complex as Planet Stronghold. However this time I’ll design it in a way that I can easily add more features later. Working for 6 months on Planet Stronghold helped me to understand the various coding problems you can encounter while developing a RPG, but I had to hurry up to finish that game (especially in the last months) so the resulting codebase can’t really be “re-used” with other games as I hoped.

It was a mistake and something I don’t want to repeat with this RPG. So don’t  be shocked if I tell you that very likely the game won’t have an inventory. Yes, you read it right ! But before you delete my site from the bookmark  “indie RPG”, read on 🙂

The game will focus, like Planet Stronghold, mainly on battles and character relationships. The main features of this new RPG will be:

  1. the overall polishing level: is very likely will have another custom theme song, will have top quality artwork (as you can see from the screenshots) and I also want to include more cinematic scenes during the battles. For the battle itself I have an idea how to make it, in a way where you’ll be able to see the heroes positions on the battlefield (more info about this later after I’ve done some tests to see the feasibility of this feature).
  2. the skilltrees system: every character starts with 3 skilltrees, each of them has 3 or more skills. Of those three skilltrees, one is the character Class (which can be Warrior, Thief and Mage), one is a character specialization (for example Loren has Dual Wield, the playing character has Healer) and a unique skilltree for each character. This way every character will have a real personality and will be much more fun to play each of them (you can use 12 characters in the game). Below is a work-in-progress flowchart of the three base skilltrees:
    Loren Amazon Princess RPG base classes For a more detailed explanation, check the game official forums here.
  3. game currency: when you defeat enemies, you’ll get money, and items. Wait, didn’t I say that the game won’t have an inventory? yes, indeed the items will be resource materials that you’ll be able to use to upgrade your weapons and equipment, increasing your character power. During the game you’ll encounter several places with blacksmiths or enchanters that will be able to improve your equipment if you bring them the right materials. This way, even without a real inventory, you can still grow your characters.
  4. choose male or female character: yes, even Planet Stronghold featured two genders. This time though, the gender you choose will influence the gameplay. Saren, a human male warrior, will have unique melee combat skills. While Elenor, elf female thief, will have unique long-range combat skills. Obviously, like my other games, the gender will also influence which romance subplots you’ll be able to unlock in the game.
  5. better movement map: I plan to have some scripted scenes, to advance the story, but also allow freedom of movement in a bigger map. I’m not sure yet about this last feature since would require some work, so for now this is the only thing that falls under the category “maybe if I have enough time/budget”!

I really think that if you liked Planet Stronghold, you’ll like Loren The Amazon Princess RPG! And for those waiting for The Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook or more otome games, don’t worry, next week I might be doing an official announcement… stay tuned! 😉

Summer Sneak Peek

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Recently my blog posts were all focused on my upcoming otome game Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook. However, people that follows me knows I’m working also on several other projects (I’d dare to say “too many” lol). Most of them are new RPGs, though there are also more dating sim and otome games in the works, but they might be done after the summer.

Loren Amazon Princess

After a moment of hiatus, because had to decide what kind of art style to use, I finally found a new artist and I’m going to use manga art for it too. Though will be more “adult” manga art as you can see from the images below:

This is Loren, the main character of the game (which won’t be directly controllable by the player though)

Loren_color

Next two ones are Saren and Elenor, the two playable characters that you can pick at the beginning of the game. Like I already did with Planet Stronghold, the gender you pick at the start of the game will influence which romance options will be available to you during the game.

Saren_copy
Elenor

lastly, this is Dora, a female dwarf scout that will be one of the various characters that will join you during the game story. In total there are 12 playable characters.

Dwarfdora

There is also a male dwarf in the game though is really not cute as her 😀 He’s the classical muscular, axe wielding angry warrior with long beard.

As I posted before, for indies is really hard to find reliable artists, so you cannot really know when the art for your next game will all be finished. Though I must say that if things keep going at this pace, I could have all art needed for Loren finished before end of June, which means I can start working on it at full pace. No estimate release yet, since also depends which system I’ll use for the battles, and the story is only 30% or so done , so there’s still much left to do.

