Category Archives: Vera Blanc

Yes, I’m making a horror game too

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But not the kind of game you might think 🙂 Even if to be honest Vera Blanc games could be considered horror as well, not splatter, but if you check the video below:

I’m sure you’ll agree that isn’t definitely a romance game! The final description of Vera’s death is particularly gruesome (poor Vera, you wouldn’t really bite her neck that way). So, actually, with the Vera Blanc series (which should be out next month for sure!) I am already doing a normal offline mystery/detective/horror game. What I want to do instead is something different: a multiplayer horror webgame.

The idea isn’t particularly new of course, I know well there are many zombie-MMO like Urban Dead for example (which I play from time to time after discovering it last month). It would be a free to play game, and not completely text-based, though I’m thinking to use simple php/AJAX stuff and not Flash, so even people using iPhone/iPad will be able to play it 😉 The setting would be sci-fi, involving humans, mutants and robots. Three different factions eternally fighting each other for survival. It would use an action point system, and I have really LOTs of ideas (a body-targeting system like Fallout during the fights for example) but of course, first I’ll release a basic version 1.0 and then will keep updating it, since it’s how most webgame work (and this way I can also see if the public response is good enough for me to pursue this idea further!).

So right now I’m doing some php/mySQL tests, which will be also useful for some other online only/online enabled game I plan to make in the next months. Of course, I’ll still release the normal offline games as I’m doing now, but I want also to test the waters and expand my horizons. I had this idea already long time ago, when I wrote in a blog post:

“I have what I think to be a pretty cool idea that all Magic Stones fans will surely like, a sort of online rpg card game. The advantages of a online-only game are lots, for example multiplayer possibility, no need to store the data on your pc, possibility to play the game anywhere (even at work! eheh) and also the micropayment thing, so that you can pay only for how much you play the game (have still to decide the details, but this would allow much more flexibility on payment methods).”

The necromancer card of the amazon setand I have already a bunch of beautiful hand-drawn card images, like the one you see on the right, ready to be used! But I never had the time so far to work on anything else except my VN/dating sims, but I want to take a break to release this card rpg game, since it’s about time!

Games as comic books

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That would be my goal with the Vera Blanc game series. Even if, as I’m not totally clueless, I “only” planned 2 episodes/games for now. But of course if the game gets some decent sales/becomes popular enough, I would plan/add more episodes. Just like in the comic books, is very common to have different artists working on each episode. That’s what will happen with Vera as well, even if I really like the new artist, so in case of a possible 3rd episode I probably would stick with him 🙂
(n.b. the 2nd artist is the one on the left in the gallery)
Take a look at the gallery below. For each image there are two versions, one from each artist. It’s the “introduction” to the character of Vera and his background, so had to be the same scene. It’s interesting to notice how each artists drew the same scene, using the same description:

It’s true though that using that kind of comic-style art, the lines are more thick, this is due on the method by which they were digitized/draw (they’re not digital art, but traditional pencil/ink art!). The only solution would be to make them at bigger size but as you can imagine then the costs would increase exponentially… if you compare that kind of art vs my first games (artist was the super-skilled Rebecca Gunter) you can notice the difference in the lineart and in the colors.
However, I’m planning to do more of those comic style games because I like the way in which I can tell my story with them: more scenes means more power to the images, and less to the words. While my VNs are comparable to books or illustrated books, Vera Blanc is really comparable to a comic book.

Realism or not

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This is a question that has been spinning in my head since I started writing Vera Blanc’s game.

You might say that the answer is obvious since is a detective game: it MUST be realistic. However, you also know that is a mystery / detective game, with a solid mythology background which picks the most common myths from occultism, paganism, and so on. In other words, werewolves, zombies and vampires won’t be unusual guests! 🙂

So, you could say that the answer is “unrealistic” then. Well, I don’t claim the game will be impeccable but I’m trying to, with the help of many researches, friends and Amy who’s proofreading the game. The goal is to have the game be as realistic as possible, and not use the paranormal as an excuse to change completely the clues from a chapter to the next one. I don’t want the player to think that the assassin might be XYZ, and then find out that was ABC because XYZ was a ghost so all the clues about him were wrong!

You might ask: So how would you describe the game?

The game will provide you solid clues, but also many red-herrings. The clues, even if will regard the supernatural world, will be consistent. For example, if you took a blood sample, and you suspect it’s werewolf blood, you could use a certain metal who is well-known to be the werewolf-bane and see if there’s any unusual reaction (I’m talking about silver, for those who don’t know!). This is just an example how I tried to merge the normal investigation practices with the paranormal.

This is my first attempt in writing a mystery game and trust me, is ten times as difficult as writing just a regular story. I *think* I made a decent job but ultimately will be the pubilc to judge for it!

About the game, I am now writing the final chapters, and it will be finished at end of the month: however will need to be proofreaded completely, and since there are 25.000 words in the game (despite not being a VN) will take some time. I hope to have it finished by mid-April!

The importance of minigames

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As you might know reading my tweets, in my upcoming game Vera Blanc: Fullmoon I am going to have LOTs of “minigames”. They became very popular recently, especially on casual games portals, so I decided to give it a try too. I must admit they work very well to increase the replayability and the immersion of the game.

Now you could rightly ask me: how does a “memory game” or a “find the differences” does help the game’s atmosphere/immersivity ?! Well, I’m going to show you two examples.
Check the image on the left: it’s one of the “find the differences” minigames. In this case we’re in a wood nearby the main town of Wolfach (it will be an imaginary town even if I know probably such a name exist for real).

We’re looking for clues. So, such a minigame can help because the player will feel like if he’s searching the surrounding, trying to spot any detail can help in the investigation.

That’s what the real detectives do: look around to see anything that can catch their attention, even really small details like in this minigame.

Now for the other example, I’ll show you a youtube video:

This is an “action scene”. The player must run away from an ominous big man who’s chasing Vera for some reason. For this scene I thought would have been much better to use something like that – I even thought about a real-time sequence but probably would have been too difficult. However there is a real-time minigame already, but don’t want to talk about it because would be a spoiler for the story 🙂

I believe the minigame above with the music and the images represent well one of those scenes typical of the action-movies, helps player immersion and I think is also fun to play 🙂

I have now reached the point where the demo would end, and I’m starting the rest of the game. The art is almost completely done, so my aim is to finish the game, at least the beta version, by end of this month, even if I know it won’t be easy!

Vera Blanc gameplay

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I’m working on the “main game loop” of Vera Blanc right now. There’s a first “introduction” part where you get to know your powers, the setting of the investigation, and meet a few characters. Then after a shocking encounter (which I won’t reveal since I don’t want to spoil the game!) the game will enter in the main loop, showing the map that you can see below in the screenshots.

The game will be time limited, but only after certain events. For example, when you start, there won’t be a deadline of 30 days to solve the case. The days will pass, but until you find a specific clue, the story won’t go on. After some key events are “unlocked” though, you might have to hurry up and find / discover some information within a certain number of days, or in the case of real-time events, some minutes.

In any case the game will inform the player about what’s going to happen next and “suggest” him to save the game to avoid restarting from the beginning!

About the investigation part, there will be choices like in my other VNs but this time with much more freedom. I tried to represent as more choices as possible, and you can repeat the same action many times or try the same thing in different order to change the course of the story. So it’s not really a story with branches, but more like several actions that you can do in a specific location/situation of the story that will lead to different results.

On a final note, I’m happy about the final look of the game. I think that kind of art is more suited for mystery/horror stories than pure manga style (that’s my personal opinion of course) 🙂