A crazy week

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I’m writing this blog still half-broken because of a flu I got early this week. Fun because I had one around the same time last year too, even if was much lighter!

Heileen 3: Sea Maidens slightly delayed

Now first of all, as you can imagine, I wasn’t able to work on Heileen 3 yuri version. I feel better but not good enough to code, which requires concentration to avoid making lots of mistakes. However, the writers have basically finished reviewing the texts, so I think the beta could start the coming week.

Spirited Heart 2 – Religious Wars

That is the provisory title. What?? 😀 I’m joking of course! A rather crazy thing happened though, that is the current character artist for that game refused to draw the girls for the yuri version. For “religious reasons” because he’s a Christian.

I don’t want to get into a debate, however my uncle was a Catholic priest and always said about homosexual people that “the important thing is that they love each other”. My uncle was a better man than many others.

In defense of that artist (which I won’t name), when we originally started the project, it was to be just a standard GxB game. Indeed work on it started in 2009, shortly after the first game, and since then lots of things changed (positively I think) in the content you can find in my games.

So while I don’t agree on what he says, I respected his decision. What happened next?

Here comes el salvador!

Haha I’m not sure if the title above is correct but I can always blame my illness 😉 So after this drawback was unsure what to do. I had already invested a consistent amount of time and money (few thousands) on that art, but I didn’t want to disappoint my fans, which is the thing I consider more when doing my job.

M.Beatriz Garcia, who worked with me already in the Flower Shops series, was supposed to draw the chibis for the game already, starting this month. So I thought to ask her if she could work on the rest of the art needed for the game, and the answer was positive! 🙂 She has no problems to draw any kind of romance, so the game will have all combos, hetero and homosexual. Of course we’re talking about a very soft game, not sexy like Loren (I thought it was obvious, but…).

Below is a preliminary sketch of the 3 main female characters:

Main_girls

Note that they’re in undergarments only because the game will allow a lot of customization in clothes, accessories, hats, and so on, like a “paperdoll”. I really like how the personality of each race is already transparent from that sketch!

My name is Roger Steel

This crazy week ended when yesterday I got the first draft of the storyboard for a “mysterious RPG game” that I will officially announce in the next weeks. Those reading my forums or following me on twitter already know what it is the setting though 😉 For now I’ll leave you wondering who is that Roger Steele? (but don’t worry the game will be playable as male or female main character).

2013 the year of challenges

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Happy New 2013 to everyone!

Before making this post I’ve read what I wrote last year, calling 2012 the “year of relax”: https://www.winterwolves.net/blog/2012/01/2012-time-to-relax/

Well, definitely it wasn’t a relaxing year, even if I released only 3 games (I consider The Castle Of N’Mar, Loren’s expansion, as a separate game because of its size!).

It wasn’t a relaxing year because was worried that with Loren I tried to bite off more than I can chew, and I also had to make a real marathon to finish Heileen 3 in time for Christmas.

Looking back to that post, it’s a bit funny to observe how many titles that were already in progress at those times, from Planet Stronghold 2, to Nicole, to Roommates, are still in progress right now! But well, making games takes time! And in particular if there are problems. And as you can imagine, there are ALWAYS going to be problems! 😉

Good news

Anyway, I have some early good news for this year: Heileen 3 yuri version is at very good point, and I might start the beta testing even next week, since I’m aiming to release it around the mid-January.

More good news are that even Bionic Heart 2 is at good point, I’m only waiting for the proofreader to finish checking the script, and I have 90% of the art & music finished already.

The RPG challenge

As for the future games later this year, I’m really eager to start working on Planet Stronghold 2 even if will be a real challenge, because has much more features compared to the first title, and also compared to Loren. Some features include:

  • a small but detailed colony building simulation (think of it like a sort of Sim City on a very small scale) that will impact the gameplay (but I am thinking to make it optional so that you can skip it if you want)
  • lots of weapons that can be used with dual wield (like two pistols)
  • weapons with different ammo types (in the first game the ammo was unlimited). So the combo of possible weapons and ammo is very big!
  • more use of the non-combat skills in the various missions of the game
  • lots of more art, including some extra “talk poses”
  • full soundtrack of 10 songs

and so on, so as you can see is a very big project.

Being able to work on the RPG and at same time still follow the other projects will be a challenge as well, since differently from what happened with Loren, I don’t want to “abandon” completely all the other games while working on the RPG. It won’t be easy at all, but I will try!

