This week’s characters introductions are Tristan and Valerie. They’re a bit spoilery, even if it’s to be expected from a supernatural dating sim!

Check the game’s Kickstarter here.

Valerie Vaughn

Apparent Age: 23

At first glance, many people think of Valerie as the younger and more irresponsible sister of Tristan. After all, she is a constant fixture in the bar, enjoying the newest band to grace the stage and the newest man or woman to cross her path.

What few know is that Valerie is actually Tristan’s elder by over a century, both created by the same elder vampire. Despite the age difference, this does make the two siblings in the eyes of vampire society.

What is more remarkable is unlike many older vampires, Valerie acts like a fledgling. Normally, as such creatures age, they become more stodgy as a result. However, Valerie has an energy that many find tiring.

Some of this can be attributed to the time when she was mortal. The daughter of a noble family, she was expected to marry well, and bear her husband many children. However, Valerie chafed under such restrictions and ran away just a few nights before her arranged wedding day.

While still fleeing, Valerie discovered that she was being followed. No matter what she did, or how far she went, the pursuer got closer, keeping a distance while relishing her distress. Growing irritated, Valerie created a trap to catch her hunter. Much to the vampire’s surprise and delight, it worked. Instead of draining her as previously planned, Valerie was turned into a vampire.

However, with a greatly extended lifespan comes the need to occupy that time. Now that she had her freedom, Valerie took the time to travel through Europe. Of course, she was more than capable of defending herself as no few brigands found to their detriment when accosting what they assumed to be a lady on her own.

Valerie grew so proficient that the vampire society at large made her into assassin. After all, if one lives long enough, you are bound to create a few enemies. Some you might be able to outlive, but others can be more problematic, and in that case it helps to have someone who can handle it.

It was one such problem which drew Valerie to North America. Her quarry was more powerful than initially assumed, and beat Valerie in a fight. Her injuries were so great, though, that she fell into a long sleep.

A long time passed before she woke up, only to find the world greatly changed. Much to her surprise, Tristan was actually nearby and helped her get established in the city. At the moment, Valerie’s time is her own and she intends to enjoy it as much as possible.

Tristan Vaughn

Age: 27

No one can remember how long the Vaughn family has lived in town, except that it has been running the bar Nightshade now for going on over 100 years. This isn’t to say the building stayed the same since it does undergo major renovations, but it certainly is one of the oldest family owned businesses in the city.

However, something seems wrong with the current owner, Tristan. He rarely goes about during the day, and many people just assume he suffers from some kind of genetic disorder. However, he is a constant in the city’s nightlife, easily identified by the shades he rarely takes off.

What few people know is that this is an illusion; every owner has been Tristan. Through various disguises, both supernatural and mundane, Tristan keeps a close eye on the city, feeling as if he helped it grow from a simple cow town a century and half before.

This isn’t to mean Tristan is aloof. He is known to patronize art galleries as well as give stage space to promising bands. One of his favorite finds in recent years was a band called Spectral Howl which invigorated his cold blood.

In supernatural society, Tristan is generally left alone, his bar considered ‘neutral’ territory by the various factions who inevitably arise given time. This doesn’t mean Tristan is weak, far from it. Besides his supernatural powers, few know that was actually a vampire hunter in mortal life.

However, Tristan grew complacent. On one hunt, his foe proved rather wily and captured Tristan. With great curiosity, the vampire turned Tristan into a creature just like he hunted. Those early nights were really tough, but Tristan learned that while he needed blood to survive, it didn’t require him taking a life to do so.

The last few years have been a mixed bag for Tristan starting with a young college student who occasionally came to the bar. There was something off about them, a touch that reminded Tristan of the draugur. This person seemed to stir up other supernaturals, and for a moment Tristan was afraid he’d have to get involved again.

Though this matter was resolved, it left Tristan with a great unease. One thing he learned during his long nights was to follow his gut instinct, and it felt like another storm was brewing on the horizon.

