2012 will be the year of Fantasy

In the photo above, a portrait of my cat Batman.

While the beta testing of Winter In Fairbrook continues (we're only missing some typos to correct and then everything will be ready for the official release), I am now working mostly on Loren RPG and Queen Of Thieves.

Why 2012 is the year of Fantasy?

It will be because very likely I'll release Loren RPG, Queen Of Thieves, and hopefully also Amber's Magic Shop, though this is the less advanced game for now. Let's see the progress status of each game.

Loren The Amazon Princess

Loren RPG is starting to get into the final stage. Which means at least 2-3 more months, depending how long takes to finish the texts and images. It's definitely going to be my biggest game ever, on every aspect: amount of writing and plot complexity, amount of art (both on interface, character and backgrounds) and amonut of gameplay/rules/game system.

I really hope will be worth it! But anyway, this is a game I always wanted to make, and I'm very pleased by how is coming out, so I think in the end it will be worth it in any case.

Below you see some screenshots of the current GUI design. The equipment screen, where you can equip your character, and the "post battle" screen mockup, which will show some statistics about the battle and how many experience points each character made.

See the full gallery on Posterous

My current goal is to have a playable Alpha out before the end of the month, and it's not going to be easy, even if the battle engine is completely coded, still need testing/tweaking. In particular, so far I didn't test with much equipment at all, and I didn't define any enemy. Enemies can have skillsets like the playable characters, but aren't restricted by the class, so there can be lots of interesting combinations to make, but also to test, to make sure there aren't invincible enemies!

Another big part of the game that is still missing is the map system, which I wanted to make slightly different from Planet Stronghold one. You can travel from place to place, but I want to make random encounters. However, in the easy/normal mode, you'll be able to skip/run from the random encounters. I don't want to force the player to fight the random battles at easy levels, but on the other hand they might be useful to raise your characters power in case you're stuck with some main plot related battle.

The Queen Of Thieves

I really can't believe that I started this game in December 2010 and still haven't all the art finished, though is really not missing much to be art-complete. Below you see two tests I made for the game interface.

See the full gallery on Posterous

I thought it would be interesting to display the speaking characters on the side of the dialog, and alternate them on the left/right side. I am also thinking to add basic eye blink and mouth animation.

Gameplay wise I'm still thinking about how to make it, but I think will have some sort of 2d map, so will be a sort of mix between a strategy and a RPG game. About the story, each one of the girls can have a romance relationship with 2 of the 3 boys. Which means there are 6 romance subplots in total. So far, two have been finished, so we're at about 1/3 of the writing.

Amber's Magic Shop

As I said this is the less advanced game, also because the artist I had picked for it quit without saying a word. Luckily, there are many other more reliable artists around that are eager to work for me :)

The writing is still at the beginning, but I had time to think / plan the gameplay and story better, and I really like how is coming out. The game will feature two ages: teenager and adult age. In the teenager stage, your decision will change not only the starting relationship at the adult age, but also some important gameplay elements. I haven't implemented anything yet so that's just an idea for now, but I really like it and I think will work well, adding much more replayability to the game.

 

Winter In Fairbrook beta is out!

As those who follows me and Sakevisual on twitter already know, Winter In Fairbrook beta was released about two weeks ago.

You can find out more about the game and download the beta version on the game official page: http://www.winterwolves.com/winterinfairbrook.htm

You can also pre-order the game if you want to buy it - the game is already quite stable, and a few minor bugs/typos were already fixed in those two days thanks to the wonderful feedback of some early purchasers. Thanks again for all the help, it will let us make better games! :)

While I didn't set a specific date for the final release I don't think there's much more to wait, probably a week maximum to check that there are no more typos/bugs, but that's it. And don't worry, this time I learned from my previous games and made the game much easier than Always Remember Me (though the last version of that game is a bit easier as well)!

The making of Winter In Fairbrook

It was a pleasure to work with Ayu Sakata and Beatriz García in the first title, who initially was simply called "The Flower Shop", but later we used "Summer In Fairbrook" to differentiate between it and the sequel.

The game was very well received back in January/February 2010 (seems so long ago to me!) and so when in the Summer 2010 I read on twitter that Beatriz García was out of work for the month of July, I immediately asked her if was interested in doing the art for the sequel (it was kind of a rhetorical question since she repeatedly said she would love to work on another game with that setting). This time though, we decided to have a female main character, Natalie. Even if the game can be played as stand-alone, it shares many characters and continues some plots from the first title so... the best is to play both! ;)

So I was saying, during July 2010, the art production of Winter In Fairbrook started. If I remember correctly, I got all the art finished around December/January. Beatriz García had some personal issues, so she didn't work as fast as she is doing recently. And then was the turn of Ayu to have bad luck! While coming back from a convention in June had a car accident, and other various real-life issues.

