In the image above, my cat Otello looks broken! (in reality he's just sleeping peacefully)

Three years have passed since I released my first manga game, the dating sim Summer Session, made in collaboration with Hanako Games. It was July 2008, and was my first attempt in the world of visual novel/dating sims. Shortly after I started looking with extreme interest to Ren'Py, the library/tool that was used to make that game. I remember had never heard about it, the documentation was scarce, and had so many questions/doubts despite being a C/C++ coder! Questions that could be answered only by asking directly on the official forums.

After the initial "shock" though, I was quickly converted into a fan, the possibility to code in python, which was a breeze to work with compared to C, and the instant delivery on three platforms were awesome features!

Summer Session indeed was also the first of my games to fully support Linux, the first of a long series (in practice, all my next games used Ren'Py so they all support Linux!).

Around September 2008, I was also writing the last chapters for a small, ambitious attempt at making my first visual novel ever, Heileen. I always loved to write and the game was overall well received, but soon enough I found out that writing in a foreign language was something really hard for me, so for the next games I started using editors/proofreaders, until the most recent ones, where I hire writers to write the game texts for me based on my storyboard/scene descriptions (which is without any doubts the best solution!).

And here I am, three years later, still writing about Heileen, in the third installment (and very likely last) of the series. Same character, same setting, same artist: even if Rebecca told me that won't be able to work fulltime on it until January, so this means that sadly Heileen 3 will be out only next year (I hoped to release it around October to celebrate the third anniversary...).

As some of you might know, the kind of games I was making before was quite different. Sport simulations, tycoon games, wargames. However, I always loved to write and tell stories, so when I saw the opportunity I didn't think twice. Being paid to tell stories? There's hardly a better job for me! :D

Recently I tried going back to an old interest of mine - RPG or roleplaying games - and I think the first one, Planet Stronghold, was a good result. But I'm not satisfied, and even if those games are really hard to make, I want to try and make even better ones!

I sell mostly directly, and my products are a niche: I might not become famous, I might never get on Steam or any other big portal, but slowly but steadly I'm building a following of people that keeps my morale up, gives precious suggestions on gameplay, art, design and motivates me to wake up early every day to work on my games.

So, if those three years were simply amazing it's only because of you who are reading this post, you who played one of my games, you who decided to support my efforts financially. So to you, I say a big THANK YOU! :) And stay tuned, I still have many more stories to tell!

In the picture above, Gilda and Grillo sleeping on the same basket. They seem to be forming a sort of Cat-Tao (or Dao)!

According to Wikipedia, the meaning of Tao is:

While the word itself literally translates as 'way', 'path', or 'route', or sometimes more loosely as 'doctrine' or 'principle', it is generally used to signify the primordial essence or fundamental aspect of the universe.

Today I want to talk about the Tao of indies! I hope my English will be up to it XD

Inspired by the friend/colleague Andy Schatz and his talk at this year GDC (I wasn't there but I've read lots of blogs posts about his talk) I want to remark how important it is, even for an indie, to follow your true inspiration, to do the game you want to do. Too much often I see indies working on "clone of game XZY" or "I had to change this because the publisher/distributor wanted it this way" and so on. Indies by definition should be free, free to do whatever they want.

Of course, you still have to keep some common sense and not start making the most crazy ideas that comes to mind! But the truth is that I've seen often projects that started as "quick diversive" (because you couldn't find the strength to finish the "big safe commercial project X") turn into great games. To summarize it better, I want to quote Andy himself:

“If you work on a game that’s really cool, you’ll either get recognition or you’ll make money,” says Schatz. But if you make a game to just make money, you’ll either fail, or you’ll make money. “So the way I see it is that if you make a game just to make money, that’s actually riskier.”

That's completely spot on. I know basically... nobody who made a game he hated AND made lot of money. Every single developer I see who made lot of money (and I know plenty) made it by working on a project he really loved.

For me, last autumn was a critical moment too. After the two Vera games that didn't sold very well, I was tired of writing VNs, and in general of making games! But at same time I felt almost like I completely forgot how to code, how to make a good game.

So, I decided to aim higher this time, and in 6 months I built a RPG framework on top of the Ren'Py engine and wrote Planet Stronghold. At first glance you might think that's simple, but in reality it's not at all. Writing the code for a RPG that features: a turn-based battle system, special attacks/effects on enemies and your party, inventory system, skills system, level up screen, training screen, exploration map, and probably something else I forgot, was a big effort.

But already from the first months, when I started the pre-alpha phase, and first sales started coming in, and at same time my almost desert forums started to see some activity of people suggesting new features / changes / improvements, I made peace with coding and once again I found the FUN in making the games, that I thought to have lost forever!

Because making games is fun. It should always be fun. If you're making a game, and you're not having fun, something is seriously wrong.

Next week will talk about progresses with the otome/lifesim Remeber Me, which hopefully will be out in April!