Deadlines

Deadlines are part of almost every job. With indie games, and in particular small/single indies like me, deadlines are usually self-imposed.

When I used to work in a (small) software house, we had deadlines and was a bit crazy. Every time, we had to do last-minute "crunch mode" which basically meant working 12h a day for the last weeks before the deadline. Not a great experience as you can imagine, and lots of stress!

Thank God, now that I'm indie I have more flexibility! But that still doesn't mean that I can take as much time as I want to finish a proejct of course! A delay of one or more months will have both economical consequences (I need to regularly release new games to keep the cash flow) and also could damage my credibility (missing deadlines or delaying games is never a cool thing).

Even if I have to say that my followers are absolutely awesome and even when they ask me "when will be game XYZ be out!!?" they do it only because they're eager to play it :)

Speaking of deadlines let's see what could be some estimate release dates for upcoming games. Note how estimate is written in bold!

Bionic Heart 2

Is the game closest to completion. At beginning of month, everything was going smoothly and I was thinking that the game might be finished by the end of February as I originally planned. However there have been some problems, so I can already say that I won't be able to release it by that date.

In any case, I really think that March will finally see the release of the sequel of one of my first visual novels, Bionic Heart ! By the way, I recently lowered the first game price to $9.99 to promote the upcoming release of the sequel, so if you never played it, now is a good time :)

Roommates

Everything is going well on this game, even if there's still a lot of work to do! I managed to make two new "fact file" for Isabella and Rakesh, the latest two romanceable character of the game:

See the full gallery on Posterous

Writing is going steady, but still need to commission all backgrounds (though I have already an artist ready for it) and of course code the gameplay, script the scenes, and so on, so is very unlikely that this will be out before June/July :)

Planet Stronghold 2

Well I would be lying if I was saying that everything is going well :D however, this game will be a big step forward compared to the first, both in term of gameplay (a much better RPG system) and writing. Good things needs time though! At least all the romance scenes are done, below you can see a sneak peek of Joshua's romances:

Art-wise there's still a few more enemies to finish, and some extra "camp talk" sprite poses, where each character will be in their favorite environment (guess where Philipp will be?) when you visit them to talk. I decided to do that since talking with the characters standing up like in previous game was a bit weird!

Also showing the character in a normal life situation with normal clothes and various poses will be more realistic and also more "interesting", for example if you go visit Rebecca at the gym, or the new hot guy Milo while he's training... understand what I mean? ;)

A week as webdesigner

Probably not many of you know that before going indie, I was a (rather poor to be fair) webdesigner. Many people probably think that being a webdesigner is a creative job but the reality is that after you do the 100th website, you start to have enough... :)

Anyway, this week I was waiting for some people to send me assets (writing, art, music, etc) so I was idle. If wasn't Winter I would have use this unexpected "free time" to do some trips around here to relax, but since it is, I thought to finally begin the redesign of my website, something I've been procrastinating for too long!

You can see a "sneak peek" here: http://www.winterwolves.com/test/

It's still largely unfinished and many links are broken, but that's more or less how the new homepage will look, I think a big improvement over the current one.

Roger Steel: Arthur point of view

After the big reveal of Winter Wolves' new steampunk graphic adventure romance RPG Roger Steel and the Human Element on this illustrious blog last week, Ann's younger brother Arthur was somewhat miffed that most of the razzamatazz focused on her. He wants you to know his side of the story, so ...

When Arthur Trevelyan's sister Ann falls for the wrong boy yet again, he is asked to accompany her to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, to keep her out of mischief.

But looking after Ann proves to be a challenge even with the help of lifelong friends, Neville and Christina Mortimer.

When she is inevitably kidnapped by a new flame, it is up to Arthur to rescue her and ponder the immortal question – how can two dorky friends and six perfect strangers with hidden agendas possibly be any more trouble than one headstrong big sister?

And if you want to read more, check the forums: http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2844

Bionic Heart 2

This week reached scene15, which probably won't tell you much. For me means line 5799 out of about 11.000 so we're about halfway coding the game, which means that it could be out around end of the month, speaking of the beta version of course! Then there's the testing phase and because this game has so much branching options, is going to take a while...

Tanya meets with a mysterious geek boy. Who is he?

Roommates

Time for two new reports, this time Sally and Dominic (straight romances only).

See the full gallery on Posterous

Writer is working on the Spring Break scenes, featuring all characters in swimsuits ;) Unofficial rumours says that the game plot might be finished by the end of this month: however don't get too much excited, since there's still a lot of work to be done, scripting, coding, testing... and all the background art to do. So a more realistic estimate release date could be this Summer!

