Wordcount Wednesday - Brace yourselves. Winter is coming.

You'd think by now I'd be done with the wordcount posts for Winter in Fairbrook. I'm not! The WiF beta has been out for a while now, and we've gotten some great feedback, bug reports, and general thoughts. One of the main things we heard was that one of the character routes felt less involved than the others. I don't want any of my boys left out in the cold (Ha! I made a joke.), so I went back and added more content to his arc. That along with the extra scene I wrote earlier (preview image above) makes this game even longer than The Flower Shop. Wooooo! Anyway, all that's left now are typos and bug fixes, so the official release should be soon.

The game contains 4,894 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 46,677 words,
for an average of 9.5 words per screen.
The game contains 26 menus.

Beta Testing in Fairbrook

You always think you're done. And then it's time to beta test. Hello, typos! Winter in Fairbrook is officially in beta testing mode right now. There are a couple bugs and typos here and there, but you can play the game all the way through, and there are endings and pretty pictures, and it's a whole lot of fun! Honestly, I think I'm wasting more time playing the flower raising bits than actually looking for bugs. I should probably not be confessing this in public. >.>;;

So what does this mean for all of you wonderful, patient, people? It means that the wait is nearly over. For real, this time. As in, before the month is over, you too can be a proud owner of Winter in Fairbrook. It also means that before the month is over, you'll get a nice, long blog post from me about writing the game, a couple hints, and probably some random commentary. (Feel free to ask questions.)

Status Update Times!

Cinders, by MoaCube

Pretty much everything is done for this game short of the writing. Code, art, music, everything. Tom and I are both working on the writing, but there's a lot to do. This game is kind of incredible because there are a lot of choices, and they all make a difference, so the branching is kind of nuts. The cool part is that you can play the game a second time and see a completely different story. That means a loooot of writing. But hey, it'll all be worth it in the end!

The Flower Shop - Winter in Fairbrook, by Winter Wolves
This game is late, excuses and other things here, blah blah. This year has been a complete mess for me outside of making games, and unfortunately, that's done terrible things to my ability to work on games. The writing is all complete, AND I wrote a really cute bonus scene last week to apologize for taking so long to get this out. Soon, my friends. Really, really, soon.

hanami x 2, by sakevisual (Ooh, that's us!)

Sprites are done, backgrounds are done, and the game will likely have at least some original music in it. Where are we now? Making CGs, and I'm saving up to hire voice actors for at least the boys (maybe not for the lead female, we'll see). The artist for this game is working on a volunteer basis, so getting all the art done for it will take a while because it's not top priority for her.

Oneiro, by sakevisual

This feels almost backwards. Usually, recording the voices is the last step in creation, but in this case, all the voices are recorded already, but the art isn't really that close to being finished. Again, it's because it's a really low priority project for the artist, so it's coming along slowly. We have an original soundtrack, at least!

Jisei Chapter 03, by sakevisual

Although I'm still in the planning stages for this, Deji has already started on the sprite artwork for the main cast (Kan, Aki, Naoki, Li Mei, Miko), so the art is further along than the writing (There is no writing. Ha!). I already have a rough outline of the story from the initial planning stages for Jisei, but now I need to fill in the details like how people get killed. If the government ever gets their hands on my search history, I might be trouble. My current search history includes, "how much cyanide it takes to kill a person," "can you taste arsenic in a drink," "blunt force needed to kill a person," and "how to hide a corpse." Does that mean there will be cyanide, arsenic and hitting people? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. I can tell you that one body disposal might make you less hungry for a while. NO, not like that.

Something Else, lalala!

It's something else! It's something you've been asking for. It's something I've been hinting at. It WILL be part of the Green Tea Line, but I promise you won't be disappointed by it, and there will be plenty of free giveaway options and stuff. bo_o

Another something else~

Deji mentioned it in her blog here, and she and I are both really, really excited about this project. There's not much I can say about it yet because we're still trying to make it work. O_< But it won't be like a normal visual novel. Yup.

We now return you to your regular blogging schedule.

Ohai! I finished all the writing for Winter in Fairbrook, which means that we'll soon be able to show you all sorts of fun stuff like gameplay videos. Above you can see the "success" screen after Natalie does a good job at work. The current word count is 42,591 words, which is slightly longer than The Flower Shop, so the games should be pretty equal in length of gameplay.

I'm back to blogging like I used to now with biweekly polls and Wordcount Wednesday (and Apology Thursday) and lots of new art to share with you all! Please look forward to it.

