Continuing romances from previous games

In the image above, you see the "Romances Graph", a thing I like to make for all my RPGs, since romance plays an important role in all my games :)

In practice describes all the romance options available when playing the game with both characters (genders).

Those of you who played the first Planet Stronghold game will be happy to know that I'm not writing it myself :D so you can expect a much better writing this time! Aleema is in charge (same writer of Loren Amazon Princess) and from what I've seen so far, it will be awesome. Maybe it's because I'm a fan of sci-fi but reading the intro scenes got me the chills!

There will be time to talk about the new, refreshing plot (which will show the main character not as the classic "invincible hero", but more his/her human aspect) but for now I want to talk about the great idea the writer had, to continue the previous game romances.

I must say in the beginning I was scared since was something I never tried to, and was unsure about how/if that could work. But now I'm sure it was a great idea!

For those worried about keeping 4-5 versions of the first game save files, no worries: I've decided that is pointless to do that. I mean, since the only information passed from the first game to the sequel is who you were loyal to (Empire or Rebels) and who you romanced (which character), I thought to just show that as choices to pick during the character creation, as seen below:

It's much simpler to do that ;) in the same screen you can choose the difficulty level, your class and other stuff yet to be coded. As always remember that the screenshots posted here are all work in progress and might differ a lot from the final version.

So, based on your initial choice, the game changes, showing different scenes for every romanceable character. For example below is a screenshot from the Joshua/Rebecca intro:

which you won't see if you picked another romance or for example Lisa. This leads to a lot of variety and increases the game replayability by A LOT! :)

At same time, it makes everything feel more epic. It's hard for me to describe with words, but instead of starting from zero, is like if you continue a story that apparently only ended a few years ago (of game time). Some romance intro are tender and romantic, other are tear-jerking, other are passionate, and so on. It's refreshing for once to start one of my games with an already established relationship, and makes you even more attached to your character and his/her partner.

Obviously you can pick the choice to have no previous romances, and also you'll be able to break your current relationship later in the story and pursue a new character. It will be interesting to read those scenes as well :)

Next time I hope to be talking about Heileen 3 and show you some of the rules for Planet Stronghold 2, since I'm still working on those. But I can say that differently from the first game it will use a perks system and lower scale skills.

Spirited Heart Girl's Love: the demon girls

Here we are at the latest blog post regarding Spirited Heart Girl's Love, where we meet the two demon girls, Reid and Hade.

The first video is about Reid. She is without doubt the most sexy character of the game, by her appearance (very undressed as you can see) and for her behavior. I particularly like how the player character personality changes a lot the relationship in this case: both the human and the elf will be disgusted by her actions, while the demon will be actually envy of how she (apparently) manages to obtain everything she wants using her charm. I also like the ending of this romance plot, when you discover Reid's real motivations and ... oops, I'm saying too much! ;)

Lastly, it's the turn of Hade, probably the most original and together with Yana one of my favorite characters of the whole expansion. There's nothing better than the video below to show you her personality. When I told the writer about her, I said: she is a sort of medieval/fantasy geek. And I think the result is excellent: she is a genius beyond equals but also a very fragile person with serious problems having social contacts. I think one of her "bad endings" is one of the best pieces of narrative of the whole game, even if very sad!

So all is left is to... release the game! I am currently waiting for some ending voiceovers and also final scenes, not real CGs since are pencils to display over the parchment like happened in the regular game, but still will need about one month of time. Meanwhile I'm hoping on next friday blog post to finally announce The Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook pre-orders... ;)

Spirited Heart Girl's Love: the human girls

As the official release of the yuri expansion to my game Spirited Heart approaches, I'll make three blog posts featuring short videos of two character of each of the three available races (Human, Elf and Demoness). Today I got the last girl, I am thinking if to commission a few more secodary characters but they're not really required for the expansion. This means that it will be out for sure in August (probably at the end of it).

In this blog post, let's see the human girls:

In the video above, Ria is the first human girl I wrote for Spirited Heart Girl's Love. She is a "tough chick", and apparently also a tomb raider. But as you'll get to know her better, you'll find out that down deep she is a very different person than what she appears at first glance. This character was particularly interesting to write because the Elf or Human are very scared / intimidated from her aggressive behaviour, while the Demoness is the only one that can keep up with her.

In this other video instead one of my favorite characters of the whole expansion, the always day-dreaming all-around artist Yana! At first she seems a lazy, spoiled girl that sleeps all day while his father has to pay other people to do the work that she was supposed to do. Later in the story, she will reveal the true self, in all possible meaning (by this I mean there will be a more transparent version of the actual dress, but no nudity!).

Loren Amazon Princess base classes

See the full gallery on Posterous

This week finally started working on Loren Amazon Princess RPG ruleset. I want to be very clear that this is going to be a more casual RPG! So nothing complex as Planet Stronghold. However this time I'll design it in a way that I can easily add more features later. Working for 6 months on Planet Stronghold helped me to understand the various coding problems you can encounter while developing a RPG, but I had to hurry up to finish that game (especially in the last months) so the resulting codebase can't really be "re-used" with other games as I hoped.