What's next?

I was quite busy this week working both on Heileen 3 and Bionic Heart 2 (you see a new video of it above), so this post will be mostly an attempt in having a sort of "planned release schedule".

December 2012

As you probably know already, I really hope to release Heileen 3 sometimes during December (hopefully in time for Christmas!). The beta testing will begin soon for sure, but the final game release is still unknown (depends how many bugs people find in the beta!). Anyway, all that's left beside 10 more "random events" is for the simulation parts: 21 chibis, some small artwork, a few texts, some more balancing. I believe it's just a week or two of work.

In December I should also have one of my first games on the new Monkeycoder engine, so available also on iOS/web.

January/March 2013

Between those months, I'm surely going to release the yuri version of Heileen 3 (which I really wanted to release at same time as the main game this time, but alas because of problems with the original writer I couldn't). Also, Bionic Heart 2. The background art for that game is all done, the plot is finished, but there are still some sprite images that needs to be colored.

April/June 2013

Here things gets more difficult to judge. My goal would be to start Planet Stronghold 2 beta in early April, but you know, with RPGs is hard to know since they're so hard to make ;) I might just have one of my other games in a good advancement state and release it. Possible candidates are Roommates and Nicole.

Late 2013

Anything is possible! I really hope to have finished Planet Stronghold 2 by that date, and one of the other games. Maybe even Spirited Heart 2 or Amber's Magic Shop. But is very likely that at least one of those two games will slip into 2014!

As you can see I've got quite a busy schedule ahead. Now excuse me but I need to get back to work ;)

Bionic Heart 2 and moving past visual novels

Right now I'm finishing Heileen 3, but I'm also working on two sci-fi games: Bionic Heart 2 and Planet Stronghold 2. As the title suggests, both are sequels. Bionic Heart was one of my first visual novel, and if I compare the artwork and the writing of that first title with the new one, the difference is immediately noticeable:

One of the first scenes of Bionic Heart 2, the shuttle to Mars

I am not hiding that the first game was a very controversial game. Was one of the first western visual novels to get some attention in many japanese sites (probably the combo of the sexy android + romance did it) but also one of my worst selling games ever (beaten only by Vera Blanc!).

So why I made this sequel you might ask? Well first of all, I am indie because I have a passion for games. Even if I need to make money to live, I still have room to make some "game experiments" from time to time. Bionic Heart 2 will be one of them.

Second, because I never knew if the insuccess of the first game was because of the sci-fi theme, which typically appeals men more, or because of the game quality that, overall, wasn't really good.

Apart for some "social boss fights" that are some kind of mini games to be fight picking sentences in the right order, the game plays like a regular visual novel, albeit with multiple point of views. I can say already that unless the game does pretty well, it will be my last visual novel ever.

And here I get to my title. I'm definitely moving past visual novels, at least in the immediate future (God only knkows what I'll do in 5 years from now!). But don't worry, by that I mean the "pure visual novels", like the first two Heileen games. Dating / life sims like Always Remember Me or Spirited Heart are another thing.

Why I made that decision? Because I want to focus more on the gameplay, play mechanics, to reach a broader audience. I always liked to design gameplay, life simulations, and RPGs. While for RPGs I said I won't release more than one a year, for dating/life sims I plan to do them more often.

Also who knows, maybe I could try my hand in future in making a classic adventure game, either first or third person view. Or do something different, but still story-based.

This of course, unless Bionic Heart 2 does really well. It should be out at the beginning of the 2013 so I'll find that out pretty soon :)

Story based games with multiple point of view

The short video above is the introduction to my upcoming game Bionic Heart 2. What does it have to do with the title? Simple, because is a visual novel game that tells a story from multiple point of views (from now I'll abbreviate it with PoV).

For those familiar with the first title, this time you'll be able to play not only as Luke, but also as Tom, Tanya and Tina. If you don't know the first game, I urge you to find out about it immediately here! http://www.winterwolves.com/bionicheart.htm

Of course it's not a new thing. Several other games, movies, comics have used this peculiar form of storytelling. I find it very interesting... at least from my PoV ;)

I had this idea this Spring, when I was playing the game Heavy Rain, which uses this system too. And I thought it would work pretty well for the sequel of one of my early "cult" visual novels, Bionic Heart. Is fun how some games, despite selling much less than other games, can still be popular and have a following of "true fans". The first game definitely had many true fans!

