Category Archives: roleplay games

Let’s talk about attributes

From left to right, my cat Leon and Miele, having a discussion about RPG balancing

Balancing a RPG is… one of the hardest things in game design ever. Even in MMORPG made by teams of 100+ people with multi-million budgets you see patches for months after the game is out to “tweak / balance the game”.

So I am sure that even my new RPG Seasons Of The Wolf very likely won’t be “perfectly balanced”, but to me the first goal is to make it fun. But I know that there are some very hardcore people who will dissect the game in details and find all possible weaknesses.

Let’s have a NIGHTMARE

Let’s start with saying that this time I’ve listened to the pleas about the difficulty:

Note the new difficulty level with that friendly name “NIGHTMARE”. Already the hard level will be… hard, but I expect the nightmare to be a real pain in the ass, requiring people to grind, fine-tune their equipment, and maybe even reload old savegames to try a different tactic/leveling up path.

You know, all those things that for normal human beings are annoying, but for those guys are the most fun thing ever! 😉

I’m joking in case it wasn’t clear. No offense to anyone! Those hardcore RPG players are indeed the most useful testers since they usually find more bugs than anyone else, so an applause to them!

Attributes, attributes…

Loren’s attribute system was pretty simple: 3 attributes, Strength, Skill, Will. One of them particularly good for each of the 3 classes: Warrior, Thief and Mage. But even the other two would provide benefits.

This time in SOTW I wanted to have more attributes: six in total.

Let’s see each one in detail:

Constitution – increases character’s durability in battles. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the HP amount by 10.
Will – increases character’s ability to use special attacks or spells in battle. Each points spent in this attribute will increase the SP amount by 10.
Strength – increases character’s physical damage in battle. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the Attack value.
Skill – increases character’s ability to avoid or block physical attacks in battle. Each point spent in this attribute will increase the Defense value.
Agility – increases character’s Speed value. Fast characters will move sooner and perform the same actions quicker than slower ones.
Arcane – increases character’s Magical ability. A high value helps caster to cast more powerful spells, and also grants protection to magic attacks.

One of the rules for game design, is that each attributes should be at least useful to each Class. If there’s an attribute that gives absolutely NO advantage to any of the game Classes, you have “a problem”.

Currently, my only attribute with this problem is Strength. It works fine for Warrior and Thief since influences the Attack, but as you can imagine, Mages won’t have much use for it. Unless maybe I allow them to use Missile weapons too, or have strength influence some of the resistances.

Yes, because while the resistances will be the same as Loren, they’ll use a much better/more practical percentage based scale, so it’s not enough to have two armor items giving each Fire resistance to become immune. More like, each piece will give some percentage points.

So I have still to think better about it, I have some ideas already… (the attributes will surely change in the final version, but not by much).

Of course, there are plenty of RPG with unbalanced attributes that are still fun to play. Baldur’s Gate and Fallout comes to mind, just to name two very popular and fun RPGs 😉

More news coming next week, about this game and the other one currently in progress!

Back to work

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Don’t be fooled by Tofu who is still playing games, now is time to work!

The past month, or better the past 45 days have been a serious blow to my productivity, because of the heat (like every year) plus some renovating works I had to do to my home. In practice, with the heat, the noise, the continuous interruptions, I just gave up… I was able to work only a few hours in the morning and answer emails, but that’s it.

As result, many many games are behind schedule, even if in practice the only one who is waiting my “direct contribution” is the RPG Seasons Of The Wolf. Luckily most of my working partners are people living in fresh countries like Canada, Belgium, Germany and so on (though I heard that the heat wave this year was all over Europe).

Anyway, it seems that the weather will cool down in the next week, and most importantly I’m finally done with the renovating works! 😀

So while I am still quite broken and stressed, I’ll gradually try to get back into “the working mood”, with the goal to release Nicole otome version by September and at least SOTW beta before end of year.

And maybe another game shortly after, since even Roommates is at good point 🙂

Status update

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Nicole update

First of all, an update about Nicole otome dating sim, since I started the preorders already. You can watch Jeff video preview below:

he seems polite and kind, but also quite bizarre! Anyway, I got the first 3 scenes out of 10 with him and have already added them to the game. I’m waiting for 16 chibis and icons from the artist, and some extra outfits.

Worse case scenario, I can release an exclusive preview build towards mid-August with the first 3 scenes of each boy. But I honestly hope that the writer and artist will work faster, so I can skip the preview build and release the final demo at the end of August, though I think it will be harder…

Anyway, we’re finally getting close! About the yuri version, once the main game is done it will take less time since basically is only the writing to do, since the gameplay and the chibi/icons art will be already implemented 🙂

Planet Stronghold 2 update

Big games require long wait 😉 Probably not what you wanted to read, but well that’s the truth. Coder is working on the new RPG system, and I think is going very well, but obviously needs time (and will need a lot of testing too even after is finished).

