Category Archives: general

posts about general topics, even not related to computer games

Happy Valentine’s Day

I know it’s tomorrow, but I want to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day with your beloved one 🙂

To celebrate I’ve done a bundle with (almost) all my games on Indiegala: https://www.indiegala.com/heart

Also, my game Roommates together with many other famous games is on the latest Humble: https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

What a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day? 😉

Meanwhile, we’re busy working on new games…

A busy week

This was a busy week, mostly planning future games. I’ve found two new writers, one of them is writing the Always Remember Me sequel (married/couple life!) and even if she finished only two scenes so far, I’m very happy of the results. There will be 10 scenes for each of the four love interests (Aaron, Hugh, Eddy and Lawrence) so 40 in total. Writer is trying to make one every 2-3 days, so it means that writing will take around 3 months (more or less). The good thing is that after that, I have already some art ready (I plan to add some more outfits to existing characters and some new secondary ones, but not much) so at least the art should be done quicker.

The other writer is working on a CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) style game, set in Aravorn. You’ll play as a single character (typical of those games) and it will be a “roleplay” game, in the strict term. You’ll face several situations that you’ll need to solve using your skills (there’ll be a character creation part) and there will be multiple ways to solve them. Also, skills/personality will influence the available options, and your choices will shape the character too. At least that’s the plan, but we’re still in the very early stages. No estimate release, however there’s a nice surprise… the game will feature romance, and one of the romance option (for all gender/sexual orientations) will be… Nagas!! 😮

Once again I listened to customers/users feedback in forums, where they clearly expressed interest in a game with Nagas as romance option. So, here you go 😉

Now don’t get too excited since this game will probably take long time (beside the writing, it’s a kind of game I’ve never done before) so I don’t think will be out this year… though, you never know!

2014 the year… of change

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Reading back the previous end of year post, I can’t stop thinking how things have changed so rapidly for me. This is probably the biggest “problem” of being indie: things change at lightning speed, for good but also for bad!

Last year I was happy because Loren Amazon Princess was accepted on Steam. Nowadays, I have 13 games there, with the 14th (Seasons Of The Wolf) to be released next month!

Last year I had zero games for iOS. This year I ported almost all of them on Apple’s platform, and I plan to do more next year, especially since Ren’Py will get its own porting system!

Last year beside my loyal long-time fans, I was mostly unknown to the general public. Now, while I’m still not *that known*, people talk about me. Some adore my games, others hate them, others are neutral, but at least people talk about me. The worst thing is being ignored/unknown 🙂

This year I made “only” two games, but two big ones: Roommates and Seasons Of The Wolf.

Roommates

Roommates is a title that totally exceeded my expectations. I’ve made “a few” dating sims before, but this one basically is of another league! I think probably is due to the fact that, like my RPGs, it is not focused on only a romance genre/combo, but all of them. Playing as male or female, straight or homosexual romances. It’s a game for everybody.

But also, great comedy writing. There’s nothing wrong with more serious/mature themes, but sometimes people just want to escape the mundane problems with funny stories 🙂 So, thumbs up to Michael (Roommates’ writer) for his great job on the game!

The game soundtrack by Leetstreet Boys was also a very good move. I really can’t find an issue in that game, something that “if I could go back, I would have done differently” and it’s a good thing!

ToA: Seasons Of The Wolf

SOTW is officially out since just little more than a month. It was a challenge, a bet. I wanted to see if I could make “a real RPG” myself. With romance, with a story, with my usual artwork style, but… much more detailed, with a Nightmare difficult level that would actually make people go crazy with it, with a map system, secrets, randomized items, etc.

I won that bet. The game is doing VERY WELL, beating Loren’s first month sales. Of course, is not an entirely fair comparison since 2 years have passed from Loren’s release and now I have a much bigger following. But to be honest, I was fearing that it would be a flop 😀 So seeing that is doing well reassures me and was already worth it.

Still, I’m not going to do another insanely big game like this one anytime soon! It really “burned me”, because I worked on it 10 months straight, every day, fixing/tweaking stuff. I know it’s my job, but now I need a break from such big games. I’m going to make some smaller games (this time, FOR REAL!! LOL) like Queen Of Thieves. They’ll still be RPGs, but have limited party members/skills/items/and so on. They will also be easier to balance 😉

However, there could be something new related to SOTW, maybe next year. I just received this letter via a pigeon from a certain Jariel the bard from the green lands of Grandtree:

End of year’s thoughts

Even if this year was good for me, the future is still very uncertain.

I personally know several indies who this year took a huge hit on their finances, some have abandoned the business to move elsewhere, others went back to contract work or looking for funding. And only a few years before, they were earning six figures! So, you never know what the future holds! Doesn’t matter how much you plan things ahead… because this business moves so fast, is easy to be caught by surprise.