I'm not saying this to criticize them, not at all (they're both my friends), but to show to everybody who thinks that making a visual novel / dating sim (or any indie game for that matter) is really simple and quick how it is in reality. Unfortunately, bad stuff happens and it can really delay a game release considerably. I can say we wanted to get the game out by the Summer, but for a reason or another it wasn't ready until now!!

We're sorry for the delay, but I hope you'll think it was worth the wait! Personally I love the setting, the art, the writing, and the general mood of the game. The ending romance scenes are really cute and full of good feelings.

I can say that it's really the perfect title to play during Winter and Christmas Holidays, so if you're thinking about an original gift for someone... think about this :)

Show Me The Sales

"Show Me The Sales" is an indie initiative promoted by my friend Cliff of Positech and other developers. In practice is a time limited sale where you can get many indie games at very discounted prices. The games list includes:

Planet Stronghold
Evochron Mercenary
Scoregasm
Space Pirates and Zombies
Mr Robot
Project Aftermath
Magical Diary: Horse Hall
AI War: Fleet Command
Gratuitous Space Battles
Solium Infernum
New Star Soccer 5
Revenge of the Titans
Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon
Smugglers IV
Frozen Synapse

...and many more!

As you can see there are many interesting games for all tastes, including my Planet Stronghold RPG game with a generous 60% discount. I also updated the game to use the latest Ren'Py build even if this caused a few problem/bugs, so make sure you download the latest version, the 1.4c!

Even if the promotion was live since monday, don't worry: it ends the 28th of November so there's still plenty of time to buy the games. Now about my currently games in progress, I'm pleased to show you this:

See the full gallery on Posterous

Yes, in the gallery above you see the main menu, the credits and the gallery screen of Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook! The current goal is to have the pre-orders available at the end of the month! Stay tuned for more news.

RPGs status update

It's time to give you an update on my two main RPG projects I'm currently working on: Loren The Amazon Princess and Planet Stronghold: Warzone.

Loren The Amazon Princess

As you can see below, I made a mockup for the game main menu, and I like it (not that the main menu is so important in a RPG, but I want to have it look good). As I'm writing, the game soundtrack is being recorded, which will feature Cristina Vee again singing the theme song. I'm eager to listen to it :)

Below, you see the first icons made for the skilltrees. I also got some weapons/items, but not enough yet to show a full equipped character. As for the skills, I realized yesterday that I actually need a separate icon for every skill present in the 16 base skiltrees: since every skilltree has 5, it means that I still have 60 icons to commission!! It's necessary of course, but it all adds to the final game costs. This game better sell well!

The writing is at good point, and everything should be finished at end of this month or early December, however there is still left to add all the battles and quests and everything else that makes a RPG (enemies, balancing, and so on). So, I'd say that while I hope to have a public alpha at end of the month to get feedback about the battle system, the fullgame won't be available for sure this year. I'm aiming at Q1 2012 release (probably February/March).

Planet Stronghold: Warzone

For this game things are "apparently" going slower. I say apparently because even if the game writing is still at early stages (I don't even have planned the full story yet!), I have already made the changes to the combat system (in practice a full redesign of the Psionic Powers vs the first game). I also have planned all the romances, which will be even more important than the previous game, since there will be 4 for each gender (vs the 3 of the previous title).

So in practice, since the gameplay/game system is already tested, once the story starts to be written this game will progress much faster than Loren (also because the RPG system is simpler).

Speaking of romance, take a look at this:

It's a fun "collage image" I made picking some details from each of the 4 romance scenes for Lisa Nelson. As you can see, lots of *hot* stuff going on! :)

I don't have all the 4 romance images for Joshua, but once I have them will make a similar thing for him too.

I have another important announcement about Planet Stronghold, even if it will have to wait until next week, but is a very interesting deal! So stay tuned (will announce it on twitter, facebook and in the blog).

Unfinished business

In the picture above, Maja when was a kitten sleeping on a mousepad in my "old office".

What is the unfinished business I'm talking about? Well, lots of games get started every year, and many of them, for a reason or another, are canceled. This doesn't happens only in the AAA studios, but even at "indie level".

In the video below, a work in progress of a 3d roleplay game called "Tower Of Destiny". The project was abandoned about 3 years ago because the coder quit. It should have been a 3d dungeon crawler, with some "outdoor" zones. I think I'll probably redo it as plain 2d dungeon game sometimes in the future.

In this other video a more recent work-in-progress. It's the 3d version of one of my older games, Universal Boxing Manager. I didn't hear back from the coder since June this year, so while I cannot officially say that it won't be done, I don't have much hopes as well!

So you might start to understand why I'm making mostly games I can code myself recently? Disappearing artists/writers are a pain, since you need to look for a replacement (and in the case of art, redo even the art that has been already partly done), but when a coder disappear... means the game can't go on, especially if you're not able to finish/continue coding yourself or if the coder used a different tool/language you're not familiar with.

This just to show that being indie it can be a real pain as well, since there are many more problems than people might think. And now, let's talk about something else...

Bionic Heart promotion!