The appstore challenge

The biggest challenge though will be to see what happens with the Windows/MacOS situation. It’s fun how some fellow indie devs who before ignored completely the question, are now starting to panic because they get emails from customers saying “the game doesn’t run on Mountain Lion, says the download is corrupted!” or they get big warning screens from Windows 8 when trying to open/install a game.

What’s going on? Well in practice, unless you were a bit prevident like me and codesigned all your game apps/installers, the end users are going to see scary messages from their favorite OSes (except Linux of course!) telling them that they’re trying to install the worst evil on Earth: an independently produced game!!! :O

And that’s not a good thing because this way small indies like me can continue to survive and rescue stray cats and dogs! Fools, you should help the already rich corporations to become even richer! They’re going to spend the money in a much better way, like buying a new Ferrari 😉

Ok, jokes apart (I was joking in case it wasn’t clear!!) the situation is definitely NOT good for indies like me who can’t get on Steam. The long term alternatives to retain our freedom exist, like using HTML5 engines, but that means that instead of seeing 3-4 games a year from me, you’d see 1 a year at most (they take much longer to make). I really hope the new appstores won’t become the only way to distribute apps on Windows/Mac computers, since that would mean no freedom to choose which language to use (python), which content to put in my games (no sexy stuff is allowed on appstores), and maybe have them rejected lots of times for silly reasons like happened to A LOT of friends on the various iOS/Win8 appstores.

Anyway, at least for now codesigning the executables will let you play all my games even on the new versions of the OSes. But I’m pretty sure that a big challenge for us indies lies ahead…! Better be ready for it 🙂

2012 the year of Loren

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As usual I’m doing the end of the year blog post, in which I talk how it was the year that is about to end for me. Looking back at the post I wrote in 2011, lots of things went better.

First of all, and most importantly, I didn’t had so many losses like last year. In April I lost my cat Orpheus, but luckily it was the only loss.

The year of RPGs and Loren

Personal life apart, the main event of this year for me as you can guess was the release of the RPG Loren The Amazon Princess. I already did a postmortem about it, but now that more than 6 months passed after its release, the response of people that are playing/discovering it is still amazing, and I can absolutely say that will do more RPGs in future 🙂

Does it means that I will do only RPGs? No, of course! I need some simpler games from time to time to take a break and recharge batteries. Heileen 3 was good on this regard, because while is true that making it was still working, it felt almost relaxing to have “just to design and code some simple life simulation rules” instead of balancing 60 skills and testing endless battles like I did for Loren 😀

I’ll still put some RPG mechanics in the other games though, like the leveling skills of Heileen 3 (which I think was something relatively new, at least in the OELVN?) or the “crafting gameplay” that will be present in Amber’s Magic Shop.

This year was my best since I went indie, and this means that I must thank first everyone who is supporting my games (I’m not on any big portal, so every little sale count!) and also a special thanks to all my valid collaborators/partners who are helping me so much to make better games! In no order and using a mix of names/nicknames: Aleema, Anima, Sarah, Megan, Michael, Franklin, George, Deji, Ayu, Matthew, Eddy, Slamet and everyone else who probably missed but that helped me making games.

Future improvements

I think that the artwork of my games is already at good levels, even if will try to have more quantity/variety of images or scenes. However, there are two crucial aspects that I plan to improve in the next year games:

Custom soundtracks

It’s something so obvious that is quite embarrassing for me to say it. In the past games I always used royalty free audio tracks. A bit because I couldn’t afford to hire a musician, and also because I have hard time to explain exactly what music I need, because of language barrier.

However as I’ve seen by the response to Heileen 3 custom track bonus, people really like that. So for all future games I’ll have full soundtracks made and have them available as mp3 bonus content.

Professionally made logos

A friend of mine pointed out that while the art of my games is in general quite good, the logos sucks. Indeed, I made most of the logos myself! 🙂 That’s why I asked M.Beatriz Garcia also known as Deji to create logos for all the next games, so for sure they will look much better!

It might seem a minor detail, but I must say that people often judge games by first impressions. And surely a professionally done logo has much better impact than my current ones.

In conclusion

Even for this year the show is over! I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and I’m looking forward to work on the next year games. Stay tuned!

Heileen 3 released, Merry Christmas and the end of the world

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Heileen 3 is finally out

First of all, Heileen 3: New Horizon was officially released a couple days ago. Here’s the official trailer with the theme song:

For more info and demos, check the official game page: http://www.winterwolves.com/heileen.htm

I’m working on the yuri version right now which will be called “Heileen 3: Sea Maidens” and should be out very soon, probably mid-January. Will do a postmortem about the game once that version is out.