I think the most important thing is to stay humble, never think to have “made it”, and keep working on what you love. At least, this is what I’m planning to do in 2015 🙂

Happy New Year!

small indies growing…

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Otello has found a comfortable (?) place in the bathroom…!

Today’s blog post is a bit different. I want to talk about a side-effect of when small indies grow 🙂

Back in 2007-2008, I was doing some “research” on indie CRPGs and of course I’ve checked also Jeff Vogel’s site (Spiderweb games). He’s one of the most famous indie doing RPG, so I was curious to see how he was doing. I was surprised when I read in the official forums that “he used” to post there, but now he doesn’t even show up anymore. I was thinking “What? how is possible, he doesn’t care about his users?!”.

Now, several years later, I understand completely his reasons! When you start growing your business, when you have more titles under your belt, the things to do increase exponentially.

Just think what there’s to do for each game:

– support: that’s the biggest problem. No matter how fool-proof you made your registration/full version delivery, there is always going to be an issue with it. But not just that: hardware configuration problems, sometimes files are downloaded incompletely so people think are corrupted, false antivirus positives, etc. It’s just insane, believe me! Some indies I know have hired people to deal with that, but I honestly wouldn’t trust anyone (since I should give access to orders database, Steam keys, etc). So I do it myself…
– marketing/promotion: I honestly don’t do much of this, but even in this case, there are many things to do. Send press-releases, answer journalists, do interviews, send press-copies, etc etc
– social presence: nowadays is essential, so I try to post daily updates on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and so on. Is not a big amount of work each: but if you sum everything, starts to add up (5 min there, another 10 there, etc and voilà hours are gone!)
– game production management: emailing people, checking what they’re doing, etc. Note that I don’t include the actual game coding in this part, and still is big!

OK I’ll stop here, I think you got it 😀 so what is happening is that (luckily) this year was very good for me, but also means that my “free time” has greatly decreased…and I don’t mean to be rude or snob people, but I won’t be able to answer anymore people emailing me “to chat”, or “to know how is going”, or asking “when game XYZ will be out” and so on like I used to do in the past. I simply don’t have the time anymore! 🙁

Of course I’ll still provide support for customers, I don’t plan to disappear from my forums, and will try to reply on the various sites (blog, twitter, Steam forums, etc…there are so many!) but it will depend on how busy I am in that moment.

I also realized that I’m spending really too much time in front of the computer: I want to stay more with family… the wife and pets 🙂

End of the rant! Now, for some quick update on the games, check those screenshots:

The skills screen of Queen Of Thieves

Attributes screen, similar to SOTW one (work in progress)

I got new GUI art done by a new artist who did a great job in my opinion. Is still work in progress but you can see the “return of skilltree” that some players liked so much in Loren 😉

Stay tuned for more info next week…Christmas is coming! 🙂

Thank you

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A nice picture I managed to catch with my camera while taking a walk outdoor!

I’m writing this post on Thanksgiving day. Here in Europe is not a big festivity like in USA, though I really like the idea of it. Being thankful for something, thanking someone, is a good thing to do.

So here I am, thanking you! 🙂

Yes because if I’m still indie after all those years, is mainly thanks to you. My entire life (and those of my wife/pets!) would be very different without your great support, doesn’t matter how big or small.

But I’m going to thank you not just by words! 😉

I’m doing a special promo sale, with all my games 50% off until the 2nd December!
(except Seasons Of The Wolf obviously, since was just released).

You don’t need to enter any code, the discount is automatic for the whole duration of the sale. As always, by buying direct you help me (I get a bigger cut than with portals) and also you get the games DRM-Free + Steam key anyway.

Short status update

I’m making good progress with the various games in the works, but as always I have no idea when they’ll be out.

I often get people asking me: “when game XYZ will be out?” 🙂 It’s cool since shows that people are waiting for my games, but always remember: as soon as I am confident that I can start * at least the beta testing * in a specific date, I’ll be the first to officially announce it in the blog or the various social networks. So if I don’t say anything, means that I don’t know myself!

When several people are involved in developing a game (like all my games do now), is normal to have delays and to be unable to know when everyone will finish his/her tasks.

Anyways, if I had to make a guess, I’d say that 2015 might be “the year of yuri”, since beside Nicole yuri, I also have another yuri-only dating sim in the works (the infamous “Summer In Trigue” which I’ll officially announce later) and all the other games that could be out include female love interests playing as female main character.

This is another way to thank all the yuri fans who followed me through the past years 😉

Computer Games

Development diary of Celso Riva

Category Archives: general

2014 the year… of change

small indies growing…