Back to the topic, I find telling the story from multiple point of view very interesting. Because you can play as different characters and see the events and the various situations from their perspective, which is an interesting thing. Even in real life, how many times you wondered how it would be to be in someone else's shoes?

From the gameplay point of view, this is also interesting because decisions made with each of the four playable characters will have an impact on the game world and on the story. This really intrigues me, and since you always play in first person (even if you control a different character every time) it doesn't ruin the immersion.

A step forward could be having the option of choose which character to control in several situations. This is partly what I did on Planet Stronghold with the quests and the skills usage, but of course it was in a very smaller scale (also it was a RPG, so was only during short scenes).

Definitely making a game like that will result in a refreshing and interesting experience for the player, in particular for a game with several mysteries/secrets to unveil (like Bionic Heart 2!) but the effort in writing/planning it must not be underestimated, because is easy to make mistakes like plot holes or wrong chronological order of events.

Inspiration is everywhere

Being indie is a creative job (obviously) assuming you're trying to make your own games and not cloning others :)

The last weeks finishing Loren Amazon Princess have been quite stressful, and it's fun because in theory there wasn't any deadline set in stone except for the one self-imposed by me - but I always do that :)

Anyway, it was stressing! So while I'm working on the expansion, I decided to take it easier and work only half day on that, and in the other half day do more creative tasks like writing the storyboard of the new scenes for the other games, or "monkey" tasks like creating the icons, banners, preparing the HTML pages of the future games.

This is something I always do, even if the game in question will be out maybe next year - in the moments where I am too tired to code or write I do such tasks that still needs to be done anyway, but require no brain work. So when the time comes, I have them done already.

Also, last week I went to IKEA shopping with my girlfriend and curiously, I got the inspiration for Bionic Heart 2 main menu image! I know, inspiration is really bizarre and comes when you less expect it.

You might wonder "what the frak" IKEA has to do with the sequel of my sci-fi horror/romance game Bionic Heart? Nothing, but there was an image that inspired me, the one in the SOLMYRA picture, which you can see below, and on the right the sketch made by the artist for the main menu image following my indications:

of course, the copyright of the left image belongs to IKEA and the artist who made that image, Deborah Azzopardi. On the right you see my vision - the beautiful and deadly Tanya who seems to say "silence", with her robotic finger covered in blood (once the image is finalized and colored, it will be more evident!).

Speaking of Bionic Heart 2, I'm getting the various characters remade with the new art style. I made an interesting comparison of the old vs new version of the same character, except for Luke since he never appeared on the first game:

See the full gallery on Posterous

I particularly like the new Helen and Tina, but to be honest I like all the new versions of the old characters :) Maybe the only one that looks worse, or at least different, is Tom. But he'll have a very different role in this sequel!

On the other games front, I made progresses on Queen Of Thieves, Heileen 3, Roommates and Nicole. For this last one I'm probably going to rework the plot adding more scenes and also more characters, since is a mystery otome game and I want to add more variety and red herrings to the story ;)

About RPGs, beside Loren's expansion, I'm getting lots of art done for Planet Stronghold 2 and starting to think how to implement the famous steampunk / horror rpg I've been talking about lately on Twitter...

Getting covered

I'm not talking about getting coverage as indie, but getting the characters of Loren RPG covered! As you can see below, was enough a spell by Apolimesho the Archwizard to give a proper cover to those excessively undressed fantasy heroes:

...no exceptions...

Jokes apart, I decided to put more cover to some characters based on customer's feedback. Initially I admit I wasn't much convinced, I kept thinking "well, I'm an indie, so I should do what I feel right". However some friends and my writer Aleema convinced me that having an OPTION (because you can still play the game without any cover of course!) was not a bad idea. For example some users in my forums mentioned being quite embarassed to play the game on netbooks while traveling in public places, or when some family members were asking what they were doing...I pictured the scene in my head:

- "What are you doing, son?"
- "Hi dad! I'm playing an awesome indie RPG game!"
- "Oh! RPGs? You mean those games with mages, swords, dragons and... wait. What is that? Boobs!?"
- "..." (covers face in shame)

So, since there was already an option to skip the ending romance scenes, we have tied it to showing covered characters, but you can conveniently toggle it on/off with 2 mouse clicks ;)

I also got the battle voices, and made a very short video showing some of them:

I know I know that now the question is... when the next version will be out? the one with the voices? the one with many bugfixes? the one with the full plot/romance implemented?