Coming next week

Next week will post the other two love interests introductions: Zoe and Nathan! Of course, unless we hit the bonus romances stretch goal of Kasumi and Dante. Check the game’s Kickstarter here.

As promised, going to do a few weekly blog posts to introduce Love Notes characters. Let’s start with the two protagonists, Rachel and Jesse. Check the game’s Kickstarter here.

Rachel Bailey
Age: 21

At first glance, Rachel seems to be doing quite well for herself. After all, as the ‘face’ of her band, Spectral Howl, people assume she has the world at her feet. However, this could be the furthest from the truth.

Going all the way back to elementary school, Rachel is a rather shy person. She would rather read a book than play with the other kids. However, her distance stance actually drew the attention of Jesse. A bit of a class clown, Jesse did his best to make her laugh and more often than not he succeeded.

All of the shyness disappears when Rachel gets on stage and loses herself in the music. It is still a bit of a surprise that the innumerable violin lessons she took as child would serve her in good stead in her current career.

When she graduated high school, Rachel was at loose ends. Though her parents heavily encouraged her to go to university, going back to school was the furthest thing from Rachel’s mind and she only lasted a semester. Instead, she flitted from job to job, never finding anything strong enough to hold her interest.

This all changed when Jesse performed at an open mike night at a bar she was currently working at as a waitress. For months, Jesse was not at his best, and as his best friend, Rachel was quite concerned. However, when Jesse started to play, Rachel felt a stirring within her breast, and quickly joined him on stage. The reaction from the crowd showed this could be a path the two of them could take.

However, what goes up can also come down. The first problem occurred when Rachel found out one of their bandmates was selling drugs on the side, using each gig as a way to expand their network. If this wasn’t enough, another bandmate left when they accused Rachel of trying to steal Jesse from them.

This came as a total shock to Rachel. For one thing, she and Jesse were good friends, nothing else. For another, Rachel didn’t even know the two people were romantically together.

If this wasn’t bad enough, Rachel’s also been suffering horrible dreams. She can’t remember much about them other than the iron tang of blood in her mouth from when she bit her lips.

Despite all this, now that Rachel found her passion, she is going to try to keep it alive at all costs.

Jesse Morgan
Age: 22

As one of the founding members of the band, Spectral Howl, Jesse bears a quiet confidence that puts people at ease in his presence. After all, it takes courage to drop out of college just one year before graduation in order to pursue one’s musical dreams.

This choice wasn’t that hard to make. Jesse was unsure about pursuing his degree, and in fact felt trapped by the expectations of those around him. However, after getting a positive reception about his musical skills from a local bar, as well as the unanticipated vocal talents of Rachel, Jesse decided to forge a new path.

However, he also knew he couldn’t do it alone. He first turned to Rachel, his oldest friend going back to elementary school. They were constants in each other’s lives, knowing they could rely on each no matter what comes. From there, they started to recruit other people like Sean to play the drums.

Jesse is glad he isn’t the ‘face’ of the band, gladly relegating that role to Rachel. Jesse definitely pulls his own weight. Besides being the lead guitarist, Jesse is also the chief song writer. Occasionally this causes him to butt heads with other bandmates when revisions are suggested and Jesse digs in his heels on any changes at all.

For a while, the band was quite successful. They consistently sold out their venues, and there was even talk of a possible record label contract. However, being at the top makes a fall that much greater. It started when the bass guitarist was arrested, forcing Jesse to try and find a replacement. Almost as quickly, a second member left, citing irreconcilable differences with Rachel.

However, current circumstances have shaken Jesse to his core. From his waning friendship with Rachel to the dissolution of his band, Jesse is standing at a crossroads. Does he keep following his dream, or is it time to pursue some other career?

If this wasn’t bad enough, Jesse finds himself plagued by nightmares that he doesn’t know the source of. The only thing he can remember is a flash of gleaming white before waking up in a cold sweat.

