The Blue Rose steam version finally has a release date!
Barring no issues, Blue Rose will finally release on Steam on April 23rd 2015. That is, in less than a week!
The steam release will contain an updated script, a few corrected event CGs, as well as achievements and trading cards. Those who have already bought the game directly through the White Cat website will receive keys following release for activation on Steam itself.
The game on White Cat’s own website will of course also be updated to reflect the changes and improvements in the steam version, though there will be no achievements or trading cards.
Thanks to everyone’s support, Blue Rose is now greenlit and ready to join the rising number of visual novels on Steam! Give eachother a good pat on the back, and throw some confetti around!
Of course being greenlit is not the end – it only mean that the game is now allowed to be posted in their store, but the final release is not quite ready yet. I want Blue Rose to be presented the best way it can be when it arrives on the store. Most of the things I want to do with it have been mentioned before both here and on twitter, but here is what you can expect from the Blue Rose Steam release:
Improved script – I got myself a very promising editor, and am confident that the upcoming script patch will greatly improve the text of the game, getting rid of the typos that are still there and generally give it an extra polish.
Trading Cards – I am planning to add trading cards, especially as this is something that some people seem to have looked forward to.
Achievements – of course!
Soundtrack DLC
I really want to provide steam keys to people who have supported the game until now by buying it, and will look into the possibility of doing so! News on this front will follow after the release.
So when will it happen?
I can’t promise any specific date as of yet, mostly because of the script improvements. It has taken some time to find a reliable editor, and it might still take a couple of months at worst. Blue Rose’s 1 year anniversary is coming up next month though, so I am hoping to be able to do something close to that time, if all goes well!
Time to talk a little about what was introduced earlier – White Cat’s next visual novel, Angelic Orbs: Fallen Star.
Angelic Orbs is the story about Tia, an angel who is unable to return home, and the three people she meets who feel just as lost in the world as she does. Together this unlikley group begins a journey to correct the wrongs she has done, and learn the truths of the world they live in.
AO is planned to take part over three or so ‘episodes’ or ‘chapters’. Fallen Star is the first, and will contain a story that hopefully works well on its own, but also leads into the greater scheme of things that follow in the next chapters. This is done because AO in general is a much bigger story than Blue Rose was, and because I plan to try out a number of new things in the way the story is told and the visuals are presented. Splitting the story into well-sized chapters will make the completion of each of them easier to accomplish, and let me get a game out there earlier to see if this kind of projects works well with its audience. And for the things that do not work, I should be able to improve that so much more for the following chapters.
Angelic Orbs is not BxG or GxB – the player is not a narrator but an observer, and the ways you can interact with the story are shaped, maybe limited, around that. There will be times where you can change the point of view on the story that unfolds, and a few occassions where you can interfere with the with the circumstances that the group finds themselves in.
At the time of writing another kind of interactivity is also planned. Whenever the group finds themselves in a situation where they have no choice but to fight, you will be able to control these battles in a turnbased rpg-like manner.
At this point however, the game is still very early in its production. It is currently in the writing phase, with the first draft of the first four parts of the chapter written so far. Many of the concepts about player mechanics and even art presentation are therefore still up in the air, and many things can yet change before the final game sees completion in the distant future. I will most likely return with several different blog posts about this, while also trying to gauge people’s thoughts on different ways of handling these topics.
The sad part about this point of the production is that there is so little to show! Therefore we will have to make do with these little concept sketches for now. If I can set some time aside for it, then hopefully I will have some more visual things to present at some point, and maybe do a more indepth presentation of the world and the characters that this vn will be about.
To celebrate Valentines Day, Blue Rose is 30% off until February 16th! Go get it now for your friends or dear ones, or take this chance to get it cheap if you were holding out!
For the full version of the Valentines artwork, go here.
Time to finally talk a little about what is currently going on with White Cat!
It’s been almost half a year since Blue Rose was released, and I’m very thankful for the nice reception of our Visual Novel so far! Even with private and open testing though, there will almost always be hiccups with the script after release. Some of you have sent in your corrections and comments on these, a few of them very detailed as well, and I really appreciate it. They will all be taken into consideration, and a future patch for the script will take all these things into consideration. Feel free to still send me a mail if you run into something bugging you!