Well, while I cannot say for sure, it should be out this weekend! As usual follow me on twitter or Facebook to be updated in real-time :)

Bionic Heart 2 prototype

During some pauses in Loren development I started prototyping the dialog system for Bionic Heart 2. My goal is to make a sort of RPG-style dialog system, similar to those seen in classics like Fallout: some choices will be tied to specific skills and on the left will be displayed a sort of scheme of the dialog, showing the various possible paths (icons represent a choice that needs a specific skill).

I'm still in the early design stages though, and since Loren has full priority I'm working on this only during the pauses. I know, working on another game when you have a free moment is a bit weird but... :D

By the way, speaking of Bionic Heart, I made the port to Android even of that game. You can play the demo here.

Androids, drakes and college

Don't worry, the cryptic title of my blog post can be easily explained.

Androids: because I finally had time to take a break from working non-stop on Loren The Amazon Princess RPG, I made the Android port of Heileen! I chose that game since is one of the simplest as gameplay (is a basic Visual Novel). I kept the original resolution of the game, so if you play it on a tablet the resolution will be good, while on phones with smaller resolution the game will scale down.

It's available for only 4.99 in the Android marketplace: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.winterwolves.heileen

It has been tested by several people on various devices and nobody had any issues, though on devices with small screen size like phone can be a bit problematic to play, so be warned!

But androids also because I've started writing Bionic Heart 2! I've only made the storyboard for the 3 first scenes, but the new writer is doing a good job with it so far. It's cool to be able to finally resume working with Bionic Heart's universe / characters again after almost 3 years since the first game release.

Drakes: because the chapter4 of Loren is basically finished, and contains a big battle against a Giant Drake which will be one of the toughest enemies of the game. The plot is only missing some romance scenes, but I'm also waiting for 4 new backgrounds and the battle voices to do the next update which will have the full game available (including the romance scenes!). I hope it to be ready sometimes next week or no later than next weekend!

College: because finally I found a replacement writer for the Roommates game, and seems I'll be able to resume working on it at normal speed again! We're redefining the game structure/gameplay and the various breaks, changing the game from being Quarter based, rather than Semester based (so there are more breaks which will lead to some cool scenes like Winter / Spring Break).

Crunch mode

In the image above, the map (still work in progress) with the new fog feature. When you start the game it will look like in the image on top but as you discover new locations, it will slowly become like the image at the bottom.

Why Crunch Mode ?

Today's blog post will be short, because I'm in a sort of "crunch mode". Those who worked in companies know well what does it means - it's a period (usually lasts some days or weeks) during which you work non-stop like crazy to finish an important project.

Obviously in my case, the project is Loren The Amazon Princess :) But also, I need to get back on managing the various other projects going on, since I've been "away" (busy working on Loren) for too long!

For a small indie like me, releasing games regularly is very important, since it's one of the most effective way to get attention. The last game I've released is in December (Winter In Fairbrook), so not too long ago, however if I look back at the past year, during this period (end of March) I had already released Love & Order and was about to finish Planet Stronghold!

Now I know I'm not a machine, so I need to take breaks sometimes, but I usually reserve the summer for that (when it's too hot to work much anyway).

So my goal would be to release 0.9 this weekend, or no later than end of the month. Today I managed to finish scripting the 3rd chapter of Loren, and will take tomorrow to test it again. Meanwhile Aleema is finishing the last touches to the romance scenes, since we're trying to include many of them for the next beta update, the 0.9.

The Bionic Heart sequel

Bionic Heart was one of my early visual novels, but also one that was most popular (was featured in some big japanese websites and that was the first time for a VN made in the west). However, commercially speaking, it wasn't a big success.

Almost 3 years later, I think I know the reasons. It was a pure visual novel, aimed at males, and with my writing (lol). Definitely I don't want to repeat the same mistakes in the sequel, even if I want to make this game mainly for my personal satisfaction than money.

See the full gallery on Posterous

In the image above you see sketches of the main characters, plus there will be new ones which I don't want to show yet. I have written already a generic basic plot, but need to go in the details. For now all I can say is:

• won't be a pure visual novel, but will have statistics, even if won't be a RPG
• you'll be able to play as different characters (differently from the first game)
• it will contain nudity, both male / female
• will have all possible romances (straight & gay / male & female)
• will have lots of endings :)

Now remember, I am NOT working on this game right now, but I am producing / supervising the art production. I don't know yet when I'll have time to start working on this, maybe for Christmas, or maybe later next year!

"Nicole" game

Nicole's plot continues to make progress, and I got also a new characters images. Below you can admire Nicole in her various outfits (yes, cheerleader is also an option!):

That's all for now! Stay tuned, since next month I plan to definitely release something :)