Category Archives: preorder

Castle Of N’Mar expansion is available on preorder!

The expansion

In case you missed the announcement in my newsletter last week, the Castle Of N’Mar, the expansion to my RPG Loren The Amazon Princess, is available to preorder here. For a limited time, until the expansion is officially released, the price will be of only $7.99.

I know what the next question is: when it will get released? Well, at the time I sent out the newsletter last weekend, I didn’t really know so I said sometimes in August. Now, I got the last missing art piece and the texts/scripting is at a very good point, so I could even dare to say that an indicative date might be mid-August (for the beta version of course).

The expansion turned out to be much longer than expected, with 60,000 words of story and several new zones, enemies, quests, and so on. However we tried to experiment with some non-linear gameplay: some of the quests can be solved in several different ways, so you might not see all the possible outcomes on the first attempt (unless you save before each choice, of course!). So the game length might appear shorter than what I said, but is because there are multiple choices!

The sequel sneak peek

I know sounds odd to be talking about the sequel which will be out next year, but I just got some images of the characters that will be present and I absolutely wanted to show them:

One is Rei in a more sexy pose, the other is Breza who was a secondary character in the first game, but will have a much bigger role in the sequel 😉 For those interested, Rei is GxB only while Breza is GxG only (being a true Amazon…). There are of course more characters for all possible love combos.

I won’t talk more about the sequel since there will be time for that! I just wanted to show you the new coloring style that will be used in the sequel, comparing the “old image” with the new one.

Codesign crazyness

As of July 25, the new Mac OS “Mountain Lion” is out. If you have installed it, none of my mac games will run by default (and I suspect those of thousands other indies).

While I believe I found a solution to codesign the apps, for now know that you can just turn off the infamous “Gatekeeper” in the System Preferences and play my games just fine, knowing you’re safe like you were before, since my games are indeed clean of trojans/virus/spywares 🙂

To turn it off, open System Preferences, then click on Security & Privacy, and in General tab click Allow applications downloaded from: Anywhere.

I’m honestly not sure how many people have upgraded to the new MacOS yet, but in the next months I’m going to reupload all my games signed and updated with the new Ren’Py version that will include a much practical autoupdater!

Meanwhile if you also want to test if my codesigning works, I uploaded a signed app here: http://www.winterwolves.net/SpiritedHeartTrial.zip

Loren Amazon Princess release plan

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In the photo above, my cat Gilda sleeping in a plastic bowl 🙂

In the image below instead you see the almost final main menu of my upcoming fantasy roleplay game “Loren The Amazon Princess”. Please note how I wisely placed the Buy Now text 😀

Current Game Status

Jokes apart, the game story is nearing completion, even if there are still many things left to do, mainly finding typos and checking the flow. It’s going to be a very LOONG and detailed game. Without doubts, my biggest game under every aspect: story, characters, art, sound effects/music, gameplay, longevity (you can play as male and female, and there’s a big variety of party members to select).

For the first time I also used an artist to do the GUI (windows,buttons, icons), and I must admit that it was worth it. Special thanks also to Aleema who helped with tweaking the GUI as well!

The Game (Many) Features!

Every character has a main skilltree (the Class, which can be Warrior, Thief or Mage) and a specialization skiltree which is unique to each character. In the image below you see the Berserk Skill description of Ramas, the dwarf berserker warrior that you’ll recruit early in the game.

The quest system is also more complex than Planet Stronghold, since you can have quest and sub-quests (or steps). In the image below you see the main game quest “Find Queen Karen” (Loren’s mother) and also the first step, that is going to the town of Grimoire to gather more informations.

The game will have a map system and also lots of items, divided into weapons, armors, potions/scrolls/useable items. Each item will be divided into sub-categories like happens in most RPGs, for example you have cloth armors (usable by Mages only), light/medium (usable by Thieves) and heavy armors (usable only by Warriors). Same thing for weapons. You can also have items that can be used only by a specific character.

I have added already over 200 items in the game database, and will add more in the final version!

