Happy New Year! As every year, I’ll set my own new year goals in the first post of the year.
This time I’m taking into account my eye issues, which luckily for now doesn’t seem too bad. But still something to consider especially for big games like the RPGs – staying hours looking at spreadsheets to balance enemies/items is not healthy for the eyes, as you can imagine!
Anyways: like past year, I’ve a Kickstarted game to finish, The Beastmaster Princess, and I plan to finish it in the first quarter. I’m not sure yet when exactly, but definitely should happen in first months of the year. I have currently 4 chapters out of 5 fully edited, I might still add a few things there and there, but if I had to guess, February or early March at the latest could be a good candidate for the beta release.
Our heroines on a side quest to gather a cure
After this, the next game to be out should be ToA: An Elven Marriage. I’ve basically worked on it already last year in “my spare time” but being a full RPG (with some new tweaks/features of course) it takes longer than a pure VN.
the crafting screen of the game
I’d like to say it will be out in Q2-Q3, but maybe I could release a smaller game first to avoid burn-out. I’ll need to see (as usual I’m working on several games at once).
Ah yes, about the smaller games: I already spoke about this in my Patreon, in practice I’m going to try making some sci-fi games but more in the Black Mirror style, so not space opera, but “alternate reality”, “crazy situations”, etc.
I think I’ll be able to release one of those games this year, and will be about aliens but… I believe it’s a new idea, different from what already seen.
Oh, I also started brainstorming the next (and likely last) game of the Tales From The Under-Realm series (yuri only like the other titles). For now all I can say is that Evelyn from After Midnight will be a love interest, and the protagonist will be a half-demon named Lilith. Not a bad start, eh?
Lol the title sounds funny, doesn’t it? Since recently I released many games, this year instead of the usual “end of year thoughts”, I’m going to make a sort of quick postmortem for each of them. I’ll talk about the difficulties I had, the ROI (Return of Investment, in other word how much profitable the game was) and so on.
But first of all, my games are discounted on Steam and itchio:
This game really saved my mental health. I was recovering after Planet Stronghold 2 burn-out, and the realization that big games are no longer viable (at least for me) and I was unsure what to do. Then I wrote this game’s first draft almost all at once, in 2 months (about 60k words, more were added later). I went for a cheaper game, even if of course I had the usual “is too expensive” complaints (when in reality there are other VN with not even half of the wordcount and shallow characters sold for same amount lol).
But it went very well. Very good KS, good sales, had a lot of fun doing it. So far one of my best experiences of the last few years.
At Your Feet
Lucy wishing you Happy Holidays
Every time I talk about this game, a smile forms on my face lol. However, I was really pleased by how it did. Despite an average KS, the game itself on Steam did well. And the ROI was good. Most importantly, I laughed a lot while doing it from start to finish. Something that not always happens with all my games. I like writing deep serious stories, political intrigue, fantasy stuff but… sometimes you just want to try something crazy!
Love Notes
A more manga version of Rachel wishing you happy holidays
A game that went OK both on Kickstarter and sales, and fans of the first title seems to really have liked it. From my experience though, nowadays on Steam if you don’t have at least nudity (not erotic stuff, but at least some scenes with tasteful nudity) you can’t possibly hope to get any good sales, and unfortunately this game was no exception.
I don’t think will do any other games that don’t offer at least some optional spicy content, and this of course will limit the number of artists I can use (not many are OK with that).
The Curse Of Mantras
I like this pinup version of Gambaron
Despite the average Steam reviews, this game did well. Not exceptional, but good. However I clearly see some mistakes I did. Premise: I’m already happy that I managed to finish it, considering the super mess that it was. As I posted before, this game wasn’t really planned well, I acted on impulse (started it 8 years ago!) riding the wave of enthusiasm of forum people who kept screaming “add more romances! add male protagonist!” and so on 🙂 My fault of course, but that happened.
It’s one of those games that in today’s market, either are a hit (for my standards of course), or average sellers and in general, give bad ROI. As you can imagine such a big game took a lot of time, money, efforts. And the result … well, since for once I dared to focus not on romance but mainly on the mystery and the various characters backstories, a few people didn’t like the game for that, leaving negative reviews on Steam. Also, many people playing in VN Mode quickly finished it and said there wasn’t enough content. Of course, if you skip the whole card gameplay which can offer at least 25-30h of playtime…!! Perhaps allowing people to skip the card game wasn’t a good move, even if it’s hard to say (I can imagine if I didn’t make the optional VN Mode I’d have complaints anyway).