Spirited Heart “yuri” expansion

This is one of the other projects I’m working on, with the help of Aleema from Lemmasoft who is writing the yuri scenes. For those unfamiliar with the japanese term, “yuri” means girl love. I’m going to add 6 new dateable female characters to the base game, each one with her own romance subplot and personality/secrets to discover, and is going to cost $9.99. I believe is a small price to pay for the upgrade since there are lots of new characters and some are *really* interesting.

This expansion is very likely to be out in July/August since things are going well with it.

Planet Stronghold “Warzone” expansion

This mainly depends on the artist speed. So far only a few new characters from the original game have been “redrawn” to reflect the fact that in the story the time has advanced of some years. This will be an add-on, featuring new monsters, items, weapons, but also I hope to introduce a few minor gameplay enhancement, like the possibility to have a strategic map and control resources, so that you can build new stuff with it. Adding some strategy element should make the game even more replayable than the original was. Also, there will be two extra romance option, Prince Cliff – Lisa (got sooo many requests for this!) and Shiler – Joshua (this is interesting).

I really cannot know about this, however I believe in June artist should be free of conventions and in theory, I could finish this one by September or so (I hope!).

Undead Lily and The Elemental Avengers

This is also going well – though is a very ambitious game and has lots of animations/character poses (there are already 12 basic character pose with eye/mouth animations and 10 battle poses done). So while I cannot complain about artist speed, it is still going to take a while because is a big game. I really hope to have this done by next Christmas, though I’m not sure, really!

Undeadlily Magmateaser

I have a few more games I’m working on in parallel, but I want to keep those “secret” for now 😉

Loren Amazon Princess game features revealed!

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Immagine_115

In the picture above, a big close-up picture of my cat Nina. I wanted her to be present in the game Remember Me, but she’s quite hard to draw. The resulting sprite inside the game only vaguely resembles her… 🙂

Today will talk mainly of the decisions I’m making for my next RPG called “Loren – the amazon princess”. But first a quick update about my next otome / life sim game:

Remember Me

Things are going smoothly – all the texts are done, and are being proofread again (even if they were already written by a native English speaker!). I have still to link all the events together, make sure everything works as it’s supposed (some scenes happens only after others) and other minor things, but seems very likely that will be able to do pre-orders at mid-April! 🙂

Loren – the amazon princess

In the picture below, the two playable characters: Saren, the human male slave and Elenor, the elf female slave.

Choice

I am still writing the plot/storyboard that then will be transformed into script by writers. But I want to talk about the rules first. I’m still brainstorming the ideas but that’s what I have so far:

  1. shared inventory. After finishing Planet Stronghold, I had the chance to play some recent RPGs and… well, having a separate inventory for each character is really bad 🙁 In this game, I’ll have a shared inventory!
  2. character customization. Each character will have access only to a specific weapon, like Dragon Age 2. I know this might sound limiting, but in my case I’m doing this for budget reasons: having different sprites drawn with each possible weapon is out of discussion. I think though that it makes more interesting the gameplay and gives each character a specific set of skills related to his weapon choice. For example, Loren will be a massive damage dealer: she uses two swords (dual wield power!) and does tremendous critical strikes. The downside of course is that she’ll have low HP, but thankfully your player character will be a healer!
  3. character creation. Again, not much freedom for race and name – for plot reasons you’ll have ot be either Saren (human male slave), or Elenor (elf female slave). Also, you’ll be a healer. You might wonder then “wtf I cannot even choose my class!”. Yes, but you’ll be able to choose the specialization skills. Even if you’re primarily a healer, at low level, as you go on you’ll be able to become several different things: a sort of Templar (warrior/healer) that fight and also heal a bit, a sort of Druid (wizard/healer) who can cast offensive/buff spells and heal a bit, or you can choose to keep your path and become a powerful healer. So as you see, you still have a choice at later levels
  4. skill system. I absolutely fell in love with the multiple tree/branches skills! I want to use that method in this game. I have already started designing them and I’m quite happy so far about the variety and results. Each character will have a common skill based on the class (warrior, magic user, scout) and a unique personal skill set, so each character will be somehow unique 🙂 I think this feature should make the game much more replayable since you might want to experiment with all the various characters skills.
  5. romance. There will be of course romances subplots! The main one will be between Loren and your Playable Character, but I plan also to allow some other romance between other minor characters. They’ll be optional like in Planet Stronghold, but I’m not sure yet they’ll have specific quest too.
  6. endings. I’d like also to have several different endings, I mean quite different between each other. But is perhaps still a bit too early to talk about this (also, I won’t really talk about this since don’t want to make spoilers!)
  7. battle system. This game is more for the “hardcore fans” than casual RPG player, so I’m thinking to move from the first person view of Planet Stronghold and try some card-RPG battle view. You can see a very ugly looking (hey it’s programmer’s art) test layout below:
    Battlescreenwip