Of course, there’s no need to say that the game has a lot of romance options, including all the possible combinations (straight and homosexual of all genders)! You can advance the romance talking to characters while in the camp, and also during the main plot. The writer Aleema did an awesome job in the character interactions/romance paths!

The Battle System

So I’d say the only thing that still needs lots of tweaking is the battle system. Not the rules or the skills implementation which is at good stage, but the layout. Right now there are 8 vs 8 battles, but as the coder remarked, they could be too long. My idea was to have the player fight epic battles against “hordes of undead”, so having 8 enemies would be cool. In particular for the mages and their Area Of Effect spells! However, perhaps I should limit the number of party members, since controlling 8 members every battle could be too much: I am thinking to limit it to 6 or perhaps even 5, and keep the 8 enemies instead.

Also, I won’t be able to use the same display view of Planet Stronghold, because of the bigger scope of the battles, so the battle might use the view of a sort of card rpg game. Getting feedback on the battle is one of the main reason why I’ve decided to release the game as beta pre-order (see below).

The Soundtrack

The game will feature another custom song by Cristina Vee & Matt Myers. I have it already but for marketing reasons (we’ll launch the song also on youtube and itunes) I will add it to the game only on the official release day (so pre-orders won’t have it). Trust me when I say that is one of the best pop-rock song I’ve heard this year!

The Release Plan

Those of you that follows me on twitter already know that I’ve decided to release this game in beta pre-order like I did for Planet Stronghold last year. However, differently from Planet Stronghold, I won’t be able to sell it initially at a cheap price, because I put too many hours and invested too much money on this, sorry 🙁

So the game when will enter the pre-orders beta will be regularly priced at $24.99, while the expansion will be likely priced at $9.99.If things go as planned I’ll start the pre-orders stage in January – however is more likely the END of January.

The expansion instead will be released about 1-2 months after the main game. All the people that buy the game during the preorder phase though will be able to play it in exclusive before the others, and will also receive some extra items inside the game as reward, and possibly other “goodies” (suggestions are welcome!)

Winter In Fairbrook beta is out!

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As those who follows me and Sakevisual on twitter already know, Winter In Fairbrook beta was released about two days ago.

You can find out more about the game and download the beta version on the game official page: http://www.winterwolves.com/winterinfairbrook.htm

You can also pre-order the game if you want to buy it – the game is already quite stable, and a few minor bugs/typos were already fixed in those two days thanks to the wonderful feedback of some early purchasers. Thanks again for all the help, it will let us make better games! 🙂

While I didn’t set a specific date for the final release I don’t think there’s much more to wait, probably a week maximum to check that there are no more typos/bugs, but that’s it. And don’t worry, this time I learned from my previous games and made the game much easier than Always Remember Me (though the last version of that game is a bit easier as well)!

The making of Winter In Fairbrook

It was a pleasure to work with Ayu Sakata and Beatriz García in the first title, who initially was simply called “The Flower Shop”, but later we used “Summer In Fairbrook” to differentiate between it and the sequel.

The game was very well received back in January/February 2010 (seems so long ago to me!) and so when in the Summer 2010 I read on twitter that Beatriz García was out of work for the month of July, I immediately asked her if was interested in doing the art for the sequel (it was kind of a rhetorical question since she repeatedly said she would love to work on another game with that setting). This time though, we decided to have a female main character, Natalie. Even if the game can be played as stand-alone, it shares many characters and continues some plots from the first title so… the best is to play both! 😉

So I was saying, during July 2010, the art production of Winter In Fairbrook started. If I remember correctly, I got all the art finished around December/January. Beatriz García had some personal issues, so she didn’t work as fast as she is doing recently. And then was the turn of Ayu to have bad luck! While coming back from a convention in June had a car accident, and other various real-life issues.

I’m not saying this to criticize them, not at all (they’re both my friends), but to show to everybody who thinks that making a visual novel / dating sim (or any indie game for that matter) is really simple and quick how it is in reality. Unfortunately, bad stuff happens and it can really delay a game release considerably. I can say we wanted to get the game out by the Summer, but for a reason or another it wasn’t ready until now!!

