Category Archives: remember me

Downloadables are dead, long live downloadables

In the picture above, Otello happily posing in middle of the flowers. I love spring 🙂

As you could guess from the title, this is a rant-post. I’ve heard so many discussions recently about the dying downloadables, how online games is the future, and so on. It’s a very complex discussion, so I’m not going into every detail (also because I want to talk about my games) however I feel the need to say a few things:

“dead markets” doesn’t mean that you cannot make any profit in them. It only means that the main hype moved elsewhere. Also, since there’s less hype, means that there’s also less competition. I believe that as indie, having less competition is much more important than having a bigger potential target market.
speaking for my games, in general story-based games works best as single player. I’ve never played a multiplayer game that also was immersive or told me a good story, simply because storytelling requires only one viewer/spectator. If you give other people the possibility to influence a plot or ruin the mood, don’t worry, they’ll absolutely do it (anyone who played a MMORPG surely has met people that would destroy the fantasy setting atmosphere in a second with some typical US-slang words :D)
remember that very big portals are still using the downloadables model. Big Fish Games in the casual world, Steam, D2D, Gamersgate, Impulse and others for the more “hardcore/niche” games. They’re not going to disappear overnight, and I believe not even in 5-10 years
also as indie, we’re different from big publishers and most of the discussions don’t apply. Look at Spiderweb games. Old-school RPG are dead, right? since about 1990. He is not doing well indeed. He is doing extremely well! As indie (especially if you work alone or in a small team) you don’t necessarily need to sell a $1 game to 100,000 people in a week, but you can have better luck trying to sell a $20 game to “only” 10000 in several years. That makes quite a difference!

That said, of course online games/web games can be profitable! I never said the opposite. Only that they require a completely different subset of skills vs the traditional downloadables, and also on marketing. I am currently doing research to make some online games as well, but it’s a big step for me. Most of the successful online games are run by a team, with a few exceptions, and don’t want to committ myself to something “too big” yet. I could do some experiments though.

For example, an idea I recently had was to add an online mode to Planet Stronghold. You would play online battles (not PvP though, at least initially) and as you win you would get experience, money to spend on better equipment or buying skills, and so on. It would be completely separated from the main game, so that I was even thinking to sell it as stand alone game or maybe use the free-to-play model. However I’m not sure if there’s enough interest to justify the time I’d have to spend to do this (especially coding the server part), even if it wouldn’t be a completely new game since I would be able to reuse good part of the normal offline game system.

In general I think that while visual novel, dating sims, and other similar games gain zero benefits from being online, other kind of games like RPG, simulation, strategy games can become more interesting with new online features.

Speaking of dating / life sim, I’ve made more progresses on Remember Me this week, and some events are really cool like the one below:

Who is this mysterious secret admirer? you’ll have to play the game to find out, even if honestly is not that difficult!

I’ve also got some important news about the other games in development. Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook is getting close to the release! I don’t have yet an exact date, but should be before next June, so not much left to wait. I’m currently writing (with help of external writers) and getting the art done for the simulation/RPG game Queen Of Thieves and the comic-RPG game Loren: Amazon Princess. My sports simulation game Universal Boxing Manager 2 is also going on well, even if right now there’s not enough to make a video, since the coder is mostly doing stuff that appears behind the scenes (statistics, AI, gameplay, and so on).

My planned release schedule (which surely will be messed up completely) would be:

Mid/End-April – Remember Me
End of May/June – Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook
July/August – Loren The Amazon Princess
September/October – Queen of Thieves
November/December – either the superheroes game or maybe UBM2

Every moment of your life is a simulation

6 Replies

In the image above, Lilli the cat sleeping inside a vase. She found it comfortable 🙂

Yes, every moment of your life can be simulated. Every action you do has consequences, that depends on your stats and skills. If you decide to play an action game, and you don’t have enough hand-eye coordination, you’ll have less chances of succeeding than someone else who does. If you don’t know Enligsh, you’ll have a very hard time to play my games. If you don’t have internet, you cannot read this 🙂

Those are just some (silly) examples, but if you look at the Remember Me galery above, you can see that I am trying to simulate almost every aspect of a young lady in the modern times, even when you end the playing day and you go to sleep, it’s a simulated event: you can have a good night, you can dreams, you can have nightmares, and so on. I’m particularly satisfied by how the game is coming along and I really hope that the cute artwork won’t turn more “hardcore” players away because behind it there’s a very complex life simulation, that can be enjoyed by any kind of player, I think.

