Category Archives: Roger Steel

Roger Steel world: meet Svetlana

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svetlana

Time for a new member of Roger Steel world, Svetlana! There are also males obviously but we’re going with the images the artist has finished first 🙂

Svetlana – From Russia with Mystery

Roger Steel and the Human Element plays against a background of seismic shifts in technological achievement and the fetid swamp of geopolitics. Taking advantage of the former whilst trying to avoid the perils of the latter is a hazardous undertaking in itself. In the game, as in real life, the Russian and British empires have long had a turbulent relationship. Although many on both sides admired the culture and achievements of their rivals, there is no doubt that those in power will stop at nothing to advance their interests, especially in the wake of the great cataclysm of 1837 that sent the future careening in a new direction.

When Ann or Arthur embark on their great adventure, rescuing their sibling from the clutches of a formidable foe, they can rely only on their steadfast friends, Christina and Neville for help. However, they soon find an unexpected ally in Roger Steel who believes that the kidnappers might be connected with a case he has been pursuing for several years. But it isn’t long before more enigmatic strangers appear on the scene. Are they drawn to Steel himself? Or the mystery he is investigating?

One of them is the flame-haired Russian agent, Svetlana Ruskaya. Self-confident, mocking, and unfathomable, Svetlana is not one to fade into the background. When Ann or Arthur first meet her, it is apparent that she and Roger Steel know each other, but the exact nature of their relationship is unknown even to Steel himself.

Implacable enemy; invaluable friend, or much more – it is up to you to define the relationship that Ann or Arthur builds with Svetlana. Whether she reveals her past; how she came to join them on their adventure; and what it is exactly that she wants… it all depends on you.

Nicole on Steam!

Last but not least, the otome version of Nicole is now out on Steam! Like always if you purchased the game directly from me just head to this site:

http://bestanimegames.com/steam/

to redeem your key 🙂

Roger Steel world: meet Christina

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christina

Time for another Roger Steel post! SOTW act 2 will come 99.99% tomorrow, meanwhile enjoy this new character art and introduction:

“Sidekicks are problematic characters. Too strong and they risk overshadowing the heroine or hero. Too weak, and you wonder why the protagonist bothers to have them tag along. (Multiply them by 8, and you might have some idea why Roger Steel is taking so long to develop!) Include in the ensemble, the eponymous Roger Steel who is the de facto head of the expedition (whether he remains the leader of the expedition is up to you to decide!), and you have a dense network of personal dynamics to juggle while attempting not to lose track of the story itself.

Personalities, skills, and worldviews all need to complement each other and hopefully add to the thematic resonance of the work itself. If we look around at our friends and lovers, we often find that they provide something we perceive as lacking in ourselves. They ‘complete us’, as the adage goes.

In Roger Steel and the Human Element, Ann and Arthur are overtaken by adventure whilst vacationing with their old friends, siblings Christina and Neville. As friends, the foursome know each other well even though they have spent a lot of time apart. Playing as Ann or Arthur, your relationship with your two friends will determine the whole mood of the story.

As anyone who has observed people for any length of time will attest, men and women relate to each other differently, no matter whether they are straight, gay, lesbian, or transgender. Equally, the relationships the player experiences with Christina and Neville will be different playing as Ann or Arthur, and straight, lesbian, or gay (or indeed entirely platonic). This is not a game where the only difference between the conversations you make as Ann or Arthur is the name accompanying the dialogue.

When writing Christina, I had to ensure that she is flexible enough to relate to realistically to all the dialogue and game choices available to the player, whilst retaining her own personality. I wanted her to have a quiet strength and dignity that would withstand the worst of Ann’s or Arthur’s behaviour whilst being open to developing a relationship with either of them in new and unexpected ways.

Christina has her own unique skills as a field medic and voice of reason and temperance. She is strong enough not to be overwhelmed by the hard-driving company she finds herself in, even though her self-confidence is not very deep. It takes some grit and determination to appear in public with her prosthetic leg, let alone adventure with it in places even the able-bodied might fear to go, and I think that the artist has captured a lot of Christina’s personality in his rendering.

