Category Archives: loren the amazon princess

Numbers, numbers and formulas…

In the picture above, Batman looks broken. In reality, he was sleeping since hours…

What’s about the numbers? Well, not many people know what’s behind a game. It’s much more complex than what you think. That is, if you do the things like a good game designer should! 😉

Numbers of a dating sim

What’s behind a simple dating sim like Heileen 3 that I’m writing right now? nothing, you might say, it’s just text and images, and a few choices. No, not really: the choices needs to be balanced, otherwise the gameplay would be a disaster! So, even for an apparently simple game like a dating sim, there’s a lot of work behind the scenes. Check the image below:

this is the OpenOffice spreadsheet of the first 37 scenes of the game. In each row, I put a short description of the scene, and then I added a “1” when the choices possible involve one of the seven Sins or Virtues. Below, at the bottom (but is not visible in the screenshot), there’s a formula called “Summatory” that sums all the values. Why? Because a well designed and balanced game should offer the player the same amount of choices for each of the seven Sins/Virtues!

So, while writing, I keep constantly open the spreadsheet, and I try to balance the game so that the player will always have the chance to get one of the 14 possible job endings (tied to the Sins/Virtues).

I’m not going too much in the details since discovering the skill+sin/virtue combo will be part of the fun of the game, but for example, the “Nun” ending will involve having max Chastity and max Faith skill.

On the right part instead, there are the choices that will affect the 6 possible romances of the game. The labels means: Morgan, John, Jonathan, Sebastian (the 4 male characters, Sebastian is a new one) and Marie, Lora (the 2 female characters).

Numbers of a RPG!

If a dating sim is so “complex”, imagine a RPG! Making a RPG without spending at least one month first designing the rules, is a suicide. Don’t do that. I can guarantee that you’ll be unsatisfied by the result.

Now check the OpenOffice screenshots below:

one is the condition/skill relationship for Loren the Amazon Princess RPG. How you read that? is a bit complex, but in practice:

the first table is the warrior skills. the cells with orange background require the target to be “Staggered”. Once it is, you can use for example the Gladiator “Battle Cry” (which has chances to Scare enemies), or the Blademaster “No Mercy” (which has chance to Weaken the enemies).
the second table is the thief skills. Thieves have weak attacks, but if the target is in the right condition, they can deliver powerful critical attack using their skills. They can set a target in a specific condition themselves. For example, using the Flaming Torch on a Slowed target, they can set a target in the Burning condition too. Then, a Demonblood (Mesphit) can use the Immolation skill to deal an incredible amount of damage.
the third table is the mages. Differently from Warrior and Thief class, a Mage doesn’t need any condition pre-requisite. They can just attack using their spells, which will inflict specific conditions as you can guess (Blizzard will inflict Frozen condition, Plague inflict Poisoned condition, and so on).

The second image instead is a work-in-progress of the weapons dabatase. Some values might not yet bet final. But as you can see there’s already a good variety of items! We’ve decided to use the following weapon division based on damage type: Edged (dagger, sword, axe), Impact (mace, club), Flail (Flail, Morning Star), Polearm (Staff, Halberd), Bow, Missile (Crossbow).

Explaining all the values will take too long, but if you’re familiar with RPGs you might understand already what is their use.

This was just to show the tremendous amount of work behind a RPG, and just for the skills and weapons (there’s more, balancing the classes, the enemy encounters, and so on). Now you understand why I’ve decided not to make more than 1 RPG a year? 😀

Homosexual relationship in games

I want to spend a few words about the homosexual relationship that I plan to put in all my future games. First of all, I am honestly a bit shocked by how Spirited Heart Girl’s Love announcement was mostly ignored by the press and reviewers. It’s not something new for me (I’m used to that) but this time was even worse than usual.

I really hope that is NOT because of main theme (women homosexuality) of the game, and hope is due only to random circumstances (I know from past years that September is not really one of the best months to do a new game release).

In any case, everyone who played the game said that the romances are much better than the original game, and in general the players’ feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and that’s what matters to me. So I plan to keep adding homosexual romance in all my future games, alongside the straight options, since all I care about is what my customers think!