In the gallery of pictures you can also see the new dialogue layout, which finally replaced my poorly done orange box (typical coder art) that you saw in the first game screenshots!

I’m still working on the game, and I have no estimate release date. However there are several features that are already in place:

– 8 different romance ending + 1 ending alone
– every game day is divided into several parts: dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, late afternoon, sunset, evening, night
– town map from which you can visit several different locations
– each location has several actions available that change based on: time of the day, required actions, plot status, your skills, and more (some of them will be fun to discover)
– the usual relationship system between you and the other characters in the game
– you can raise your stats doing specific actions in certain locations
– a mall where you can buy stuff. Some useless, other really useful for the game (some even required to unlock certain path with some characters)

I’ve instead given up the idea of doing an ice-cream minigame, because it really doesn’t fit much in this kind of strategy/simulation game, and beside it has already been done lot of times, I want to make something more original, so I’d rather add more options/paths than spend my time in doing a sort of time management game.

I’m quite pleased since this game started as a simple dating sim, but it turned into something like my fantasy game Spirited Heart, but set in modern times 🙂

Remember Me update

6 Replies

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.

Friday catblogging – Happy New Year

11 Replies

Gilda in a basket in the bathroom of my old home. Because we have so many cats, we never had a decorated Christmas Tree, otherwise would be instantly destroyed… 🙂

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone! I have released Planet Stronghold alpha 0.8, which features lot of new content! If you’re interested in trying the demo or buying the game please visit the game website.

Then, a quick update on what you can expect in the next months:

Role Playing Games

Beside Planet Stronghold, which will be finished at end of January 2011, I plan to start 2-3 more RPGs. I love RPGs and I always wanted to make them, but in the past I was lacking proper funds and/or technical knowledge to make decent ones. Now, using Planet Stronghold RPG framework I can expand it and create new RPGs. Most of them will be in fantasy setting though, since it’s the most common/popular one (unless Planet Stronghold is so successful that convinces me to make add-on/sequels). I have already a good collaborator of mine who is starting creating the main game plot, character sketches, and so on. Another one should start hopefully in next months, and I want to do another myself as well. So the 2011 will be surely full of RPGs!

Adventure Games

I am still in love with my character of Vera Blanc, despite the first two episodes not being really topsellers. As I posted several times if I make a third episode, it will be an adventure (first person) and not a visual novel, since the adventure style integrates better with that kind of game. I have already a plot for the story, but since it requires lot of money, it’s still a risky decision, so if I make it, won’t be before next summer, or even later during Fall/Winter of 2011.

Visual Novels / Dating Sims

Of course I’ll keep making them! Flower Shop 2 release is really close, is just a matter of few months. But since is tied to external factors (artists finishing some pieces) I won’t dare to name a date for it. Instead I can already say that very likely the otome game “Remember Me” will be ready around February/March 2011, since the plot is completely written and need only to code the “simulation part” of it and do testing/balancing. Depending how my other projects go, I could make more VN/Dating Sims, but they’ll be mixed with simulation games.