    I’m going to do this for several reasons: more epic battles, you can fight against 12 goblins if you want 😀 Also, more tactical choices and the position will influence the battle. The first rows will be the one in direct contact, but all the heroes in the second rows won’t be directly attackable by enemies unless they have ranged attacks. Also, I can have area of effect spells/skills, and you can swap positions of the heroes, like move in the back lines if your fighter is injured to heal him, and so on. Will be much more fun I think, even if inevitably is going to make battle more complex (but as I said, I think the target market for this kind of game will appreciate it).

That’s all for now, as you can see there’s already quite some features to talk about 😉

 

Remember Me update

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In the picture above, Gilda sleeping inside a bread bag! Looks like she found it very comfortable 🙂

“Remember Me” update

Everyone interested in otome / dating sim games will be pleased to know that beside the game I published this week, Love & Order by Christine Love, I’m also making one completely on my own 🙂

It’s called Remember Me, and it will feature the same character artist as L&O, and a very extended simulation part. There’s also a custom song made for the game, which has been written / composed by the skilled Matt Myers and features the young talent singer Cristina Vee!

The story of the game starts with a dramatic event. The main character, called Amarantha (my homage to a friend developer who always supported me with precious suggestions and encouragement in past years, Amanda of Amaranth Games) is dating Aaron since about a year, when one evening during a date on the beach…

The two were walking together, hand in hand, watching as the sun descended beneath the horizon. The evening was wearing on and the warm colors of twilight were starting to fade from the sky.

Amy wasn’t sure why Osher, Aaron’s father, wasn’t approving their relationship. Maybe because of her social condition? because she had to take a part-time job  in a ice-parlor during summer, to pay for her studies?

All her thoughts would soon disappear because something worse, much worse would happen. While going back home on Aaron’s motorcycle, they had a car accident. As Amy wakes up in the hospital, she discovers thanks to the help of Eddy, a young doctor, that Aaron has lost short-term memory, completely forgetting about her and their relationship!

The game will let you pursue four young boys, each one with completely different interests, personality, and approach. The hardest task, and also the “best” ending will be to try to get back Aaron’s memories and become her girlfriend again, since you’ll have to find out a way to restore his memories. But depending on your actions, Amy could find out that after all, maybe Aaron wasn’t the right man for her, and fall in love with someone else instead (or she could also end alone – a sad ending).

The other dateable characters are: Eddy the young hospital doctor, Lawrence who works with Amy in the ice cream parlor, and Hugh, who owns a fashion shop in the town center mall. There are also other secondary characters, like the annoying Abigail, Aaron’s ex-girlfriend, who shows up in the most unappropriate moment…!

More info about each of them the next weeks.

The game will also feature a map that will let you move freely from location to location, and a time system, dividing the day in several parts: ‘dawn’,’morning’,’noon’,’afternoon’,’sunset’,’evening’,’night’.

On each place you’ll be able to do several actions that will consume one or more day time units, unlock scenes, or change your four main statistics (see the status bar on the left). So for example you might go to the library and read a book from afternoon to sunset, or even evening, to raise Culture. Note that the stats aren’t definitive yet, since I might change Culture/Creativity which are rather similar with Athletic or something like that.

There will be a morale system, so if you attempt to perform actions while your morale is low you’ll fail. There will be also money, that you’ll need to use to do several actions in the game like going to the pub, buy stuff in the mall, and so on.

And there will be much many other hidden things in the game 😉 And don’t worry about the writing, since this was completely outsourced – written by a native English speaker, and I’ll have another review the whole game texts again just to be sure there aren’t any typos!

I have no estimate release date yet, but if all goes well I think end of March might be LIKELY, but not 100% sure.