We’re sorry for the delay, but I hope you’ll think it was worth the wait! Personally I love the setting, the art, the writing, and the general mood of the game. The ending romance scenes are really cute and full of good feelings.

I can say that it’s really the perfect title to play during Winter and Christmas Holidays, so if you’re thinking about an original gift for someone… think about this 🙂

Remember Me pre-orders available!

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Those who follow my blog/twitter might know that I’ve been working since beginning of March on a new otome dating / life simulation game called “Remember Me”. I am probably going to change the game name when is officially released with “Always Remember Me” just to avoid confusion with a movie that was out last year (not for copyright reasons since are completely different things).

So, today can announce that the game is officially available as pre-order! Some of you might wonder what does it means? It means that the game is complete, but there might be some small bug, or some unbalanced gameplay or other minor text errors. But since I’ve been getting numerous request to play this game as soon as possible, I decided to open a beta pre-order stage: you pay and can start playing the game immediately, and if you want you can help to improve it by posting feedback/suggestions in the game’s own forums which you can find here. Obviously, once you buy you’re entitled to lifetime free upgrades, so you’ll be able to redownload the final version without bugs.

Also the first 50 pre-orders will benefit of a generous 20% discount simply entering the following coupon code on the order page: BOIO000X9

Check the official game page – where you can find more information and download the beta demo to play the game!

I plan to have the game on pre-order until the end of the month, when I really should be able to make the official release: considering that the game, while very detailed, is surely not as complex as Planet Stronghold who required almost 1 month and half of playtesting!.

The making of Remember Me

The main game idea was born last summer, while my girlfriend was watching an episode of the TV series “Ghost Whisperer”. I don’t follow it so I’m not sure if those were main characters or anything, but basically there was a man who lost his memory and forgot who was his girlfriend, and his girlfriend for some reason couldn’t force him to remember. I found this situation particularly interesting from the storytelling point of view, so immediately started to brainstorm about a possible otome dating sim plot.

This time I decided to outsource all the games texts (most of it anyway) to external native English speaker so there would be less grammar/texts mistakes, and I think it was a wise decision, since it also allowed me to concentrate more on the gameplay, which is much more advanced than other dating sim I made in the past. In practice, there is a full life simulation game, with several places and several activities to do, which can change based on your current energy/morale levels, on your skills, on specific plot conditions, on week of the day, and more! 😀

So one of the key aspect of the game is that the players will have to explore the game world and discover all the secrets, to find the best tactics to win the hearts of the four dateable characters. Of course the “best ending” would be the one that reunites Amy and Aaron, but being a dating sim I have also to allow the player to pursue other boys 🙂 I also think all the boys have distinct personalities, and you’ll have lot of fun discovering them in the various scenes where you’ll have to pick a choice to influence their relationship.

I must admit I had lot of fun coding this game, thinking about all the possible various activities on each place, and then putting together all the scenes at the right moment/place. If the game will be successful, I have already in mind another story which can use the same gameplay system 🙂

the year of the rabbit

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Today was supposed to announce the release of Remember Me, but I had a last-minute problem with my dwarf rabbit Cleo that you see pictured above (nothing serious, only a minor surgery at the teeth). She’s 9 years old and is quite a record for a dwarf rabbit!

So I won’t be able to release the beta version of game today, but since the game is basically finished, I will spend 1 or 2 days to do some extra testing and make sure everything works as it should. Even if is just a beta pre-order I am a perfectionist and don’t want to put something online in a rush 😉

As the title says, this year is the year of the rabbit in the Chinese Zodiac. Curiously, last year was the year of the Tiger, which is my sign in the chinese zodiac, but overall was one of the worst years since I was indie! This year luckily is much better, thanks also to my decision to switch from simple visual novels to some more complex life simulations and RPG games.

Well, that’s it for now – check my twitter and watch this blog and my forums for the announcement of Remember Me pre-orders during this weekend!

Computer Games

Development diary of Celso Riva