2012 the year of Loren

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 :D

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

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

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

I'm 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 :D

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 :)

Heileen 3 now available for preorder!

I put up the preorder page here: http://www.winterwolves.com/heileen3.htm

Please note that the game beta demo is not yet available for download!

However, it should be this Sunday, 9th December 2012. Once the demo is available, you'll only have to download it and enter your email to activate the full game, and start playing the beta version.

Of course if you prefer you can preorder and then wait for the game to be officially released since during the beta there might still be some bugs present.

I decided to put the page up now since I got some requests from people to be able to preorder earlier, so there you go. I also put a special version with extra bonus content, since the game has 6 custom audio tracks (1 theme song + 5 audio tracks). In the bonus content you also get the game chibi at higher resolution, several wallpapers images, and some exclusive images from Heileen 2 at higher resolution. The extra content is immediately available, so you can listen to the music while you wait for next Sunday ;)

Apart the extra content, there is no difference between the base game and the one with the bonus content.

In the video above you get an idea of the gameplay including the raising sim, the Virtues/Sins system and more.

Excuse me for the very short post, but I'm going back to work now to make sure the demo is available next Sunday!! :)

Almost there!

Working on Heileen 3 has been my main focus in the past week. I finally managed to finish coding the simulation part. Below you can see the "Professions Screen":

The game will feature 14 unique "profession ending" with associate image

As you see to reach every ending you'll need to master an advanced skill (currently set at level 10 but during beta testing the value might change) and also have the required sin or virtue. Initially I didn't want to reveal them, but while playing I figured out that the combinations are so many that would have been more frustrating than fun for the player to discover all of them!

You'll be able to change your virtue/sin "alignment" through the various cutscenes in the game.

So getting the profession ending definitely won't be as easy as in my other raising sim, Spirited Heart ;) but I think will be more rewarding.

The infamous wheel of time and a chibi during the simulation

In the screenshot above instead you see what happens after you choose your daily activity: the "wheel of time" will start spinning and advance through the various parts of the day: morning, midday, evening, night. In some cases at a specific time of the day a cutscene will appear, and you'll be able to play it to change your virtues/sins or the relationship with other characters.

The simulation part is all automated, since I didn't want to overcomplicate the game too much. However there is still some strategy involved, like inviting one of the character to join you. This can give you a positive or negative bonus (or simply give no bonus). In this case you'll have to find out the best character for each activity ;)

Also, each "land activity" (those that raise the advanced skills) will have two skill requirements. For example, the activity Dancer will require two basic skills: Charisma at level 3 and Endurance at level 1. Which means that first you need to raise Charisma at level 3. The value will change as you level up, so Dancer level 2 will require Charisma at level 4 and Endurance at level 2, and so on. In my playthrough I was able to reach level 10 in one advanced skill in 258 days of in-game time.

I titled the post "almost there" because the game is really almost finished, all that is left (beside testing) is some background art and more chibis, and the addition of a few more scenes.

I hope to be able to start testing/preordering the next weekend (8-9th December) and release the game by mid-December!

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 :)