Plot wise the first chapter out of four is not finished yet, because we were doing some tests with the isometric maps and other gameplay things. But I assure you that the writing quality is great as always!

So in summary… we’re behind. A lot. But I’m very confident that once the game is ready you’ll be amazed by all the things in it 🙂

Roommates update

Character artist is doing the “steamy scenes” also known as “beach sex scenes” 😉 now don’t let your imagination go wild, since is not an eroge game after all! However, let’s say that those scenes will be quite interesting!

Backgrounds are progressing well and artist said that should be ready by September. Is hard for me to give an estimate at this point, but I think the game “could be out before Christmas if everything else goes well” (writer is coding all the sprite expressions but is a bit behind).

Seasons Of The Wolf update

The Grand Mogul Rafik will be one of the main opponents of the story

Things are going well both in the writing (six scenes done) and in the art (all main characters so far are finished, though there’s still a lot of work left to do).

About the gameplay and coding, I’m still behind because I was too busy with other real-life stuff, but I am confident that I can begin working on it at full speed in September. At least in this case if I have all the art and the writing done by the Fall, it will depend only on me so the game should be out before Christmas 🙂

I sense some incoming preorders…

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First let me introduce the last two party-member characters of the Seasons Of The Wolf RPG:

Chalassa is the GxG (yuri) romance of this RPG

Chalassa the deadly assassin. You’ll encounter her later in the game, but she’ll have her impact on the story, be sure of it 😉

Vaelis is like a second father for Althea & Shea, so… no romance sorry!

Vaelis is one of the first characters you can recruit, a very useful Mercenary (front line combatant).

Nicole’s incoming preorders

Check Nicole’s temporary official webpage here:

http://www.winterwolves.com/nicole.htm

The download links don’t work yet, but the buy links yes 😉 I’m opening the preorders even if there’s still a character route and some chibi/icon art missing, plus the extra final scene when you solve the mystery still to write. The writer said would send me the last route next week, and artist should be able to do the same with the art.

So seems that there isn’t much left to do, that’s why I decided to start accepting orders for the game (otome version only for now!) since you can play the game two ways: solving the mystery, or ignoring it completely. Once I get the last route, the game can be completely played in the second mode, and that’s what the people who preordered will probably get around mid-August, while we finish writing the mystery part and the various different final scenes (will be a different final scene depending who you romanced).

Gameplay-wise, the game will use a system similar to Always Remember Me, with a daily cycle, several places to visit and several actions to do, though there’ll be less variety of choices than in that game. But on the other hand, the story is VERY long, much more than Always Remember Me (is around 100,000 words already, and is missing a route as I said).

If you get the bonus content edition you’ll be able to download the official soundtrack, the chibis at bigger size and several wallpapers including both the male and female characters.

You can see a preview below:

Of course, you can wait until a demo is available before buying! There won’t be any difference between the preorders and the final version. I’m only doing it since some people repeatedly asked for preorders 😉

The importance of variety

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my cat Othello relaxing on the ground

I’m referring to the importance of variety in the characters present in games. Quite often when you see manga art, “stylized manga” in particular, is a bit annoying to see all the characters basically look the same, with only different hair/eye colors but same face and build type.

I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be classic pin-up characters in games. There can be, but there should also be other types. Not ugly or unattractive, in particular if they are a love interest, but simply different because even in real-life, people have different tastes.

For example, even if in my games often the women are busty, in real life I prefer the more slim type. Yes there are men who likes small breasted women! 😉

So it was my mistake for not trying so far to have different character, more variety. Of course, in some cases is also because the artist themselves have difficulties drawing different body types. I understand them, since I’m sure that is not simple. However, if all the games had the same pin-up characters it would be a bit boring!

So let me introduce you two new character from Seasons Of The Wolf game:

Krimm, a barbarian woman with muscular body

A request I got from my forum users was to have a strong, tall woman like Loren, but that was also more muscular. So here’s Krimm the BxG romance! I’m also pleased by her face, since is quite different from the “standard” shape you see in my other games. A curiosity, as reference to use for her face, I sent the artist a picture of Jessica Alba 🙂

Riley the illusionist: don’t underestimate the sexyness of the BEARD!

When I read in my forums people whining “you never have males with beard!” I admit at first was laughing. Beard? like… Ramas the dwarf? 😀 But then I understood what they really meant, so I commissioned Riley, the illusionist and BxB romance of this game.

I have to admit that when properly done, the beard makes the characters really more intriguing, so expect more bearded characters in future 😉

In other news, I will very likely start preorders for the otome sim game Nicole towards the end of the month! The chibi artist resumed working, so once she has finished all the activities icon the base gameplay will be done. Writer is still working on Jeff’s route, and the mystery paths are to be done yet, but the current texts are already close to 100,000 words, so more than enough to start preorders 😉

Computer Games

Development diary of Celso Riva