Remember that the game is also still up for voting on Steam Greenlight, should you wish to show your support there.
Now for what is currently on the drawing table for White Cat. Those who have followed my twitter or tumblr, you may have already noticed me mention one of these projects in passing a couple of times. I have been reworking and rewriting Angelic Orbs from the bottom up for a little while now, our company’s next big visual novel title. Some people might know the title from our first free vn from years back, while a very few might even remember its roots as a webcomic from even longer ago.
The first vn of this title was a kind of sidestory, while this project is a complete telling of the original story from the ground up. It will also be different from Blue Rose in a few ways, one of the most noteable ones the fact that this is not a first-person story. The reader will not step directly in the shoes of a protagonist and aiming for romance routes, but will instead follow a small group of protagonists and influence their journey over the course of the story, sometimes even choosing what POV to follow in the coming events.
A few other features are in mind for this title, that I won’t speak of yet however. The script is in the middle of being written, as well as general character and world designs being made. Hopefully I can show you something more of this soon, though the game itself won’t be done in a while.
At the same time as this, I am also working on another project of a very different kind than Blue Rose and Angelic Orbs. It will be cute and deadly. But that is all I’m going to say about it so far.
And that is mostly what is going on at the moment! After our first big release we are hoping for 2014 to be another good and productive year, coming closer to bringing you great storytelling and entertainment.
And in the future if the support for it is there, I might return to this lonely folder on my desktop named “Blue Rose 2″…
A big thank you to the site that has also given the game and White Cat a nice bit of attention with their review and interviews!
And of course a congratulations to the other winners on the site, especially Muesli and Dischan for winning “English Visual Novel of the Year” and “Studio/EVN Circle of the Year”!
Here’s to hoping we can all keep it up in the new year!
I just stumbled across this article, that puts light on something that bothers me about me current project. It discusses how, in time, some authors in printed literature began to drift away from using third person past tense, to use third person present tense, most likely because they were inspired by the style of writing screenplays. The article then goes on to touch on how those two different ways of writing have a different impact on the way your story is perceived, and that you should choose one depending on what you wish to achieve. This is all when discussing traditional novel writing.
How does this come out when writing for the visual novel format? They are usually a mix between choose-your-own-adventure stories and comics, making them very different when approached from a writer’s angle, sometimes more than you’d think.
The script of most visual novels are written with a first person POV, putting the reader in the shoes of the protagonist. He’s seeing things happen, he makes the choice as they come up. Present tense lends itself well to this type of story, as you’re supposed to be there, experiencing all this, in a story where no one knows the ending yet. It is part of what sets visual novels apart from reading book or a comic.
In comics themselves, this issue most often does not exist, as there is no descriptive text – only dialogue. The rest is something you see happen, it’s not told.
The voices in my head, duking it out.
Now what if you want to write a third-person visual novel?
This is what I’m currently doing, and it’s proving surprisingly challenging. You’re no longer “in the shoes” of one person who sees all this unravel – you’re not making choices of what one person in particular would think or do. Adding to this, I’m trying to lean more heavily on the visual side of things, mimicking the original comic roots of the story I’m writing. But that’s for another day.
I soon realised, that when returning to third person, I naturally wanted to revert back to past tense as well, as I used to do. It’s what I’m used to reading, and writing. And it’s something people might be more used to reading as well, as the article puts it. This is something I’m struggling with quite a bit at the moment – as a reader you’re still put directly into the action, you’re still making choices for these people on the screen and impacting their lives as you go – should it still not be present tense?
“Omg, the writing is so bad! What was she even thinking!?”
I think the evidence still points towards the latter, though I still have to be careful with not falling into pitfalls of old writing habits. But the subject interests me.
What are your thoughts on the subject, as readers and writers?
The final version of Blue Rose has been released! A demo is now also available, for trying out the novel.
Get it now to experience the story of Lena Ehrenfeldt, the Templar who goes M.I.A in the mountains during a mission to escort an important ambassador. Help solve the mysteries of what happens in the lonely village hidden there, throughout 5 different character routes with each a good or a bad outcome.
The full version of the game also includes extra short stories that are unlocked after playing through the game’s different routes, as well as image and music galleries.
All who bought the beta version will recieve an email with instructions to download the newest version.