Despite all of this, Jesse isn’t one to give up. Adversity builds strength, and Jesse is sure he can face whatever challenge comes his way.

Next week, will be the turn of Valerie and Tristan! Remember to check the game’s Kickstarter here.

First of all, my latest yuri dating sim “At Your Feet” is now officially out both on itchio and Steam!

Itchio: https://winter-wolves.itch.io/at-your-feet
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1537800/At_Your_Feet

And here’s the new video trailer featuring the game theme song (which turned out great):

As I said several times already I hope that people will give it a try even if they’re not interested in that particular kink since the cast diversity and the comedy setting makes, in my opinion, a very interesting/funny story to play!

New Kicksterter: Love Notes

Love Notes is my new Kickstarter campaign! This time you can play as male or female, and there are 4 love interests (2 male + 2 female). Each path is unique. As you probably guessed from the art style and title, it’s a game set in the same world as Love Bites, but it’s not necessary to have played the first game at all!

For more info check the Kickstarter page.

We already reached the base goal (the Kickstarter is 4 days old) but I hope we reach at least the 4 unique songs stretch goals since we’re going to use the same singer who did TFTU: Hazel and At Your Feet songs, which turned out great.

But even the bonus romances goal would be nice. The first one to be revealed is the female one, Kasumi:

She was a secondary character in Love Bites, and she is going to be a NPC too in Love Notes, unless we reach the 10k goal. And on the next stretch goal reached (4000 for extra BG/art) I’ll also reveal the male bonus romance, which I’m sure could be very popular!

I plan to do some weekly posts this month to introduce the new characters. Stay tuned.

What’s next?

So beside the new Kickstarter, what’s next? Well, for sure, Summer In Trigue. It should be out before the crazy holidays sale period. I am going to participate on the Steam Next fest in early October with a demo, and release the game shortly after.

I know, three yuri game releases in a single year (counting Hazel)? It’s a record indeed. But if you’re not into yuri, worry not, because the next few games that will come out will have all the romance options again, like Love Notes.

After Summer in Trigue and Love Notes, I’ll finally resume working on Curse Of Mantras too. If I manage it in time, it would be nice to have a short demo before end of year. If not, worse case I’ll publish some videos to show the progress.

With this kind of game is a bit weird since maybe one day you design 10 new cards. Then the next day you code and try them in game, and fix the inevitable bugs. Then another day you realize that they’re screwing up the balance, and so on.

This part is more difficult than with RPGs, since sometimes a single “overpowered” card can break the game. People who play this kind of CCG (collectible card games) know it well. It’s enough to see the frequent nerfs/patches done by big companies like Blizzard for their game Hearthstone!

Of course I’m trying to do my best to make the game FUN, more than “balanced”. I don’t mind if there are some (well hidden) tricks to make an invincible army of mythological creatures 🙂

So in summary, Summer in Trigue should be next release. Then Love Notes hopefully early next year. Then Curse Of Mantras. This almost surely means that the next ToA game An Elven Marriage won’t be out in 2022, but I guess we’ll see. Maybe a demo or beta towards end of the next year could be possible!

First of all, a short update on the two titles I’m working on at the moment: both At Your Feet and Summer In Trigue are at very good point! It amuses me that, as already happened in the past completely randomly, I’ll have two games ready at same time lol!

Anyway, the plan is to try releasing both before end of year, and keep working on the bigger Curse Of Mantras. I might also announce a new game before end of the year too, a surprise (except for my Patreon subscribers).

And now let’s go on with the main post topic:

Today I’m talking about something that I suspect very few users know, but also not every indie does (that’s bad! but it’s OK, I made same mistake too in the past).

What I’m talking about? I’m talking about the initial concept phase which should be behind every game. Usually, when you plan a new game, there’s this initial phase which should happen before everything else.

