Category Archives: indie life

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:

skillsQoTWIP
The skills screen of Queen Of Thieves

attributes
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 😉

Seasons Of The Wolf official release!

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Yep, the “supposedly – small – RPG – game” is finally out! 😀

I made a few minor bugfixes since the soft-release, updating the game to version 1.0.5. though the only real problem was a bug when replaying the game after you replayed one of the ending romances from the gallery screen.

A short post-mortem

I can’t make a real post-mortem since the game is just out since 15 days, and even if had a very long testing/preordering stage, it’s not enough to draw any conclusions. However I can safely say that if sales continues this way, the game could beat Loren’s success, which wasn’t really something I was counting on 🙂 Of course, IF the sales continues this way, which might not happen. I think by the end of year I’ll have a better idea if doing this crazy huge RPG was a good investment of my time or not.

Honestly I wish I had made the game with less features. Less than 12 skills each character. I wish I made less than the 300+ battles in the game or the over 115 different enemies. Maybe I should have avoided some extra sidequests, or the isometric map. The unlockable quest/location bonuses. Some hidden areas to do grinding. The huge amount of background images (more than double Loren’s). The art quality, using 5 artists at once (never happened with any other game). Or the theme song and full epic soundtrack. Adding still romances despite all the amount of content, and two CGs each romance (a kissing scene, and an ending scene).

Why, you ask? because it was hard to price the game, considering the time/money invested on it. About that…

Steam release and pricing

I was unsure what to do until today, originally I had planned to sell the game for $29.99 also because of the crazy amount of time I’ve personally spent on it, however… considering many players play my games mainly for the romances, in the end it didn’t seem fair to them.

For those who like more gameplay, I think it’s a great deal at this price since will keep you busy FOR HOURS! Seriously, I have some testers who spent over 50-60h on it, of course in Hard/Nightmare difficulty mode, completing all the achievements/quests 😉

As for Steam, just today the game was accepted, but since I don’t want to rush things will add the game there in January (I need to do all the achievements, testing, etc). But at least now you know that if you buy direct you’ll get a free key because the game will be on Steam soon!

Differences vs Loren

I want to stress this again: the game is much more RPG/combat focused than Loren. There isn’t the same amount of romances or “camp talk” dialogues with each character. It is a bit more similar, gameplay wise, to my first RPG Planet Stronghold, even if of course much more polished.

So if you’re looking for something like Loren, you better wait for Loren 2, or Roger Steel which will be much more similar to that game (as I often say, more VN and less RPG). If instead you want more RPG gameplay but still with a story, then this game is for you. As always, there’s a free demo to try before you buy.

Overall, it was a “small game” that somehow turned into the biggest game I’ve ever made. It’s not necessarily a bad thing of course 🙂 but I need a break badly from such big projects, so don’t expect any new RPG like this one out in 2015. I mean, I will probably start working on Roger Steel next year for example, but the actual game won’t be out for sure before 2016. Even SOTW was started in Summer 2013, and the first beta was out in Spring this year…making good and long games takes time!

Mobile release

What about mobile? I’ll start working on it, but is really a bad moment now with Christmas and everything else (really busy!). I will TRY to do the mobile port in time, but might slip into January. The mobile version, beside obvious testing, needs some changes to the interface to be more playable on touch based devices. Also, it’s probably going to be quite slow on low-end/old devices because of the isometric map. Anyway, as always will use in-app purchases so you can play/test the game first and decide if is worth spending your money on the mobile version.

The upcoming games

Meanwhile, next year you’ll enjoy Nicole yuri for sure, then there’s a big amount of games in progress: Heirs and Graces (the yaoi only dating sim), another still unnamed yuri only dating sim (check this poll in forums if you want to help give it a name!), PSCD, Queen Of Thieves, Amber’s Magic Shop… and I’m probably missing something! 😀

Lots of active projects! As always I will finish the one which is more advanced, so I think PSCD is the one more likely to be out soon together with Nicole yuri. For the others, I don’t know, we’ll see how it goes 😉

Summer Sale, and keeping track of my time

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This is Merrow, a character NPC you’ll meet in the 3rd Act of Seasons Of The Wolf

First of all, in case you didn’t know yet, the Summer Sale has started! All my games on my own site are discounted by 50%. No need to enter any coupon code, the discount is automatic. On the site the full price are still displayed but when you add the products to the cart you’ll see the discount 🙂

Visit www.winterwolves.com now!