Merry Christmas!

Second, I want to wish you Merry Christmas and like every year, I’m doing it by offering a generous discount on all my games (except Heileen 3 of course since it was just released!).

Use the coupon code: XMAS to get 50% off any single game. Remember that the coupon is not cumulable with other offers, so for example it won’t work if you try to buy game bundles which have an automatic discount already (Spirited Heart + Girl’s Love, The Flower Shop games, and so on).

…the end of the world ?

As you know, today Friday 21st December 2012 the world should end. I hope not, since I was just starting to have fun working on my games! 🙂 Besides, I have so many interesting projects for next year that it would be really a pity. Check for yourself:

What’s coming next year from Winter Wolves

January: As said, the plan is to get Heileen 3 yuri version out. Will also probably announce officially a new Steampunk RPG project 😉

February: Release of Bionic Heart 2 or at least begin the preorder/beta testing phase

Rest of the year: Depending how things go, the release of Planet Stronghold 2 and/or the Steampunk RPG, and maybe one or more of the other dating / life sims currently in progress like Nicole, Roommates, Amber Magic Shop or Spirited Heart 2, but that’s too early to tell!

The importance of 2012 for visual novels

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Only three Fridays left before the end of the Year! If we want to believe the Mayans, only two and curiously next Friday is the 21st 🙂

I used to make some generic posts at the end of the year talking about how my year was and the future projects. Heileen 3 testing is going forward even if (luckily!) being a dating/life sim is going much smoother than Loren (which took 3 months to test in practice!).

For those that don’t know yet, there’s a beta demo available here:

http://www.winterwolves.com/heileen3.htm

and well, in practice the game is done except a few short scenes that we’re trying to add before the official release date (but might be added in an update later).

What I want to talk about in this post is the most important events in 2012 regarding visual novels / story-based games.

The importance of Analogue: A Hate Story

Unless you’ve been living on the Moon, you probably heard about that game. But in my opinion was very important mostly because it was the first visual novel made in the west (probably the first visual novel ever, since Recettear is more a simulation/RPG) to appear on Steam.

And it did well. That’s quite interesting, since showed that with the right product/marketing you can compete with other more popular indie genres. Yes, indies don’t make only platformers! 😉

Shortly after even Magical Diary appeared (even if I know that it was accepted long before, but for some reasons was delayed for months). It is more a life sim than a plain visual novel, but it did well too and showed that there’s a market beside the classic FPS or multiplayer games.

The importance of Cinders

Another very important event happened, the release of the VN Cinders by Moacube. When Tom first approached me I knew him a bit because we used to viist the same forums, but I really had no clue that he was involved in some top selling HOG (Hidden Object Games) made in the previous years. I also admit that I had no clue who Vinegaria (the artist) was 😀

So imagine my surprise when he showed me some early work in progress of the game! Top quality art and music in a visual novel? No manga style artwork? that was never seen before as far as I know (well I tried with Vera Blanc but wasn’t really top quality!)

I admit I had some doubts on the potential public reactions, because I thought that manga artwork and focus on romance were both key part to make a selling visual novel, but the success of Cinders proved me wrong. And I’m happy to be wrong, since it was because of that if I decided to make Bionic Heart 2, trying to focus more on story / mystery and not just romance, spending more money on art and with custom soundtrack.

The importance of Walking Dead

It amuses me when people talk about Telltale game and define it “an adventure”. Yes sure, there are a few puzzles that requires some thinking, a few items you can carry, some short action scenes, but you spend 80% (if not more) of the gameplay time doing two things: reading dialogues/story and making choices!

How is called that game genre that is based on dialogues and choices that affect future outcomes? Hmm yes, I think is called Visual Novels!!! 😉

That game is receiving tons of prizes and awards, and once again shows that people are ready to spend money on a very well done story-based game. Of course such level of polish is beyond reach for most indie teams since is full 3d, with realtime animations and so on. But I was happy to see it do well (also because I’d like to play more games like that myself!).

In conclusion

This year was really important for visual novel and story-based games. And I didn’t even mention To The Moon (released last year but appeared on Steam this year too), or the various Wadjet Eye adventures for example.

Of course, it was also a good year for me, mainly because of my game Loren The Amazon Princess, but I’ll talk about it in detail in another post before the end of the year 🙂