I like the white version the best. Blue is 2nd choice.

Actually, I like the blue one least. The middle one has it's own charm, in a platemail way. Thoug not as much as the bright white one.

Spoke with writer, who kindly reminded me to not break his balls until end of July since he's busy with another project (he's right, I totally forgot about it and kept sending him emails like "oh remember this and that!")

Anyway told him about the possibility to do some cameos, and I made this mockup image since I got the Dingirra's Arena background today:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/dc8b193a7dfcd095c13693dbfb27519f/tumblr_mpexxs8VID1qhts2bo1_1280.jpg" style="max-width:100%">

Shea druid is not displaying a great courage here, but can't blame him. I wouldn't be enthusiast to face Amukiki in a full gladiator outfit!

WOW! O__O I'm impressed!

That picture makes me laugh :D Well, if I was in his shoes I would probably do something like that as well I think Amukiki would hit me into a pancake...



I have to say, love the designs of the snow elf twins! Althea looks sooooo pretty! <3

I like the middle outfit vor Chalassa best.



The PC Designs are interesting. Althea is perfect for an assassin - she looks refreshing innocent. The Bow could be a little big longer with more decorations on it.



Shea could have a bit more confident expression, but is fine in his own way, too.



I'm looking forward to see their ingame charakter design.

Speaking of the bow: The size is more or less right for an hunting recurve bow. However, the string should be fastened near the tip, and while carried it should lay for a few cm on the wood.



A bit technical wall of text, if you are interested why the bow is built as it is: The part of the bow which is bent "backwards" near the tips is called the recurve. This part gives the bow the name. The recurve makes drawing more "smooth": a simple longbow will have low draw strength for most of the way, and then a steep increase. The recurve bow will increase in draw strength faster for the first part of the draw length, due to the special form. Besides being more convinient for the archer this has also the advantage of giving a bit more energy to the arrow, what is the purpose of a bow. And a recurve bow can be made smaller than a longbow, which was in anicient times even more an advantage: A longbow is too cumbersome to be used from saddle, and it is also more of a hassle when using it for hunting in the woods (think: dense undergrowth).



Hope the explanation makes sense.



You can google "hunting recurve bows" to get pictures of such bows.

Yea I know that stuff. Have a book about crafting bow's here for myself.



I just thought about the "average rpg player" who will expect a larger weapon (Though I hope they will not get as big as in anime which are kinda stupidly oversized)

Not sure what the "average RPG player" expects. For me the size of the bow looked OK. The string did not (which was not adressed to you, DunKalar, more at jack1974 and the artist).

There are some bows that are close to or even even exceed the height of the user, but most bows are half that length. An asymmetrical bow, where the lower limb is shorter than the upper limb, can allow an otherwise huge bow (such as the Japanese daikyu) to be useable while crouching or on horseback. The design of the bow all comes to materials available, style of combat, and the weather/environment.



That being said, since this is a fantasy setting, suspension of disbelief is to be expected.

Yes right, some bows are bigger than others. But the form of the bow indicates a certain type of bow, the recurve. And for this bow the size is right.

Every single recurve I've seen -while undrawn- has been -end to end- longer than the arm of the person holding it. This one isn't. Long bows, which tended to be as long as the wielder is tall, are considerably longer yet of course. Nevertheless, nobody said that the bow needed to be the same height she is. That doesn't change the fact that we're seeing a larger than average sword and a smaller than average recurve bow.

Well of course I'm not going into technical details, but the sword is meant to be a two handed sword (he's not wielding it properly).

Well of course I'm not going into technical details, but the sword is meant to be a two handed sword (he's not wielding it properly).

Krimm's got a big two-hander as well. Compared to those swords, that bow looks like a toy. Not that I have an issue with two handed swords, I was just responding to a previous statement regarding the bow.

Don't take this the wrong way, but what are the determining factors as to which romance the character gets based on orientation? I usually base my romance choice on character rather than on orientation. When in PStronghold I found that Joshua didn't really have many good choices for romance. However when playing again with Lisa Nelson, I found that her romance options were better and I liked the characters.



My main question is do you base the character's romance orientation with main character on a pre-defined idea that you have or do you just say-this character will be hetero, etc. I find it interesting

For this specific game I based the choices also on some requests of people in forums: non typical pin-up female but more athletic (Krimm), male with beard (Riley) though I am not sure if was requested only by yaoi fans or not (but I plan to have more beard straight characters as well in future games) and so on.

For other games like Loren sequels, I basically spent 1 month (with Aleema's help) trying to balance all the romances. Seriously, it never thought it would take so much time but that's because there are lots of romances in it.

Of course, in many cases, is just that I like a particular character design so is based on my tastes only. For Planet Stronghold 1, I had first the artist draw all the characters and then decided after I saw them.

i doubt that it is a good approach to design the romances before you design the story. the npc have to fit into your tale and world so you gotta stramline them first, the romancing should imho be implemented afterwards. you can then "tune" the npc a bit to better fit into a certain role (e.g. gxg).

Well in my experience, when you develop games commercially, with limited budget and time, working over internet with people all around the globe, you rarely have time to do a "good approach".

For example, I risked to lose the artist after the first Loren game because he was supposed to work for a comic in Japan. So for some months I had the more urgent problem of "who the hell could draw Loren 2 art now!?". I don't know what happened, but he changed his mind But as soon as he did that, I had him started with the romances IMMEDIATELY. Because I knew that it could happen again anytime.

Not saying that planning carefully a game is bad: but that you can do it ONLY if you know that each person involved in it will always be present/reliable. Otherwise you are risking everything and I don't like to gamble!

I am not sure if was requested only by yaoi fans or not

im not a yaoi fan, but I requested beard!

Still waiting for the bearded PC.

Not saying that planning carefully a game is bad: but that you can do it ONLY if you know that each person involved in it will always be present/reliable. Otherwise you are risking everything and I don't like to gamble!

The word you are looking for is "project management". Which is a lot of "what should be done before what", but also a lot of "what can risk the project and what can be done to reduce the risk". And of course making sure everything is in place when you release the game.