Now this is especially true for games with gameplay, but even for pure visual novels it’s a necessary part to have a good final product. In summary: during this phase you write down all possible ideas, the game theme/setting, the goals of the game, potential hooks/marketing value, etc.

It’s a very important phase since it will determine your game overall success. Yes of course the development phase matters a lot (a good idea is worth nothing if it’s badly executed) but a bad idea is bad and no matter what you do, it won’t work.

But as I said, it’s not just about the idea. It’s about everything: the mood/setting, the art style, the writing/story. For VN or story based games those things are super important!

Some real world examples from my games:

Loren The Amazon Princess – when I first started working on it, I had this hook in mind. You don’t play as the main character, but as her sidekick. You’re not the main hero, you start as a simple amazon slave. Then of course there are a lot of other ideas but the main ones where those, and I believe it was very original, and appreciated by players.

But for Loren I also took a very important decision early in the game development. I was unsure which art style to use. At the times (back in 2011-2012!) I knew only otome artist with a beautiful but “too cute” style (Always Remember Me for example). So I did some tests with a western comic art-style. But, remembering how people didn’t like it in Vera Blanc, I decided to keep looking. It took me MONTHS to find the right artist, and luckily I stumbled into that very skilled artist who did Loren and several other of my fantasy games, a perfect mix between manga and western art, with cute faces but realistic bodies.

Those two things above, together with good writing and a simple but funy RPG part, made the game’s success. And we did a LOT of testing / planning for the RPG framework as well!

Loren development took about 10 months, but I actually spent about another 6 months before the game even started to plan the characters, story, art, RPG rules, etc. And that probably was the most important work.

Amber’s Magic Shop – in this case, things didn’t go as smoothly. I made the mistake of doing the story first, before planning carefully the gameplay. The resulting game was that the gameplay and story felt too much disconnected. Many people still liked it, but I felt like I could have done a much better job with some more careful planning. In that case I got too much worried to finish the game without too many delays, a mistake I won’t repeat in future. Better delay a game and do some other smaller game meanwhile to keep fans happy, than rush a game out.

Make a spreadsheet / flowchart / plan!

In my early stages I was just doing games “on the flow”. There is nothing wrong in feeling inspired and following your inspiration to write or design/code. BUT this shouldn’t be the first thing you do.

First you should make a plan. How does the story unfold? What are the basic classes of this RPG? what are the mechanics of this collectible card game? Of course, when you get to actually work on it you’ll surely do many changes “on the fly”, not planned. That’s normal. But you should still have a main plan to follow otherwise it’s going to be a mess. And doesn’t matter if is a complex game or a simple dating sim. Plan everything ahead! Might seem wasted time but trust me, it’s not.

Conclusions

The two example above, Loren and Amber, are just two of my over 30 games. I could talk about each one in detail and how in some I did things properly while in others not. But this post would become way too long! If you’re a player, now you know a bit more how things work behind the scenes, during this initial planning stage. If you’re a developer, and you’re not spending enough time doing the concept phase, you should reconsider it, because every extra month spent doing this can result in a much better game in the end.

It’s time for me to give an update and more details on this game! First of all, here’s the title screen (work in progress but the logo is final):

But who exactly is marrying, you might ask. Well I don’t want to spoil too much, but since it’s the premise of the game, and you get to know it anyway during the first scenes of the story, I’ll tell you just this time!

The marriage is between Lydia, the princess of the Moon Elves (and one of the love interests of this game), and High Cleric Marian from Lakshun, the capitol of Paqwana. The game begins with Saren or Elenor being summoned by Apolimesho, who explains how such a marriage is very important, since it’s the first marriage in years between an Elf (albeit a Moon Elf) and a member of the Human Empire (Paqwana is part of the Empire).

As you can imagine, a lot of people don’t like this marriage, and they’ll do everything in their power to make it fail. In addition, a certain familiar succubus is looking after our team…

The RPG gameplay

Regarding the gameplay, I couldn’t of course reuse a previous system, I had to do some changes! Even if the core system remains the same. There are some interesting variants though: let’s see them together.