Strategy / Simulation Games

In 2011 perhaps I will finally release the sequel of Spirited Heart. I have yet to start coding it though, so is probably more accurate to say that in 2011 I’ll begin coding it, which is a bit different. It won’t be ready probably before 2012, also because I have in mind some online-features (probably optional) that could improve the gameplay a lot, so I am not sure yet I’ll use Ren’Py to code this one.
There will be for sure more strategy/simulation games coming in 2011 though. A remake of my game Universal Boxing Manager, this time with the fights completlely in 3d realtime, is under production! Is made in partnership with a good 3d coder who is going to use Unity3d to power the 3d simulation. It’s probably my biggest/most ambitious game to date and the 2011 will be mainly focused on it. I hope will do well since I’d like to port more of my old games into 3d or start new ones.
As I said I might also find the time to do a sort of light-strategy/time management game based on Heileen settings. In particular, Heileen 2 settings (pirates, the caribbean). The game could be played as normal strategy game or with visual novel cut-scenes (they’ll be optional). This will be a sort of experiment since I am not sure if/when I’ll finish it. Let’s say I’ll work on it on my spare time and when it’s done, is done 🙂

Online Games

Almost every year I say “next year I’ll make one”. So, this time I won’t say it! But, I would like to try making one, even if I am not sure I’ll find the time…or better, if I’ll find the right person, since I’m probably going to outsource the coding (will be most likely done in Flash or HTML5). Or if the new interesting BRL:monkey project from Mark Sibly (creator of Blitzmax) gets released, I might use that and do everything myself.

So in conclusion, looks like the 2011 will be a year full of new releases! Happy New Year again!!

Introducing “Remember Me” Otome game

14 Replies

As I wrote in previous posts, I decided to move my otome games production to a more girly site (which I’m still building though). As you can imagine the name “Winter Wolves” doesn’t recall exactly a romantic, cute, girly atmosphere 😀

There are already some games “in progress”, but the first game that is likely going to be released will be called “Remember Me”, and will be a dating sim. I have yet to decide if it will also incorporate a minigame (time management) like the farming sim. If you want let me know your opinion on this with comments or forum posts: should the game be a plain dating sim or have also a minigame?

I don’t want to reveal too much info about it yet, but it will have all the required elements to be a true otome game:

Romance – the game will be VERY romantic. The starting situation already is very romantic even if a bit dramatic.
No Sex – the game will be absolutely family friendly like all the games I’ll release on that new domain/brand. For the men reading, don’t worry, if I can find more reliable writer/artists I plan to make some more male-oriented ones to put them in Tycoon Games website 😉
Manga art – the art will be cute manga, Flower Shop style. I might even combine some comic scenes like Vera Blanc game but still keeping a cute/girly manga style.
Handsome boys to date – there will be plenty of cool, handsome boys to date. Some will be romantic, some will be workaholics, others will be shallow but who knows, maybe with your help they might change their attitude?
Cuteness power – flowers, pets like young kitties and puppies. Poems, romantic situations. You got the idea.
Good writing – I’ll completely outsource the writing so hopefully the quality and style will be much better than my past attempts.

Speaking of this first game, the main character is a sort of homage to a friend developer of mine, Amanda Fitch. Indeed, in this game you’ll control the character of “Amarantha”. A very uncommon name for a girl, it comes from the amaranth flower, which is derived from Greek (amarantos) meaning “unfading”.

She works in a ice cream parlor during summer, she likes to write poems, and her friends call her Amy.

The one below happens right before the main game scene, as you see things doesn’t seem to start particularly well but… with an Otome game the Happy End is guaranteed!

Your gentle touch
The warmth of your embrace
The passion of your kiss
Precious times
That felt ever so divine

I though that they would never leave
But…
Even though I can’t reach you anymore
I can’t open my eyes to find you there
I’ll always have my memories

Though they are not as warm as the hands
That always made me feel so safe
I know they will never disappear
As you now have

My beloved,
My heart is forever yours
Even if you’re lost
Beyond where my trembling voice
Can reach you

Even if your memories fade
Or disappear into the darkness
I’ll never forget the precious times
When we faced the world together

My beloved,
For today,
For tomorrow,
For the days that may never return,
Never forget the words we once exchanged…
“I love you…”

Computer Games

Development diary of Celso Riva