It was a mistake and something I don't want to repeat with this RPG. So don't  be shocked if I tell you that very likely the game won't have an inventory. Yes, you read it right ! But before you delete my site from the bookmark  "indie RPG", read on :)

The game will focus, like Planet Stronghold, mainly on battles and character relationships. The main features of this new RPG will be:

1. the overall polishing level: is very likely will have another custom theme song, will have top quality artwork (as you can see from the screenshots) and I also want to include more cinematic scenes during the battles. For the battle itself I have an idea how to make it, in a way where you'll be able to see the heroes positions on the battlefield (more info about this later after I've done some tests to see the feasibility of this feature).
2. the skilltrees system: every character starts with 3 skilltrees, each of them has 3 or more skills. Of those three skilltrees, one is the character Class (which can be Warrior, Thief and Mage), one is a character specialization (for example Loren has Dual Wield, the playing character has Healer) and a unique skilltree for each character. This way every character will have a real personality and will be much more fun to play each of them (you can use 12 characters in the game). Below is a work-in-progress flowchart of the three base skilltrees:
   
   

   base_skilltree.pdf Download this file
   For a more detailed explanation, check the game official forums here.
3. game currency: when you defeat enemies, you'll get money, and items. Wait, didn't I say that the game won't have an inventory? yes, indeed the items will be resource materials that you'll be able to use to upgrade your weapons and equipment, increasing your character power. During the game you'll encounter several places with blacksmiths or enchanters that will be able to improve your equipment if you bring them the right materials. This way, even without a real inventory, you can still grow your characters.
4. choose male or female character: yes, even Planet Stronghold featured two genders. This time though, the gender you choose will influence the gameplay. Saren, a human male warrior, will have unique melee combat skills. While Elenor, elf female thief, will have unique long-range combat skills. Obviously, like my other games, the gender will also influence which romance subplots you'll be able to unlock in the game.
5. better movement map: I plan to have some scripted scenes, to advance the story, but also allow freedom of movement in a bigger map. I'm not sure yet about this last feature since would require some work, so for now this is the only thing that falls under the category "maybe if I have enough time/budget"!

I really think that if you liked Planet Stronghold, you'll like Loren The Amazon Princess RPG! And for those waiting for The Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook or more otome games, don't worry, next week I might be doing an official announcement... stay tuned! ;)

Remember Me pre-orders available!

Those who follow my blog/twitter might know that I've been working since beginning of March on a new otome dating / life simulation game called "Remember Me". I am probably going to change the game name when is officially released with "Always Remember Me" just to avoid confusion with a movie that was out last year (not for copyright reasons since are completely different things).

So, today can announce that the game is officially available as pre-order! Some of you might wonder what does it means? It means that the game is complete, but there might be some small bug, or some unbalanced gameplay or other minor text errors. But since I've been getting numerous request to play this game as soon as possible, I decided to open a beta pre-order stage: you pay and can start playing the game immediately, and if you want you can help to improve it by posting feedback/suggestions in the game's own forums which you can find here. Obviously, once you buy you're entitled to lifetime free upgrades, so you'll be able to redownload the final version without bugs.

Also the first 50 pre-orders will benefit of a generous 20% discount simply entering the following coupon code on the order page: BOIO000X9

Check the official game page - where you can find more information and download the beta demo to play the game!

I plan to have the game on pre-order until the end of the month, when I really should be able to make the official release: considering that the game, while very detailed, is surely not as complex as Planet Stronghold who required almost 1 month and half of playtesting!.

The making of Remember Me

The main game idea was born last summer, while my girlfriend was watching an episode of the TV series "Ghost Whisperer". I don't follow it so I'm not sure if those were main characters or anything, but basically there was a man who lost his memory and forgot who was his girlfriend, and his girlfriend for some reason couldn't force him to remember. I found this situation particularly interesting from the storytelling point of view, so immediately started to brainstorm about a possible otome dating sim plot.

This time I decided to outsource all the games texts (most of it anyway) to external native English speaker so there would be less grammar/texts mistakes, and I think it was a wise decision, since it also allowed me to concentrate more on the gameplay, which is much more advanced than other dating sim I made in the past. In practice, there is a full life simulation game, with several places and several activities to do, which can change based on your current energy/morale levels, on your skills, on specific plot conditions, on week of the day, and more! :D

So one of the key aspect of the game is that the players will have to explore the game world and discover all the secrets, to find the best tactics to win the hearts of the four dateable characters. Of course the "best ending" would be the one that reunites Amy and Aaron, but being a dating sim I have also to allow the player to pursue other boys :) I also think all the boys have distinct personalities, and you'll have lot of fun discovering them in the various scenes where you'll have to pick a choice to influence their relationship.

I must admit I had lot of fun coding this game, thinking about all the possible various activities on each place, and then putting together all the scenes at the right moment/place. If the game will be successful, I have already in mind another story which can use the same gameplay system :)