I've updated Bionic Heart to use online activation, and like I did for Heileen 2, I'm offering two downloads: one without voices, which is about 32-35mb, and one with voices which is about 169-173mb!

The game will be only 4.99 for the weekend, so grab it now!
Only $0,2 each ending! (it has 24 endings)

Roommates game

So I got the first sketches from artist for this new game. As you can see, lots of interesting people... the 6 characters below are the dateable one. Max and Anne are the two main playing characters (the game will be playable as male/female). There are two bisex characters, can you guess which ones? :)

Do you think the male characters are sexy/interesting enough? I have no doubts the females are :D

And for this week is all. Ah no, wait: there are rumors that a certain game with a winter theme MIGHT be really finished shortly... but maybe is just a rumor! Who knows? Keep following me on twitter/facebook/blog to know more.

The Price is Right

In the picture above, an image of my dwarf rabbit Cleo who decided to travel to the rabbits paradise last week, after 9 years with us.

Why low pricing is wrong for niche games

I'm going to talk briefly about my own experience with low prices. I know that as customer, you'd want the games to be cheaper! who wouldn't want that? however, as I gather data from my little price experimentation, it's quite clear that if I was to sell my games for 4.99 I would be bankrupt in less than one year.

Check the pie-graph below:

On top there's the graph for the number of copies sold. Wow, during the promotional week sale, Heileen1 was almost 1/3 of my total games sold!

However, the enthusiasm quickly fades checking the other graph below, showing the net revenues for the same period: Heileen1 is at the 5th place, below other games.

This is even more "dramatic" if we consider that I sent the newsletter, posted in my twitter/facebook page and so on about the promotion. So in practice, the "regular sales" of my other games (the best selling titles though) were generating more revenues that a super-mega sale...!

I like to do sales, since I know that not everyone can afford to buy my games at full price. Obviously, I'm going to wait several months before I do sales of my recent games, but for games that were released 2-3 years ago (Heileen 1 was released in 2008 for example) it's fine.

But the fact is that unless you have a great exposure, a customer base of millions, like the portals have, undercutting your price is never going to work. You'll only lose money, and if you're not careful, forced to find another job! :D

Heileen 2: Hands Of Fate promotional sale

Speaking of promotions, this week I managed to update Heileen 2, which is on sale until next Sunday (included). Below you find a teasing image of Ebele with the new relationship bar added to that game as well. (Sadly Ebele is not dateable in the game, even if there are some spicy situations with her...)

Since I'm using online activation, I decided to offer two kind of downloads: the "standard" game, without voices, which is 45mb, or the fully voiced game that is 100mb. I'm particularly interested to check the statistics after some time, to see how many people prefer the voiced vs unvoiced version, since I'm considering if to make some more voiced games in future or not.

And the various games in progress? they're all still going fine! This week got some sketches for the Roommates game from a new artist, new finished CG scenes for Planet Stronghold: Warzone, new images/texts for Queen Of Thieves and new texts for Heileen3.

I really am not sure which game will be done first, since mostly depends on artists/writers speed, and what kind of gameplay will choose to implement in some of them (I have a few interesting ideas for Queen Of Thieves but must see if is something that I am able to code or not!).

Queen of Thieves customers

In the image above, my cat Leon seems almost in a meditation pose :)

So, who will be the customers of the game Queen Of Thieves? Take a look below:

See the full gallery on Posterous

Yes, I was talking about the in-game customers! For those unfamiliar with the game (which is still work-in-progress) it will feature a shop simulation similar to the popular Recettear game. But one thing that annoyed me a bit of that game was the fact that there were only 3-4 different customer appearances :) So in my game I asked the artist to draw a sort of doll-dressing game, and as you can see, the combinations can be a lot.

The main variations are by body shape (normal, fat, old) and by social status (poor, middle clas, noble, guards, priest, wizard). And of course there are several minor variations based on face shape, hair and beard color/shape and hats.

Beside the example above, there will also be female customers of course!

The writing is being done right now and art-wise there is really not much left to do. The game will be a bit different from my usual ones, even if I haven't yet decided how I'll do the mission part. I would like to use a sort of 2d boardgame view, where you move your characters in a sort of turn-based strategy game.

I am not sure yet if I'll also include RPG battles, even if the temptation is strong, since I have lots of armor/clothing/weapons ready to use, but the playable characters would be max 3 (the three sisters Joanne, Kira and Thalia) so it would be a somewhat simplified RPG.

So in theory it could be an otome life simulation game with strategy and RPG elements :D I don't want to rush things with this one since I have anyway other games in production, so I'd like to experiment a bit with a different gameplay system. Time will tell, as always!

The other games

Meanwhile, all the other games I announced are progressing, and we're waiting for the UI/skills/items art to finish an alpha build of LorenRPG to release it to public to get feedback about the battle system. I think it could be ready next month, so stay tuned.

Promotional sale

Promo sales: this week promo sale is of the game College Romance: Rise Of The Little Brother that is only 4.99 until Sunday (included).