Category Archives: planet stronghold 2

Some good news + future plans

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Last time I said I was hoping to bring some good news, and here they are! Let’s proceed in order.

Cursed Lands

If you missed my announcement in the social media, a beta version featuring the full first chapter except the Nagas rescue mission (until the end of first full moon) is now available on itch.io here: https://winter-wolves.itch.io/cursed-lands

All the usual disclaimers apply when talking about a beta: savegames “should” be compatible, there WILL be bugs (but if you tell me about them I’ll fix them), I might tweak things (not story-related though). As of now I haven’t added a “visual novel mode” yet, though you can always try playing in Easy mode.

Meanwhile I finished coding some more stuff for the second chapter, including an epic boss fight against the Kraken! It’s optional, so you don’t need to do it, but it’s very hard and has probably the best loot reward of the whole game:

So might be worth trying, don’t you think? Especially if you like to use the two nagas characters (two items are exclusively for them).

Currently I’m waiting for the writer to send me the new texts necessary for the second chapter, however as you see from the images above, I have already coded a LOT of things: all the rescue missions, the kraken fight, a tomb exploration sidequest, etc etc. It has the biggest amount of content of all the three chapters probably. Of course being an “open world” rpg, you don’t necessarily NEED to do all those quests in the second chapter, some can be completed also in the third.

As soon as writer sends me the missing scenes I’ll update the beta again, unlocking the whole second chapter. For now, have fun with the first 🙂

Love Bites

Things are progressing well for this game too. The “half-game” beta shouldn’t be much away from now! Not sure about the exact release date yet, but should be out before Christmas, with the final/full game out first quarter of 2018.

…and Planet Stronghold 2

Haha yes you read it well! Since I am now waiting for Cursed Lands’ remaining writing, what there is better to do than start working on another RPG!? Jokes apart, yes, I think it’s a good idea for two reasons: first, I’m in “RPG design mode”, I am working with the RPG framework code, so I’m fresh / familiar with it, and second because it’s about time to finish that game (I announced it back in 2011-2012!).

As I posted in forums, I’m going to plan the ruleset, gameplay etc, still using the good old framework but once again, it will play differently from the previous RPGs. I’m planning to try having randomized items again (like in Seasons Of The Wolf, since it seems players liked it) but still have only 2-3 equipment slots each character to reduce micro-management. Anyways it’s still early days but managed to update the old character creation code with the new GUI and I think the result it’s very good:

The soldier class info screen

Choose your side at start of the story

As announced at beginning of the story you’ll be able to choose who you sided with (Empire/Rebellion) and who you romanced (if any) in the previous game.

This will inevitably require a lot of branching in writing the story so I’m doing this part myself, but of course will ask the help of Miakoda (who wrote PSCD) for editing/proofread and writing the new romance scenes. I’m only writing this first part myself since it’s going to be a pain with all the gameplay and multiple beginning/branching!

Obviously there’s no estimate release date, I’ll just work on it whenever I’m waiting for the other two games currently in active development above. But at least I’m not wasting time 🙂

Good games takes time!

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tavernbrawl
a classic tavern brawl in Dingirra (act 2). The “throw chair” is a powerful attack!

From the title you could imagine that this is a blog post announcing some delays on my next games. No, definitely isn’t! but erm, yeah there could be delays in the next games 😀

Don’t worry nothing big, only talking about a few extra months but I think is inevitable, as my games become bigger and more polished, I need to put more time into them. If I compare them with the ones I was making only 2-3 years ago, they all have custom tracks, custom backgrounds, higher art quality and more polishing in general. Also if you check other indies, they usually make 1 game a year, or max 2. So far I was still able to release at least 2-3 a year, and I believe of good quality.

RPGs in particular take a very long time, and wouldn’t be really fair to tell people that I can make more than one a year. Who knows, it MIGHT happen, since in practice I always work on the games a bit randomly depending how the various partners/collaborators do (if some works faster, I usually work on those games more). But that would be an exception 🙂

The good news

I have good news nonetheless regarding upcoming games:

About SOTW: I made good progresses on the main plot, made a lot of battles in act 2 up to the point where you have a full party (with Riley and Krimm joining you). Battles with full parties are VERY different from the first act, that’s why balancing was hard: I was focusing on the wrong way, I needed to balance act 2 and then if necessary fix some act 1 battles. Since the game must be balanced with a full party, not with 3 party members (for those who didn’t play it yet, in the first act you can control only 3 characters).

Vaelis and Rowinda background/personal quests are being added. The other romanceable characters already had them, but those two were missing. So Taleweaver (the game writer) is working on those. This won’t delay the game release since they can be unlocked in act 3, and independently from the main story.

About C14, because of my collaborators real-life tasks (relocating, weddings, etc) work will resume in July, but is at very good point and beta might be out that same month 🙂

Nicole yuri and Planet Stronghold 2 writing is going on very slowly, but making progresses at least.

Lastly, I have some news about Roger Steel. I will talk about it next month, when finally I hope to have also some artwork to show 🙂

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 🙂

Hey guys let’s do some GUI!

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One of the best blog post titles ever 😀 (no not really)

For those who don’t know what GUI is, it stands for Graphical User Interface, and in practice you see it every day when you use any operating system. It’s the windows, buttons, arrows, scrollbars, etc artwork.

In games, in particular in strategy, simulations and RPGs, GUI is very important. It must be nice to look at, but also it must be user-friendly, since players are going to use it A LOT.

So this week I worked on Seasons Of The Wolf GUI. I have yet to finish redesigning the skilltrees, but having a graphical representation of the character screen will help me, get me the inspiration.

The character screen is composed of two static parts: one on the top, showing all the party members with the “classic” HP/SP colored bars on the sides, and two buttons to close the screen. And one on the left, where the currently selected character is shown in big, along with his basic info: HP/SP, Name, Class, Level, Experience Points.

On the right instead the content changes based on the active “subscreen”, which can be one of the following: attributes, skills, inventory & quests.

attributes
The familiar attributes seen previously, with a quick help on the bottom of the screen

itemcomparison
The inventory screen, which I need to redesign unfortunately…

The attributes subscreen is done, the inventory is at good point but I need to re-arrange the layout. In the screenshot above it seems to work fine, but the problem comes when you examine an armor: there isn’t enough space on the bottom of the screen to display all the armor stats, which are more than the weapons 😀

Luckily I can just rearrange the various windows/buttons, so while is still quite some work, is not like I need to redo it completely  from scratch.

I plan to finish it this week and begin working on the skills next Monday… I think it will keep me busy for at least two weeks though. At least after that is done, I’ll be able to start putting all the content in, so I’m not too far behind schedule! 🙂

 Other news

I got last scenes for Jeff’s path of Nicole otome dating sim, so we need to work on the mystery scenes and add some last minute art. It might be finished by end of this month as I hoped 🙂

As you know if you read the forums, decided to get another writer to help Aleema with Planet Stronghold 2 so she can begin working on Loren next game already. Since is a big game, this way might be ready in a not-too-distant future!

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

grand_mogul
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 🙂