I had fun during some parts of the development, creating all the cards and so on, but I had to take a lot of breaks to avoid burn-out, and it felt like a chore during the final stages of testing (making sure all the plot worked, testing battles for the 10th time, etc).
Don’t misunderstand thinking it sold badly: it has the highest Kickstarter funding for me so far, and even direct and Steam sales were pretty good. It’s only the same old story repeating, what happened for Planet Stronghold 2: if a game takes 10-12 months of hard work, the ROI needs to be much higher. Otherwise, it’s better to do 2-3 smaller games, and in case of pure VN I don’t even have to go nuts with coding (which of course also add more long-term support because you can find bugs even months after the release!).
I’m not including TFTU: After Midnight of course since it’s too early, but so far impression seems very positive, could be one of the best games I released in last 2-3 years!
Conclusions
Luckily for me, I had fun doing all the games mentioned. For some I had tougher moments, but I think it’s still related to the burn-out I had back in 2020. It’s really bad – is like a disease that I got, and it can resurface anytime I try to do something too complex. When others told me about that I wouldn’t believe it – now that I’ve experienced it myself first-hand I realize that it’s real and is bad.
As I posted earlier this month, I have some eye issues too so it adds to everything.
Anyway, I still plan to finish The Beastmaster Princess and ToA: An Elven Marriage next year, then maybe a couple of smaller and simpler titles, then the next ToA game and so on, until I’ve finished all the four spin-offs! Then I really think might not do RPGs anymore, since they are too time-consuming, unless somehow the next one sells 2-3 times Planet Stronghold 2. But there’s still plenty of time to take that decision.
That’s all for this year. Happy holidays and happy new year!
If you follow me on social networks, you already know that recently I had some serious eye issues. Luckily it seems nothing irreversible, but I should do a surgery to go back seeing well, so for now I’m thinking what to do. I can still work, but it’s becoming rather difficult.
Anyways, this is not an excuse, and indeed I’m happy to report that I’m making good progress on The Beastmaster Princess. The editor finished the third chapter (there are five in total) and we’ll also be able to put a harem ending (which seems one of the most requested feature recently lol).
Script so far is around 90,000 words (probably final count will be close to 100k), thus the game won’t be as big as ToA: An Elven Marriage, also because in the end there won’t be any RPG part. However it has plenty of romances, cool scenes and some cameos. For example below:
Myrth is hot as usual, but even our protagonist isn’t joking
The events of this game take place before Loren’s events, and since in the story the nomads will need to travel to Grandtree, there’ll be Rei and Myrth cameos.
I kept the story simple, with choices that changes the scenes, in particular if you unlock certain CGs or not, but if you play to get a romance you won’t need any guide. Instead if you want to maximize ALL the romances, get the harem ending, and also solve a little detective minigame (see below) then yes, will require more efforts!
During chapter 3 there’ll be a sort of detective minigame (my apologies for the typo)
In summary, I’m making this game so that the casual player will be able to see most of the content and get most of the achievements, with only a few things that will be more difficult (but not as difficult as to get some of the After Midnight endings, for example).
The game CG are also being finished as I’m writing this post, hopefully for the end of the months I’ll have them all. So, in summary:
100k words long plot (estimate)
male/female protagonists
4 romances + bonus harem ending
4 pin-up CG (love interest alone) + 4 love CG x 2 (male/female protagonists) + 4 ending CG x 2 (male/female protagonists) + 2 harem CG x 2 = 22 CGs in total!
each of those 22 CGs will also have a censored version for those who don’t want to see any nudity
I think that’s not bad at all for a $15 game!
Estimate release
Now that’s the big question. I think if I can keep working like this, despite everything, the game beta should be out around February, and the final game March/April at the latest. With all happening lately, I’ve given up the possibility to have a combat/RPG part (need to minimize the amount of time spent in front of the monitor), so that should speed things up.
That’s all for now, towards the end of the month I’ll do my usual “end of year” post and give you my best wishes!
I often liked to put a theme song on my games, but I never made what I’m about to do now: a sort of ranking. Of course it’s my personal tastes and yours will be different!
I want to divide them in two groups, songs from games released before 2020 and songs of the games released in the last two years, since they all have a song (while in the past I didn’t always have it).