It's the Glasses

Welcome to another exciting edition of Apology Thursday! We're 21,137 words in to Winter in Fairbrook, and the end is in sight! All the sprites and CGs are done, leaving us to work on extra art, some fun minigames, and lots of cute, romantic scenes to go in between. And hey, look! Another familiar face from Fairbrook. Just look at those glasses.

Ewwww...responsibility.

Ooh, hey! It's a teaser image from the opening scene of Winter in Fairbrook. Natalie doesn't look too thrilled about the prospect of getting her first job. She reminds me of a certain someone, although he seems to be doing better these days.

Flower Girl

I lifted the above image from Deji's twitter. >.> This is Natalie, the heroine of Winter in Fairbrook (name subject to change), a spinoff of The Flower Shop. For those not familiar with the game, it's a dating/farming simulation I wrote for Winter Wolves. The game received a lot of good feedback, but there were also a lot of requests for a "girl's side" version of the game. The good (and kinda old by now...) news is that Winter Wolves has indeed started production of an otome spinoff. The same team will be back, with Deji doing art, and Jack Norton programming some fun mini-games. There are going to be some interesting new things related to the mini-games that I'm looking forward to seeing.

The heroine, Natalie, is a college freshman who desperately needs a job for winter break. Thankfully, her roommate, Clara, knows a certain flower shop that could really use an extra pair of hands. And so Natalie heads off to Fairbrook to help with the holiday rush of orders that are pouring in. Unfortunately, she's kinda lazy, completely scatterbrained, and this is her first job ever. Not really the best combination. Maybe the residents of Fairbrook can help her figure things out.

You can find plenty of images and production sketches at Deji's blog, and some teaser info at the Winter Wolves blog. Although this game has a certain amount of continuity, I wanted to make a standalone story so that anyone could leap into the game without needing to play the original. The writing so far makes a few references to the original game, but you don't actually need to play it to figure out what's going on. I'm having a lot of fun working on this project. Fairbrook is an interesting place, and I think Trent and Jacob deserve a lot more attention and story than they got in The Flower Shop. I'm looking forward to being able to flesh them out. And yes, Steve, is also a datable character, so if you liked Steve by the end of The Flower Shop, here's your chance to chase after him. Oh! There's also a new guy named Ryan. Fun for the whole family. I'll blog my thoughts on the guys as I work on their respective arcs.

The Making of The Flower Shop - Writing

Everyone else is doing it...>.> (I stole this cute picture from Deji.)

Anyway, in case you don't know yet, The Flower Shop is out! Check it out. ^o^ And since I'm the writer, let's talk writing!

When I came onto this project, a lot of the sprites were already complete, but the story only had a rough outline with character descriptions of the main cast, so it was up to me to flesh them out and make them run around and do what they did. From the beginning, I had two specific goals. The first was to give Steve a distinct personality. To this end, I gave Steve some honest and sometimes unpleasant inner thoughts because really...we all have them. I actually based a lot of his initial personality and thoughts on things that I overheard during my life on campus. It helps to pay attention to people around you. You can develop more realistic characters if you draw from real life experience.

My second goal was to make things difficult when it came to decision making (because I'm mean). I dislike obvious choices like "tell her she's beautiful/shoot her dog," and I dislike trivial choices like "red is your favorite color/orange is your favorite color." Obvious choices make the game too easy, and they dehumanize the characters a bit. It becomes more of a game where you choose the results that get you the "good end," rather than the choices that you personally prefer. But the preference choices should still lead to distinctly different results. If you get a similar reaction no matter what you say, then it becomes a guessing game. Choices should (ideally) lead to distinct and immediate results. This doesn't have to happen all the time. Sometimes a choice you make won't really make a difference until much later on, but it's wildly frustrating to lose a girl only because you ate a bologna sandwich for lunch two weeks ago instead of spaghetti. I tried to make the decisions lead to logical and different results, and I included some similar decisions for different girls. However, each girl reacts differently, so you can't spam the "right" choice. You have to try to understand her personality instead, which I think makes the game a little more interesting.

Anyway, those were my two goals. I'm not sure if I met them, but that's at least what I had in my mind when I wrote it.

Spirited Heart Deluxe Released

Hey sakefans! Do you like fantasy realms, cute boys, and raising sims? Have I got a show for you! Spirited Heart Deluxe is now available. Enter the fantasy land of Aravorn, get a job, court cute boys, and see if you can gain the blessing of the goddess. Addictively fun, so check it out, yo!