Category Archives: Seasons Of The Wolf

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!).

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 🙂

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 😉

Terrain modifiers

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IMGP7266
A very nice dog that joined us for a trip on the mountains years ago

A concept that is well known to strategy/wargame players is the so called “terrain modifier”. What is it? is the influence that each terrain type has on the gameplay, for example movement, attack / defense bonuses, and so on.

I’ve decided to experiment with it too in the upcoming RPG Seasons Of The Wolf:

battlesetup
In the new pre-battle party setup there’s indication of the battlefield type

You might recognize it if you played Loren Amazon Princess, even if here it’s completely revamped: is the pre-battle party setup screen, where you place your party members in the front / back row.

This time though, beside letting you know some limitations/restrictions of the battle (like which party members must be present, the minimum/maximum party size, and so on) it also displays the battlefield type, in this case “Hot”, which gives a bonus to Fire attack/spells.

Of course there are still “normal” battlefields with no particular bonus. But I plan to use this new gameplay addition to make some interesting battles and to add more variety (since if you play at high difficulty level, you’ll need to take that aspect in consideration).

Amber Magic Shop update

I have also some good news for Amber Magic Shop. I won’t go much into details because will make a series of post about that game when we are closer to its release (which won’t be sooner than next year unfortunately).

Writer has planned the two extra characters yuri routes, and is already writing them. So differently from Nicole, this time even if the game will be out later all the yuri content will be available either at launch day. Or with a very small delay 😉

I’ve also got a bit more art, in particular some nicer clothes for Amber:

ambernew
Two new outfits for Amber, who on left is the young version, on right the adult one

So that’s another game which is progressing slowly but at least constantly and hopefully will be able to code a good alchemy/crafting system for it 🙂

Aravorn’s Map and Timeline (WIP)

I am also doing a bit more world-building of Aravorn, the imaginary world where all my fantasy games takes place. You can check this forum thread if you’re curious about it:

http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3007

That’s all for now! Lots of stuff happening, but can’t talk about it yet 🙂

Looking at the bright future

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HORIZON
My cat Gilda is looking at the future with optimism

This year was a bit of a rough year for me (though obviously, it could be MUCH worse in general!). The main problem was all the events that happened in real life, and that influenced this year releases (or lack of).

The year is not yet over: but if I compare it with previous years, in 2012 by now I was about to release Loren’s expansion after releasing the main game. In 2011 I had already finished Planet Stronghold, and other cool games like Always Remember Me.

Sadly, it seems that this year I’m going to miss the “release of a new RPG” milestone 🙁

Anyway, the future looks brighter! Read below.

Nicole status – almost done!

Nicole seems very close to completion: I have all boys route finished and the mystery path done by 60-70%. There are still several scenes missing, and also some art, but I think worse case in October the game should be out with all the promised content and gameplay changes (if you’re curious check my forum thread here: http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=39&p=19101#p19101).

Roommates update

Yesterday I also got all the backgrounds for Roommates! Even if I’m considering adding a couple more. The new “steamy beach sex scenes” (which aren’t porn, but very hot!) are at good point too, about halfway done. If things go as planned it could be out around Christmas or early next year 🙂

Undead Lily and the return of CCG

There has been a recent interest/return of CCG, which stands for Collectible Card Games. I also have some cool memories of one of the first games I made, several years ago, called Magic Stones, which was indeed a sort of mix between a RPG and a CCG.

Together with Roommates writer (who will write Undead Lily too) we started brainstorming the creatures list for Undead Lily.

UL - Sylphv2
A sketch of the Sylph creature

There are going to be 12 base creatures for the 6 elements, plus other cards (spells and some extra combo creatures). Writer counted 114 different creatures cards, so there should be a good variety!

Some of the creatures include: Griffon, Harpy, Mermaid, Shark, Ifrit, Salamander, Giant Mole, Purple Worm, Tree-ent, Giant Ant, Ghouls, Vampires, and more. I’ll post more previews as I get them.

Obviously I’m talking about a game that will be out not sooner than next year Summer or later 😉

Seasons Of The Wolf update

This week for various reasons was unable to work at all on SOTW, but I plan to get back on it next week. I was planning to have a sort of battles preview at end of month but that probably won’t be possible, since I want to redesign a bit the skills, adding a few more variety. In practice now there are 5 skills each, with 3 degree of power. So you could say 15 skills each character, but in practice is 5 unique skills each one with 3 power variants.

I was thinking instead to eliminate the various power levels, or use them only for non-scaling skills. For example, if we take two healing skills:

A) Healing Balm – heals 30% of character’s total HP
B) Minor Heal – heals target character by 25HP

For B we could have Major Heal that heals 50HP, while for A, as the character HP increases (presumably by leveling up) the spell power will automatically increase.

The writing and art production is going well, and I think that for sure in October I should be able to show something (sort of alpha version, to get feedback on the battle system changes).

Greenlight

Speaking about RPGs, in case you don’t know, recently Valve Greenlit a lot of games, and for the first time my RPG Loren Amazon Princess is around rank 85-86 in the top100. Still a long way to go, but now would be a good moment to vote for it using the link below:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92923628

No need to say that getting a game on Steam would mean I could afford to invest a lot more in my games, making them even better 😉