Tracking time

I don’t use any time-tracking softwares, but yesterday was working on Steam’s Nicole build, and started to think how much time I spent so far this year on this and other tasks. Everything is approximate but should give you an idea:

  • writing blog posts like this one: usually I write them in advance since I don’t like to rush things (even blog posts!) and I’ve never missed a Friday post since a long time 🙂 Sometimes posts are done fast, like this one (about 1,5 hour spent on it) while other times I need to think more. I’d say on average 2h each blog, so let’s say 25 weeks x 2h = 50h or 2 days
  • adding a game to Steam: this varies greatly too, some games like the RPGs with many achievements and cards took me 1-2 weeks, including testing, fixing bugs, preparing assets and so on. Also the first times I was more inexperienced and spent more time to figure out everything. Let’s say on average 1 week each x 10 games (last 2 will be live next month) = 10 weeks
  • managing people: this year was rather bad, since had to replace several writers, deal with delays, etc. Probably the worst since I’ve been indie 😀 Anyway, those things eat up time like crazy, because you need to explain everything again to the new people, and maybe previous ones wrote some stuff that you had to read, etc. I also need to check other aspects of the games like art & music, because even if rarely there are problems (small stuff, but finding out late that you are missing a certain asset is bad, so you need to be careful). Then there’s giving feedback to people, email exchange, etc etc.
    Considering that I’m always working on at least 5-6 projects at same time, I’d say that I spend minimum 14h a week on this. 25 weeks x 14h = 350h or 14 days / 2 weeks
  • support: unfortunately I need to do support 🙂 I get several emails every day, most of them are quick, others take more time. I’d say in total I spend 1h a week on this, so 25 weeks x 1h = 25h or 1 day
  • forums: I read forums and answer people when I can. This could fall under support, but in some cases I discuss my design choices or talk with people to get new ideas and learn what they want. Probably I spend too much time there, even if recently I am reducing the amount and length of my posts 😉 Because even when I don’t write, I check new posts and read them (they’re talking about my games!). Same thing for Steam and other sites / communities. I’d say I spend 1h a day on this on average, so 25 weeks x 7h = 175h or 7 days / 1 week
  • various marketing activities: sending newsletter (I need to make a web page every time), facebook, twitter, buying some banner ads, etc. Even in this case I spend for sure 1h/day, I still think is worth it because while the results aren’t quick, helps build up my “brand” or at least make people aware of my games. Again, is 25 weeks x 7h = 175h or 7 days / 1 week

So what is the total? Let’s see: 14 weeks and 3 days!  and since we’re about halfway in the 2014, 26 weeks passed (a year is made of 52 weeks). It means that I was able to actually work on the games only for about 11-12 weeks this year! :O

And yet I still managed to release 1 game (Roommates) and finish a beta of a RPG (SOTW) ? I think I’m working too much, really! 😉

Of course, some things like Steam were totally unexpected: thankfully (or not?) I’ve ran out of games to be approved, so is not like every year I’ll have to make so many Steam builds! But for example, I didn’t take into account also the time to make the mobile builds, since that thing is really hard to quantify, but still are precious hours that I can’t use to making new games.

Now you understand why is taking so long for me to finish SOTW? beside the fact that what was initially supposed to be a small game turned out to be a big game! 😉

I don’t want to lie, I will probably take a short break once SOTW is done, since jokes apart I’ve really been working too much lately, so need to enjoy life a bit too. But stay assured that every game I announced (like Undead Lily, or Queen Of Thieves) will be finished, sooner or later 🙂

Attempting something different

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First of all, the first Heileen game is now out on Steam for only $5.99. Go get it now:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/302950/

Existing customers can redeem a Steam key as always on this site:
http://www.bestanimegames.com/steam/

Something different

One of the best advices I could give to new indies that are just starting would be: try to do something different. I generally don’t innovate too much myself, but only because I have already an established following and in general I prefer to improve my games step by step. Innovating can lead to successes but also flops, and having already spent months/years in the past trying to experiment new ideas without success I’m always very prudent 🙂

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot recently, and while of course story-based games will always remain my main focus, I was thinking also about doing other non-story based games, or games where the story has a secondary importance.

This has nothing to do with the difficulties I’ve been having recently managing writers, but more about myself and my personal/professional growth. I want to try something different 🙂

No real plans yet, but know that sometimes in future (not sooner than next year) you might see different kind of games too. Of course not FPS or platformers, but maybe something like strategy / wargame or simulations / management. For now is just an idea though. I might do also some smaller games first to test the waters.

Seasons Of The Wolf update

Meanwhile, coding on SOTW is still going steadily. I am currently at chapter 10, and the second Act lasts until chapter 13 included, so about halfway coding it.

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The second act has many cool arena battles like the “Beastmasters Challenge”

I think the second Act is rather fun to play, introduces all the remaining characters (though some will join the party only at the end of it) and has some interesting personal quests: Riley, Krimm and Chalassa’s ones. The personal quest were particularly fun to design for me because they are a sort of flashback, so I strip the character of their current possessions (to be regained later) and “downgrade” him/her to a lower level, but I let the player pick the skills before the quest and give a predefined pseudo-random equipment. Is a sort of puzzle RPG, and I’m sure Nightmare players will curse me several times playing it 😉

I had some small delays on artwork, so at this point I won’t be able to meet my self-imposed deadline of mid-June. But even without those delays, I think I underestimated the amount of work I had to do on the battles, so I think I won’t be finished with Act2 before the end of the month!