This is not a ranking of successful games or anything else – just my PERSONAL tastes on the theme songs of my games! And there might be some surprises…
Older games songs ranking
Third place: Always Remember Me
It was the first theme song to appear in my games and maybe already because of this I have special memories attached to it. But anyway I also like how the song turned out in general!
Second Place: Roommates
I was really undecided if to put this first or second, but maybe because I’ve heard it so many times I’m starting to get sick of it 😛 Jokes aside, it was the perfect song to accompany this game!
First Place: C14 Dating & Cursed Lands
You weren’t expecting this, right? Well, I don’t know why but I think this song is catchy and I like this singer’s voice.
This one instead is a classic, I think probably the most romantic theme song of my games (though I also liked a lot Planet Stronghold 2 theme song).
Newer games songs ranking
Third Place: The Curse Of Mantras
I’m starting to see a pattern in my choices – songs with a sexy, low voice ! Jokes aside (well not even much) this could have been in the older songs since it was YEARS since the song was ready, but the game came out this year, so…
Second Place: Summer In Trigue & At Your Feet
This game came out in a particular moment of my life, and thanks to its art, writing and music was like taking a virtual trip to a tropical island and life the relaxing holiday life. In practice I have only good memories of this game and I always will, for personal reasons 🙂
This is the craziest song I’ll ever do for a game (which is also crazy too). The lyrics are hilarious and yet the melody is very catchy and I love this singer’s voice. Indeed she also did several other songs, like…
First Place: The Hardest Thing (Hazel)
Hazel’s theme song is very simple, just piano and voice, but I think is beautiful, both in the lyrics and in the singing. The same singer also did After Midnight song albeit is a different genre (more rock/gothic).
So that’s it! If you want to, share in the comments your favorite theme songs from my games (or even from other VNs)!
So far reception has been very good, people seemed to appreciate the murder mystery and the unpredictable characters. And of course, Evelyn. Yes I’m already thinking about a new game with her as protagonist, playing such a character could be fun.
Adult content problem again
As you might have noticed, even this game ended up in Adult Only section on Steam. I’ve said it a thousand times, I have no issues with adult content in general: the only problem is that people that browse games in that category might look for… less plot and more sexual stuff.
erotism is a form of art
Which in my case is bad since this game like all my games has character growth, relationship, a complex story with many branching choices and so on. The erotic scenes naturally happen in the couse of the love story between the characters, and it’s not the main goal of the game. The main goal is to find out who is the murderer and how the protagonist died. But apparently, for Steam review team, “the game appears to be adult in nature, from the story and setting, to the goal of unlocking sexualized CGs.“
Anyways, it could be worse! I just heard from the company porting my games to console that even Nintendo who seemed to be OK with adult stuff is now changing their mind, and they’ll have to censor all the games they ported on that console… so ending up in adult only category on Steam it’s not the end of the world.
People from Germany won’t be able to see the game, but if they buy it on itchio they can play it there and also redeem the free Steam key coming from the purchase. I think that by this point people from those banned countries have learned to not look for such content on Steam.
The kind of games I make
Last but not least, recently got some complaints from people about the kind of games I make, some even saying that there’s “too much LGBT”. First of all there isn’t a thing like “too much LGBT”, second in the end I can make the games I want (that’s why I became indie!) and last but not least, it’s not true.
If you like straight romances only, just looking at the last few years:
2020 – Planet Stronghold 2 which had all kind of romances (so, including straight ones) 2021 – Love Notes who had all kind of romances 2022 – The Curse of Mantras which, guess what? had all kind of romances 2023 – I’ll likely finally release ToA: An Elven Marriage with… ta-dah! all kind of romances (even more straight than LGBT romances in this case).
Consider that most other indies just release 1 game a year, and many just with one kind of romance, I don’t think I’m doing too badly! It is true, that I make more yuri games, but because on Steam they really do well (I made a blog post not long ago about this).
So the real question, if I had to analyze it from the business side of it (because I need to live with my job) would be: why I still make non-yuri games? lol. But if I can, I’ll always try to make one game a year with all possible romances.
Last days of the Beastmaster Princess Kickstarter!
Speaking of having more romance options, at the time of writing this blog post we’ve almost reached the base goal, but I would really like to have a male protagonist for my next fantasy Kickstarter. Below you see some sketches for the male CGs:
a very hot scene with Takara, reminding me of the one with Damien in Planet Stronghold