First of all, the front/back row system is back! This was a very popular request and I agree it makes the battles more strategic. They might not be as cool looking as if they were seen in first person (Cursed Lands or Planet Stronghold 2) but since Loren had this system I thought it makes sense to do the various spin-offs using it.

The battles will still be turn based, with movement order determined by skills and attributes. The four elements + dark magic of Loren will be replaced by 3 main resistances Elemental, Debilitation and Mental) each one with 3 sub-categories. This because differently from Loren there will be other kind of magic (more about this below).

The biggest change though will be the overdrive system: it’s a value represented by 3 stars that slowly fills up as you fight battles (deal damage, heal, etc). Each character has a special overdrive skill that is very powerful and can change the tides of battle, but using it requires one overdrive star.

This means that people might want to save them for tougher battles, adding some more strategy overall. Of course everything is still work in progress and during beta I’ll tweak this new system better.

Regarding the playable classes, another very popular request was being able to play as magic user and I’m happy to announce that yes, you’ll be able to play as mage if you want!

There will be four playable classes: Warrior, Thief, Mage and Warden (sort of healer magic user).

Like in Cursed Lands there will be items that can cast spells or give skills like the “Book of Nightmares” above.

New resistances and stuff for nerds

And now some stuff that will be interesting mostly for the RPGs nerds 😛

I’m still balancing the various skills, spells, resistances, etc. but I have decided to try moving away from the elemental+dark resistance, to use a different system. The various school of magic will still exist of course, but now the resistance is based on the actual effect/damage type.

There will be 3 main damage types: Elemental, Debilitation and Mental. They should cover almost everything.

In Loren, in practice every spell was dealing some form of elemental damage. But moving forward I also plan to have different stuff, like spells that impact target’s emotions, feelings, etc.

Some examples:

• a Fireball will still obviously inflict Elemental damage
• the Stinging Swarm spell will inflict Debilitation damage
• the Dark Magic spell “Brain Shatter” will inflict Mental damage

And so on. I think this system is better because allows different spells/damage types and resistances and also makes more sense for some spells. Then for each damage type there will be 3 debuff resistances, as shown below:

The armors will give defense and protection against one of the 3 main categories, while the jewelry will increase resistances against some of the debuffs. The resistance of the armor will reduce damage:

An armor with 50% Elemental resistance will reduce the damage from a Fireball from 20 to 10.

But for the debuffs it will be a percentage to determine if they trigger or not (maybe I’ll use it to reduce the length instead, still need to do some tests).

The romances

Also for those who missed the news, I’ve managed to find an artist to edit existing CGs so that both Lydia and Nathir can be bisexual romances! Which means the following:

• as Elenor, you can continue Rei’s romance or start single and pursue Lydia or Nathir
• as Saren, you can conitnue Myrth’s romance or start single and pursue Lydia or Nathir

So there will be two straight and one homosexual romance for each playable character, much better than originally planned! 🙂

Each romance will have one “couple” love scene, plus 1 “pin-up” image, which means the love interest will be seen in first person, so he/she is alone. As you know unfortunately this artist doesn’t work for me anymore so I cannot do any changes (it was already hard to find someone to edit the romances good enough to make Lydia/Nathir bisex!).

Adult content

For my newer games I’ve started offering optional adult content. For some older titles though, I have all art ready (I did it years ago) so in those there can be more erotic texts, but unfortunately the images cannot be changed (would need to get them edited again and I don’t think the result would be good).

This means that for this and the other 3 Saren/Elenor spin-off games, and Curse Of Mantras, there won’t be adult content. Nudity, yes, but nothing as explicit as my recent titles like Hazel or Planet Stronghold 2, to be clear.

That’s all, I hope this post has answered many questions that people have been asking me more or less privately!