I hope her open face and beautiful green eyes (not to mention that finely crafted mechanical leg!) will invite you to learn more about her as you explore the world of Roger Steel and unearth the dark secrets that lie therein.”

Roger Steel world: meet Ann

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ann

Above you see Ann in full color and some preliminary sketches done by the artist 🙂 This week, a guest post by Roger Steel’s writer himself:

“Greetings, patient Roger Steel fans! Civilizations have fallen; continents have collided; the sun’s a little dimmer … or maybe it’s just my eyes. Yes, it’s been a while since my last appearance, I know, and for that I humbly apologize. But in the void, things are stirring. Progress is being made. The chronicling continues… but such is the nature of game development that, even as I write, Roger and the gang are being brought to life in another way – the artwork has begun!

It’s been a strange experience, the last few weeks, seeing characters that have only been resident in the musty confines of my imagination (believe me, there’s a lot of rubbish in there, and the light’s not too good…) for the last ‘few’ months being brought to life in another medium. A bit like the transition from book to film, seeing Ann emerge from words on a page to pixels into her full-colour glory has been an exercise in managing expectations. But the results are here, and they are great.

Ann is a complex character, and made more so by the need to have her develop over the course of her adventure with Roger Steel and the gang according to her player’s vision. (The same goes for Arthur, of course, but he will have his day in the sun another time.) Whether she develops as a tough-as-nails leader with a sarcastic streak or as an easy-going girl who is content to hang out as Roger Steel’s trusty lieutenant – whether you see Ann as your protégé or as your avatar – her portrait will have to resonate as true to your reading of her character.

In this respect, I think the artist has done a great job. The Ann he has brought to life shows just the right amount of resolution and vulnerability that players will recognize something of their Ann whatever particular conversational, skill, and plot choices they make when developing her character over the course of the adventure.

She is not the Ann that was in my head while writing her adventures, but in many ways it is a better realization of her than I could have hoped for. When I open her picture, she looks at me directly, her own woman: strong enough to tackle the perils that lie ahead, to open her heart to any of the people she will be traveling with, or simply get the job done without any romantic distractions at all – just rescue her idiot brother and hope none of this gets back to her parents before their return to India.

I hope you too, her potential player, will see aspects in her portrait of the character you envisage playing, and help define the memorable adventures you will experience together.”

I just want to add that, as you have noticed already, this time the characters use a “full rendering” technique. Something I’ve never tried in my other games before, but the results so far are great. Is time to experiment with new art styles, writing, and games! 🙂 Stay tuned, the plan is to give a new character preview each week, though some week could talk also about SOTW and other stuff.

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 🙂

How do you plan for your games?

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whatgame
Not even Chambara’s divination skills can predict which one of my games will be out next!

As you probably know if you follow me, I’m working on several games at the same time. Often people (both other indie devs or simple players) approach me asking “why/how do you make it”?

Well, first of all, it’s not really my choice. In the past, I was making a game at time, like most of my other indie developers colleagues. But at those times I was doing everything on my own, coding, (terrible) art using Poser and other 3d tools, royalty free music tracks and so on.

Compare that to my modern games, where in almost all of them there is:

  • one or more artists. Usually two, one for the backgrounds and another for the sprites. In some cases though, even 4 or 5 like in Loren (item/GUI/interface artists + colorists).
  • an extra coder for the most tricky parts, like Anima for Loren RPG Framework, or even only to speed up production like Aleema helping out with  some parts of Planet Stronghold 2 (codex, colony sim, etc)
  • a dedicated musician to do a custom soundtrack, so that my games don’t look cheap (hey I’ve heard that main menu theme song already! I think it was in a free flash porn game! ROFL)
  • a writer who writes the story in a proper way
  • an editor/proofreader that checks the (usually very LONG) texts of the story
  • someone that does a bit of marketing (I usually do that myself) posting images/videos in the social network, doing blog posts with progress updates, etc

…and probably I’m forgetting something. As you can see, a lot of people involved, even for low-budget indie games like mine. And do you think that everything always goes smoothly?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

In 99% of cases, something will happen. This might vary from a small problem that will delay the production for a few days, to a complete disaster that delays the game by months or in some (luckily rare) cases, the total disappearance of one of the key figures (writer, main artist, and so on).

