Category Archives: winter wolves games

news about my games, updates and patches I’m working on, and ideas for new games

Unique powers

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I resumed working on Planet Stronghold after a hiatus of about 3 months (during which I planned the first 2 Vera’s episodes, and wrote the first one currently being proofreaded). The pause was good though, since I also had time to play the two latest Bioware’s RPGs, Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2. In particular this last one, since it shares the same kind of setting (sci-fi) with my game.

Inspired by them,I decided that just generic/standard psionic power would sucks 🙂 I want each character to have at least one unique power.

They were already different each one from the other, because of the various skills (some could have high medicine skill, other high repair, and so on) but what makes really a cool RPG (or game, in general) is the unique powers, each character having his own personality/use within a party.

So I’m going to assign to each character in the game a special power, related to the combat of course. I am also going to rethink better the rock/paper/scissor system of the combat since in the first battles wasn’t really evident. Today also got two new sketches for new enemies from my artist:

The game art-side is almost finished, just need some more enemies and a few other characters+the rebel/alien race which inhabits Planet Stronghold. Once all art is done I’m going to work on it at full speed 🙂

Breaking the rules

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I had what I think a great game idea last week. It does break the common rules of narrative / games, so that’s why I think it’s cool 🙂

Basically, it’s a story told from three different perspectives. Three women, three friends, living the same story but each one from her own point of view and with different path / succession of events. The game will play quite differently from the other ones. I’m still deciding if to make it as normal visual novel or a dating sim. In practice, you would play the first character, until you arrive at what I would call “switch point”. It means you made your choices for this first one, and now you move on to the next one. You’ll be taken back to the beginning of the story (the beginning is common to all the three characters) and play it through a new perspective. You’ll share some common events, and you’ll see your previous character “executing” the choices you made before, but you’ll be able to change the plot again making new choices with the new character.  Also you’ll see new, different events that will keep the plot going. Then, with the final character, you’ll see what is the mystery, why those events are happening, who is the mastermind behind all. Yes, because the game will be a mystery one, not detective, but still a mystery style of game.

In practice, this is what you could define as a triple-otome-multiple-POV-mystery-dating-sim game! It’s just an idea for now but I’m prototyping it in Ren’Py to see if there are potential pitfall to its implementation. I really hope to make this because the story has a final plot twist which I consider quite cool, and the few people (non-gamers) I talked with all agree, saying that would be a good plot for a mystery book.

I have also in mind to experiment again with the visuals for this game, trying to raise the bar once again. I have in mind a sort of mix with manga (like my previous games) and comics (like Vera Blanc game which is coming out soon).

A new Spirited Heart

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I got many requests for a sequel since I released my game Spirited Heart last year. I did a Deluxe version this december, but now is time to start something new. I am still in the early stages of planning/development, and as you can see from the WIP screenshot on this page, there is still lot decisions to be made.

However, I can anticipate a few things:

1) the version 1.0 will focus on the character development, the various jobs/skills, and various job endings. So there won’t be any romance in the first version! Also, the version 1.0 won’t have the demon character 😉

2) But fear not, because I have in mind to release several downloadable content for it, using my new system of autoupdater/patcher right from the game. This means you’ll be notified when a new update is available right when you start the game (and also by email to be sure you won’t miss it). Each update will be a very small fee, between $5-10, and will add new features to the game. The first planned is indeed the romance one and then the demon one.

3) Thanks to this “open ended” structure, it means that I can release an update with 6 characters, but nothing forbids me to do another update with 6 more characters to have romance! Or add a new type of job, a new pet (yes, there will be pets in the game), or even a new race. This means that I can develop a much more detailed game, since each update will be carefully planned. For example when I add the demon race, there will be a backstory behind it (a reason why it’s there), there will be new towns and maybe even new jobs related to it.

As you can see is an approach somewhat similar to those online games, with the difference that you’ll clearly know what you’re paying/getting, and that the game won’t require you to stay online, only to check the version and update it. It will also means that now you will be sure to play the latest version immediately, with all the bugfixes and new features.

I don’t have any estimate release yet, my HOPE is for next Christmas, however I really am not sure since have several other projects going on at the same time 🙂

Realism or not

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This is a question that has been spinning in my head since I started writing Vera Blanc’s game.

You might say that the answer is obvious since is a detective game: it MUST be realistic. However, you also know that is a mystery / detective game, with a solid mythology background which picks the most common myths from occultism, paganism, and so on. In other words, werewolves, zombies and vampires won’t be unusual guests! 🙂

So, you could say that the answer is “unrealistic” then. Well, I don’t claim the game will be impeccable but I’m trying to, with the help of many researches, friends and Amy who’s proofreading the game. The goal is to have the game be as realistic as possible, and not use the paranormal as an excuse to change completely the clues from a chapter to the next one. I don’t want the player to think that the assassin might be XYZ, and then find out that was ABC because XYZ was a ghost so all the clues about him were wrong!

You might ask: So how would you describe the game?

The game will provide you solid clues, but also many red-herrings. The clues, even if will regard the supernatural world, will be consistent. For example, if you took a blood sample, and you suspect it’s werewolf blood, you could use a certain metal who is well-known to be the werewolf-bane and see if there’s any unusual reaction (I’m talking about silver, for those who don’t know!). This is just an example how I tried to merge the normal investigation practices with the paranormal.

This is my first attempt in writing a mystery game and trust me, is ten times as difficult as writing just a regular story. I *think* I made a decent job but ultimately will be the pubilc to judge for it!

About the game, I am now writing the final chapters, and it will be finished at end of the month: however will need to be proofreaded completely, and since there are 25.000 words in the game (despite not being a VN) will take some time. I hope to have it finished by mid-April!

Vera Blanc gameplay

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I’m working on the “main game loop” of Vera Blanc right now. There’s a first “introduction” part where you get to know your powers, the setting of the investigation, and meet a few characters. Then after a shocking encounter (which I won’t reveal since I don’t want to spoil the game!) the game will enter in the main loop, showing the map that you can see below in the screenshots.

The game will be time limited, but only after certain events. For example, when you start, there won’t be a deadline of 30 days to solve the case. The days will pass, but until you find a specific clue, the story won’t go on. After some key events are “unlocked” though, you might have to hurry up and find / discover some information within a certain number of days, or in the case of real-time events, some minutes.

In any case the game will inform the player about what’s going to happen next and “suggest” him to save the game to avoid restarting from the beginning!

About the investigation part, there will be choices like in my other VNs but this time with much more freedom. I tried to represent as more choices as possible, and you can repeat the same action many times or try the same thing in different order to change the course of the story. So it’s not really a story with branches, but more like several actions that you can do in a specific location/situation of the story that will lead to different results.

On a final note, I’m happy about the final look of the game. I think that kind of art is more suited for mystery/horror stories than pure manga style (that’s my personal opinion of course) 🙂