Fantasy or reality?

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In the image above, my dog Artù (italian name for Arthur) watching my dwarf rabbit Cleo in the garden.

As those who follows me on twitter might know, I’m currently writing the scenes for Heileen 3. Initially I did a lot of research, since it’s based on the pirates of the Caribbean, however I quickly realized that trying to keep it historically accurate was too much pain. And not just that, but it would have also been less fun to play for the users! So, I am just going to use that as “setting/background” but everything will be pure fantasy (for example Morgan the pirate was definitely not a kind man, and cats don’t talk!!).

There’s a reason why I (and I suspect many other writers) prefer to write fantasy stories. Be it classic swords & sorcery, or science-fiction, with a fantasy world as long as you plan it out beforehand, there aren’t problem of inaccuracies, mistakes, wrong dates, and so on. Let me tell you, it’s really MUCH MUCH easier! 🙂

However, I also like stories with a historical background setting, and a simple solution is to mix the fantasy with reality. In Always Remember Me, the story is set in a “unnamed warm town”, like could be San Francisco, but there’s no reference at all to real names or real events. In Flower Shop all the story takes place on “Fairbrook”, a fantasy town somewhere in California, and so on.

There was a game I wanted to release by Halloween, but of course I won’t make it in time (I didn’t even start it!), which is a horror/mystery/otome game but will take place mostly in a hospital. The town could be any town in USA, and the equipment is modern, but … there will be definitely some fantasy elements! 😉

And now a quick summary of the work-in-progress… progresses!

Heileen 3: New Horizons

That’s what I’m mainly working on right now, even if the game will be out next year because the artist Rebecca can only work starting from January (except a few days in November but surely won’t be enough to finish all the art!).

However, I like how the story is coming out so far, the gameplay system seems fun too (similar to Spirited Heart but with some changes) and we’re also planning to have some mini-animations for each of the 14 activities! Though this mainly depends how long will take to draw the 14 different job endings, and the 6 romance endings CG (4 heterosex and 2 homosex).

Planet Stronghold: Warzone

Artist resumed working after a summer break, and currently has finished 2 romance CG scenes out of 8! There’s a new team member called Milo, and a new NPC called Lakadema which is an alien with incredible powers but also very shy and fragile. You can see the images below (Lakadema image is not yet final):

See the full gallery on Posterous

As always I don’t have any estimate, but considering I haven’t finished writing any scene yet, for sure the game won’t be out this year. Yes, RPGs take A LOT of time to make!

Loren The Amazon Princess

The plot writing is going forward steadly, we’re at beginning of chapter3, and the game consist of four chapter so the end is on sight. Of course, I’m only talking about the end of the main plot, there is still the expansion to write (which I think will be around 1/3 of the main game length).

The battle system is at good point too but still need more accurate testing and probably also balancing. And all the enemies needs still to be created (have the art, but didn’t plan their skills yet).

Below you can see the commander of the Amazon army Breza and the infamous witch hunter Raven (available only in the expansion).

That’s all for this week!

One RPG a year keeps the doctor away

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In the photo above my cat Grillo sleeping deeply with a stuffed toy near him 🙂

Now you might wonder why I picked that title for my post? As you know I’ve always worked on many games at once, as a way to keep up with the occasional disappearances of artists. However, while this method is working well for my visual novel, dating sim and life simulation games, for RPGs is a different story. I’ve noticed that is very hard to keep focused on doing more than one RPG at once (lol, not a surprise!) so I’ve decided that, to avoid releasing poor/mediocre games, I won’t be working on more than one RPG a year!

This doesn’t include expansions or even sequels like Planet Stronghold: Warzone. When/if I can re-use most of the gameplay and rules of a previous RPG, then I believe that is possible to make even two a year, but if I have to create a new RPG from scratch… that’s not possible!

I am not talking only about the coding. The coding is a tough part of RPGs, that’s for sure, but what makes really hard to release a good one is the amount of content needed. I dare to say (and I’m sure most game developers will agree with me) that a RPG is the kind of game that requires more work of all the game genres. You need a story. You need several quests, which are basically subplots, and they need to fit in the main story and not be just stupid “kill 10 rats” quests (having some of them are OK, but not all quests should be like that). There’s need of art, lots of art. Since I do mainly 2d games, every enemy is a sprite. How many enemies a RPG have? Planet Stronghold has 40, though some re-use the basic shape changing color/weapons. Loren RPG, my upcoming fantasy RPG will have 40-50 enemies as well, but they will be all different ones! So that’s already a lot of work just for the art.

And last but not least, testing. Unless the RPG you’re making is very linear and has “casual gameplay” (very simple rules), the testing will be a major pain ! 🙂 You have to take into account every possible variable and combination, and often if you don’t ,you end up with very mysterious bugs and unhappy customers (though I have to say that my RPG buyers were much more supportive than those of other games genres!).

So, what does this means in practice? that while I’ll keep artists working on Undead Lily’s artwork, I will release Loren RPG first, and Undead Lily next year. This way, I’ll be able to release two quality products. Loren RPG is at good point – even if I keep adding “just one more enemy” since a month, the plot writing is going steadly and the battle system coding is almost finished. As I announced in my forums, once the RPG framework reaches a decent state I plan to release a small alpha to get user feedback and do some testing.

As for Planet Stronghold: Warzone, the artist said that after this last convention, she will work fulltime on it. There’s need of quite some art, new enemies, a new playable character to replace the old Bellamy, and more CGs scenes for the romances. I don’t have any planned release date, my idea is to keep this game going on parallel with the others and see when is finished. As I said, since I can reuse a good part of the previous Planet Stronghold code/rules/system, this game will be easier/quicker to produce than Loren RPG or Undead Lily.

So the plan is to try finishing Loren RPG by end of this year (no guarantees) and Undead Lily for summer next year, while Planet Stronghold: Warzone might really be finished anytime between the two. Obviously, I’ll keep releasing visual novel and dating/life sim in the meanwhile, like I did this year.

Loren Amazon Princess new skilltrees and battle system

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As you can see from the photo above, I hired a very skilled coder to help me working on the future RPGs 😉

Jokes apart, I really hired a coder, but for Loren Amazon Princess (since Planet Stronghold Warzone will re-use the same battle system with some interesting new features like area of effect psionics).

I know I already published some skilltrees, but when the new coder arrived we decided to revamp the plannet battle system with a new, greatly improved one. Check the WORK IN PROGRESS image below:

The main “battle flow” will work in a similar way as Final Fantasy X battles, where each action adds to “wait time”. So no more Action Points, though the basics are the same. On the right of the screen there’s a list with the moving order, and when is your turn, you’ll decide what action to do. Clicking on your currently active character, or an ally, will open a menu with the “friendly actions” that you can do (like Heal another party member, or use a potion, and so on). On the other hand, clicking on an enemy will open the menu with “hostile actions”, like attack the enemy or use one of the various special skills / spells that you have at your disposal to crush your opponents!

Each action will add a wait time. So for example drinking a potion will be such a quick action, that you will be able to move again the same character immediately, though “behind the scenes” some “seconds” of battle passed. If you perform a more complex action, for example use the “Pinning Shot” skill of the “Hunter” subclass, your character will need much more time before he/she can act again. The list on the right will update in real-time when you hover the mouse on the skill, so you’ll have lot of time to plan your strategy. It’s already working quite well, in the test battles I often paused wondering if was better to use a quick, but less powerful move to finish one enemy, or instead choose a more slow move but that would hit all the enemies in front row.

Yes, because differently from Planet Stronghold, there’s also tactical disposition on the battlefield! There’s a front-row, and a back row. If a character is using ranged weapons, can hit anyone in front/back row. But if the character is using melee weapon, he can hit only enemies in the front row. Also obviously Warriors will have more HP, while Thief and especially Mages much less, so putting them in the front row won’t be a great idea! This means that you’ll have to choose your party formation, and right now we’re thinking to have glorious 8 vs 8 battles that will offer a great fun, and will let you use most of your party members (there are 12 in total that you can recruit).

Loren Amazon Princess RPG skilltrees

I’m also particularly happy about the various skills and how the interaction between the 3 main classes (Warrior, Thief and Mage) will work. But this is a complex topic and will require a completely new blog post (and new flowchart to explain it), so for now I’m going to stop here. The skilltrees are basically 99% definitive this time, there might be some that will change slightly during testing to balance better the gameplay, but in general what you see in the PDF is going to be the final version of all the skilltrees.

Can the free to play business model work for story-based games?

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In case you haven’t noticed, the whole games market is moving towards the so called “Free to play” business model. It started in the asian countries and now it seems that it’s going to be the “next big thing”. On Facebook games is already the “norm”.

How it works? quite simple. Instead of having the traditional time/feature limited demo and one-time fee to get the game fullversion, here you can “in theory” play for free as long as you want. In practice, the gameplay is crafted in such a way that first draws you into the game, and then when you’re just about to have fun, it starts cutting off your fun by telling you how lame you are because you didn’t spend 500 “virtual gold” to buy a new horse, or how the “platinum membership” would make the game much more fun.

Personally I don’t like it, I tried a few games but the fact that the designer had to design the gameplay around this system restrict the gameplay innovation. Indeed this system works well mostly on RPG (MMORPG) or strategy/simulation games. But what will happen to story-based games? Visual Novel, Dating Sims or maybe even just FPS with a good story like Max Payne or Assassin Creed?

I really don’t think is possible to successfully implement this in a heavy story-driven game. What would you do, show one chapter at time and ask for a small microtransaction every chapter? why don’t just ask people to “pay upfront” the amount and be done with it? or in a dating sim for example, ask $5 each dateable character? what would be the fun in spending $5 to date only 1 character in a game? it seems quite silly to me, especially since we’re talking about very low amount of money. I don’t need to make again the classic example that if you go out with friends to watch a movie you easily spend in drinks, fuel, and extras x2-3 times the amount of a regular indie game ($20) and have fun for one day, instead of weeks or in some cases months.

And in all other F2P games you can play free, but in practice the experience is so awful that either you pay nothing, play a few hours/days and quit, or you decide to invest your time (and money) in the game and then you’ll easily exceed $20 … by a lot! That’s fine of course, everyone can do what they want with their money.

But speaking about a possible implementation of F2P in story-based games, my answer it’s still: no. I really think it wouldn’t make much sense at all.

Also I really don’t believe that in few years ALL games (even RPG/strategy games) will become F2P. There are many downsides to that (being always online, annoying multiplayer experiences, the worst value for money as player, lots of maintenance as developers, possible hackers attack, and I could go on) and in general not everyone wants to make a game that has severe gameplay/game design restrictions. At least, I hope! 🙂

And now enough talking about the game business and here are some news about the current games in development!

Spirited Heart Girl’s Love

That’s how I’m going to officially call the Spirited Heart expansion. I will also change the purchase options: you can buy either the “normal” version or the Girl’s Love for $19.99, or if you have already bought the original game the expansion will cost $9.99. If you don’t have either and you buy them together, the final price will be $29.99 (so still only $9.99 more than the normal version). The game will expand the original one with 6 different (and unique!) dateable girls and also the endings reflect your race now (even for the males). So if you were disappointed by Frebo ending in the original game, this time pick a human or even better a demoness and you’ll see that will be better 🙂

The Spirited Heart expansion is at very good point (all plot is finished) and will be surely out by August if not sooner.

Loren The Amazon Princess

Things are going well: I decided was time to ask the help of someone that knows coding better than me, and we’re building up a RPG Framework so that I can reuse it for future titles. As you can see from the gallery screen below, the game interface is taking shape and we’ll have a skilltree with several specializations, a full inventory with many equippable slots (yes I changed my mind about the inventory!) and a very good quest screen, with the possibility of having sub-quests (so more powerful than the Planet Stronghold one for example).

While things are going forward at good speed, because this game will use a completely new system will need good testing and also the plot still needs to be written in good part, so it’s very unlikely that I’ll have even just beta preorders before September (and even that is an optimistic date). Much will depend on artist/writer/coder speed as always!

Finally, I want to leave you with a nice graph showing all the romance possibilities of Loren RPG:

Computer Games

Development diary of Celso Riva