The only solution I’ve found, was to start several project, to balance the inevitable problems that will arise. This way if project A was on hold, there was project B that could still go on. I am probably at project Z by now 😀 jokes apart, as I said is not a great thing, because managing everything is a total pain in the ass, but I found no other practical solution if I want to be able to release several games in a year, which is something that I must do because differently from many other indies I know, my games aren’t on Steam.

Now luckily, after some years, I have made a good selection of people I trust and that I can count on. I usually always give to everyone second chances, but when people repeatedly fail me (and in some cases with lame excuses) I’m forced to put a cross under their names… after all I run a business, and businessmen are notoriously ruthless ! 😉 (well I am not, not really).

Anyway, all this explanation will hopefully enlighten some people about the process, and how in practice I cannot really know myself exactly when a game will be out, apart for some “indicative release dates”.

Next week will resume talking about Seasons Of The Wolf with new character previews! But meanwhile, I got this letter dispatched by a pigeon from Roger Steel writer:

What lies beneath the surface …

Although you haven’t heard from me for months – and even Jack only slightly more frequently – it’s not because Roger Steel has ground to a halt. There has hardly been a day in which I haven’t been thinking of some aspect of the game, if not doing some actual writing. Like a great intangible Rubik’s cube being manipulated in the limited confines of my mind, I have been thinking not only of Roger Steel’s narrative, but also the title’s mechanics and gameplay, and how those relate to the story being told.

Designing and writing a game is always a matter of choices and compromises. From the engine in which it is written to the genre in which it is set, each choice entails its own set of consequences, some of which might manifest themselves only far later in the development cycle. But in order to develop games economically – that is with a view to making a profit at the end of the day – it is the game development team’s job to foresee as far as possible the consequences of the choices being made even in a project’s earliest stages. Changing direction due to unforeseen circumstances late in development is often fatal to a game’s profitability and the studio’s survival.

Making an RPG is particularly tough in this regard. Players expect a modicum of choice in traversing the plot and flexibility in building their characters. Meeting just these two expectations – which, while necessary for a successful game, is not itself going to win plaudits from critics – entails a whole lot of effort. With this in mind, it is instructive as a game designer not only to look at successful games but also the unsuccessful.

Let’s take as an example, Arcania – Gothic 4 – a game universally panned by the critics and gamers as little more than an adventure game masquerading as an RPG and a grievous insult to its illustrious namesakes. For me as a game designer, it’s instructive to play through Arcania and see what went wrong. The graphics are good, the world detailed, and the player character development decent.

However, when it comes to plot or open world exploration, the game utterly fails. The player is forced to progress through a linear sequence of plot points which match perfectly to a linear sequence of locations. Dialogue is banal, NPCs boring cardboard cut-outs with paint-by-numbers characterization, and interactive elements placed in the world (beds, workbenches, drums) which hark back to the original games but are stripped of all functionality. Arcania provides no incentive for the player to return, or even to complete the journey.

Contrast this to Two Worlds, a game with rough graphics, dubious voice acting, and unfinished, rudimentary character development. It also met with a very mixed reception, yet because it had a functioning open world (ignoring the plot, the player can explore freely to his or her heart’s content while dodging the rather lethal wildlife and bandits) it is objectively a far more interesting game.

Clearly Arcania’s developers ran out of funding before much more than the game engine had been completed, while those who developed Two Worlds apportioned a limited budget to deliver the best game they could which would at least meet the minimal expectations of open-world RPG aficionados.

In Indie development, the compromises are tough and the economics unyielding. The engine we are using inflicts its own limitations on the story we can tell and the methods we can use to tell it. Roger Steel won’t bear any resemblance to Baldur’s Gate, The Witcher, nor even Arcania or Two Worlds. Neither will it resemble The Broken Sword series, The Last Express, or the Blade Runner adventure from the late nineties. It will, however, carry within its DNA fragments of each of those inspirations, albeit often twisted beyond all recognition. And hopefully, it will meet the expectations of players like yourselves in that it delivers an interesting, dynamic, rewarding, and polished experience which is worth returning to in order to explore different plot paths, relationship options, and character development strategies.