Category Archives: otome games

Nicole’s cast: Jeff Ryan

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:

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:

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 😉

The Roommates game

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Those who’re waiting impatiently for Loren expansion don’t worry! We are working on it, but after my blog was monopolized by Loren for about 4 months, I decided to talk about one of my other games in progress: the dating sim set in college life called Roommates.

The setting

You play as Anne or Max and the game takes place in a house on-campus, the Latin House. Max is a singer and a rebel, his plan is to stay in school long enough to save up enough money through part-time jobs to get by without his parent’s financial support, then drop out and start a ska band. Anne a small-town girl, studious but very shy and easily embarrassed, Anne thinks that college could be the fresh start she needs to break out of her shell. Her goal is to make at least three new friends while keeping her grades up.

The cast

They share the house with several other characters:

Isabella – A flirtatious Latina with a hardcore edge, she likes to party and have a good time, no strings attached. She wants to try everything at least once. Works at the coffee shop on campus. Openly bi.

Sally – A bleeding-heart, vegan activist girl with a cheerful demeanor, she’s always picketing or putting solar panels on roofs or out getting people to sign petitions. She has a weak stomach for horror movies or anything with gore and can’t say no to strays, even when you’re technically not supposed to keep animals in your dorm room. Works on the college farm.

Rakesh – A chill Indian exchange student that doesn’t let much get to him, he is an artist that believes that everything has the potential to be a canvas. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always remember to ask for permission before making things into art, leading to some disasters involving other peoples’ personal property. The male bi character.

Dominic – The RA (Resident Advisor, basically the person who makes sure people in the dorm aren’t breaking major school rules) and a former child prodigy, he considers college serious business and disapproves of most of what the wilder members of the house would consider fun. His rule is iron-fisted, but his ability to keep everyone corralled is probably the only thing stopping the place from burning to the ground. Works as a Teaching Assistant for the lower-level Physics classes.

Plus there will be more secondary characters that will have a role on the story.

Gameplay

The game is divided into three quarters, with two big breaks (Winter and Spring breaks) and each quarter is made of 6-7 weeks. During each week, some events will trigger and you can choose if to participate to the event or skip it (to save energy for job/studying).

There are 8 different endings in total, each ending is made of a scene CG + kiss CG, sneak peek below:

Max will be able to get an ending with Anne, Sally, Isabella or Rakesh (BxB)

Anne will be able to get an ending with Max, Rakesh, Dominic or Isabella (GxG)

Current progress

The art is at very good point, missing only the backgrounds and the secondary characters. The writing is still at the early stages (first weeks) but since it’s a big game will take a while before is finished. The setting is light-comedy with LOTS of fun moments. Think something like the tv show: How I Met Your Mother, to be clear 🙂

The big change of my future visual novels and dating sims

I am in process of switching to a custom engine made in Monkeycoder language that will allow me to simultaneously release the games for Pc,Mac,Flash/HTML5,iOS and Android (and in theory PSVita, if I really wanted to, but I doubt it). However, it still needs to be finished and tested and will need some more time. But at this point I am thinking to create all the future visual novels / dating sims with the new engine, instead of doing them in Renpy to have to recode them again.

I decided to take this route because at this point seems obvious that none of my games will ever appear on Steam, the only way to make good money with visual novel / dating sims (or any other indie game to be honest). So to survive I am trying this new route that at least gives me more exposure through web and the various appstores, and still grants my usual direct sales as before 🙂

That means that the imminent new releases this year will mostly be the RPGs, including Loren expansion and Planet Stronghold sequel, since for those I can’t use monkeycoder yet, building a RPG engine takes a lot of time! Speaking of Loren expansion, you can see a promo image below: