Category Archives: roleplay games

Battlecry!

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shagala
Shagala the healer in her shop by night. The candle lights are all animated 🙂

Sorry about the blog post title, I just got the battle voices for Seasons Of The Wolf and I’m a bit excited! Ayu (my trusted VA manager) has always done a good job (she did the voices for past RPGs as well) but quality keeps getting better and better.

Just check for yourselves (for Althea/Shea I just put two samples but there are many since each class has different ones):

p_AltheaAlthea Druid / Hunter

p_SheaShea Ranger / Druid

p_ChalassaChalassa

p_JarielJariel

p_KrimmKrimm

p_Riley Riley

p_Rowinda Rowinda

p_VaelisVaelis

Other news

In other news, I got new “covered version” of Loren romances so once I finish the new update, even those playing in the covered version will be able to enjoy the romance images (some will still be sexy despite the characters fully dressed!).

From my site you’ll get the “full deal”, with covered/uncovered images. On Steam and other portals is more likely that I’ll make only the covered version available, to avoid getting any age rating / limited exposure (but I’ll try to have same version there too if possible!).

Happy Halloween

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happyhalloween
My cat Gilda is wondering how high she must jump to catch them…

Happy Halloween to everyone! This was an incredible week for me.

First of all, Nicole is officially out (but you probably already know this). In any case, I just want to remember that you can grab the free demo here: http://www.winterwolves.com/nicole.htm

The game was very well received and if continues this way it could become my most popular otome game so far 🙂

But the real news was the approval (finally!) of my RPG Loren The Amazon Princess on Steam! 😀 it was a bit shocking to be honest: not because I wasn’t expecting it, at the pace they’re greenlighting new games I knew it would eventually get in, but I thought it would need more time.

Anyway what does this means? my life is changed? I’m going to retire? Nope.

Steam gives a very big exposure but I’m an old indie (ahem) and I know well that you must not get too big expectations, and that if your game doesn’t match Steam audience you might not even earn that much. In other words if the game is good, will probably do well, but there are a thousands other factors that can influence the outcome.

Here comes my decision to take it easier and wait to release it. From now until Christmas will be an insane rush to release new games, top AAA titles, and so on. The biggest amount of money you make on Steam (as well on any other platform, including your own site) is at launch. So if I launch the game together with 3-4 new titles, and maybe one of them is a big AAA title, and then a week later there’s the Thanksgiving/Christmas sale, it could pretty much screw up everything.

Also, I want to polish the game a bit: I’m redoing the soundtrack to have only custom music, will put the latest version there, I want to include achievements and possibly use the DLC system for the N’Mar expansion.

So as you can imagine is a lot of work to do, since I need to learn everything from scratch and the last thing I want is to rush things!

Ah before I forget: I’ll also add a “censored version” for all the romances. So the game available on Steam will be playable by everyone and not require any age ratings. I was forced to take this decision because getting an official rating (ESRB, PEGI) is out of discussion for a small indie like me (too expensive, too much paperwork). The best way will be to buy the game from my site so you know you can play the “naughty version” if you want, and still get a free steam CD-key 😉

In short, Loren will be on Steam but very likely after Christmas, since I think that is the best for my game 🙂 Meanwhile, maybe some other titles will get in… both Planet Stronghold and Spirited Heart are close to the top100, so you might go and vote for those games as well:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92939065

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93093446

Next week, will talk about the Roommates and SOTW status/progresses… stay tuned! 😉

Nicole beta officially out

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Nicole in game screenshotsNicole main menu image

Get the demo and buy the game in the official game page at: http://www.winterwolves.com/nicole.htm

After a long wait, Nicole is finally in beta! The beta actually started last Monday, so this version is already very stable! The latest 3 updates consisted mostly of typos and wrong images, so it should be perfectly safe to play this version (I got report of people who finished all the endings).

So what are you waiting for? Nicole needs your help! 🙂

Update on the yuri version

As you might know, a yuri version is also in the works. This time the yuri will be a completely separate game. Once it is ready, I’ll make a new demo where you can choose in the beginning which kind of content you want to see in the game.

The art is at good point but the writing has just started, so right now I can’t make any guess about when it will be available, though I hope worse case scenario Spring 2014!

…and the RPGs?

There’s no doubt that the RPGs have become my most popular games, so don’t worry I haven’t forgot about them. Right now the new Planet Stronghold 2 writer is busily working in the mines under the iron fist of my whip… ahem I mean, I’m motivating him to work fast 😉

Regarding Seasons Of The Wolf, writer should resume working on it in November and I still have to code almost two seasons of the game story. I plan to do like I did with Loren, and release the game as I’m working on it. So once I finish the full first season (Winter) I’ll release a beta demo for it, then when I finish the second I’ll update the demo to include the second season as well and so on.

I think that at leas the first season should be ready for Christmas 🙂

Next week you have a meeting with Nicole

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Nicole_OPver2.mkv_snapshot_00.18_[2013.10.09_17.12.02]
A screenshot taken from the game trailer. Apologize for the blurriness 😉

Yes you heard it well, next week (weekend probably) you have a meeting with a certain Nicole! Those are bold words, I know, but if I check the project status:

  • all writing completed: check
  • all texts proofread: almost (Sarah is checking them this weekend but she’s basically done)
  • all art done: check
  • all music ready: check
  • all GUI/icons done: only a few gift items are missing, but is not a problem, I can start the beta anyway even with temporary art
  • coding: need to finish implementing the online shopping and the gifts, but in a week it should be no problem

Of course in case wasn’t clear, I’m still talking about the beta testing version, but in this case should be very close to the final product (probably only some minor tweaking on stats/money/relationship and difficulty levels).

The goal is to have the game on sale for Halloween. Even if seems far away, I know from past experiences that it’s going to be very hard to release it officially before that date, but we’ll try! 😉

At least once this game is out I won’t say anymore every year “damn I wish I had a game good of Halloween!”. And when Undead Lily is out, I’ll have two! Speaking of which, below you see some nice (and not so nice, like the Harpy) card creatures:

creatures
From left to right: the Nymph, the Harpy and the Mermaid

Of course there’ll be a variety of genders from the classic mythology, those are only the ones which were done first 🙂

That’s all for now, going back to work on Nicole, I have a new deadline to meet!

The importance of custom soundtracks

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IMG_2264
My dog Skipper in his usual begging face

In the past, I used to have royalty free music in my games. Partly because I couldn’t afford to hire musicians, partly because I didn’t think that having original music was so important.

But one day, I saw this quote by Friedrich Nietzsche on a website:

Without music, life would be a mistake.

And I immediately jumped on my seat and realized how wrong I was!!! 😀

Jokes apart, it wasn’t such an enlightening moment but pretty close. I used to have theme songs in some past games (Always Remember Me for example) but wasn’t until Heileen 3 that I decided to have a full custom soundtrack. And when I saw how much people appreciated that, and the possibility to download the music tracks (along with other bonus stuff) in the “bonus content” version of the games, I realized that indeed before I made a big mistake.

So what does this mean? it means that, always keeping an eye on budget, I’m going to have full soundtracks and in certain cases even theme songs for all my future games!

For example, you can hear a snipped of Undead Lily theme song below (is weird and scary but because of the game theme):

and Roommates will have a custom theme song + full soundtrack as well (can’t post a preview of that one though, sorry).

Seasons Of The Wolf

slavery
One of the early scenes of the game. Althea, Shea and Vaelis meet Riley for the first time

Is this game going to have a custom soundtrack? Yes, and also a theme song! Speaking of the game, I’ve finally started coding the game story itself as you can see from the screenshot above. Is still the early battles and I’m tweaking a lot of things, but I’m making progresses fast.

Short news

I know many people are eagerly waiting for Nicole & Roommates. Nicole writing is finished, though I still have to get the last scenes from writer. Some art is also missing which should be done in a week or so. I really hope to have the game finished for Halloween!

As for Roommates, there are only a few backgrounds and some CG scenes left, but most of the work is done. Will take a while only because the game is very long so needs time to be coded, but it’s at good point too.

One last news, I’m also thinking to redo Loren soundtrack, because is one of my biggest games and sucks a bit to have royalty free music in it (even if the tracks I picked were particularly good). So on the next game update you might hear a very different music 😉