This is just a quick update to let you know that Lori and I are doing a livestream at 2 pm PDT today, a little under 3 hours from this post. We'll be giving a sneak preview of the second Summer Daze at Hero-U game, Summer Daze: Ifeyo's Adventure. We'll answer questions about Ifeyo and Tilly, and generally talk about developing our RPG and adventure games.
The stream will be at transolargames - Twitch. If you aren't able to make it, the stream will be available later at Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption - YouTube, along with many previous streams, game trailers, and other content related to our games. Subscribe to that channel to keep up with our new posts.
Look for another update here in a day or two, with more information about Tilly's Tale and Ifeyo's Adventure.
It’s Backer Release Day!
about 3 years ago
– Tue, Mar 21, 2023 at 07:29:58 PM
The day you’ve been waiting for is here! When you visit your BackerKit for Summer Daze, you’ll find a personal Steam key on the Downloads page. That’s Digital Downloads | Summer Daze at Hero-U | BackerKit. Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale is finished and playable! Yay!
Unless, of course, you’re a Beach Blanket Beta (or higher) level backer, and you don’t see anything new on your Downloads page. That’s because your beta key is exactly the same as a release key, except it’s time to play Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale again in its polished state! That includes awesome voice acting, no more missing voice lines, and lots of bug fixes.
“But wait,” others of you might be thinking, “I just answered a survey, and I chose (itch.io or Nintendo Switch), not Steam. What’s this Steam key business?”
Well, I had to make a challenging choice. I got that survey out way too close to my self-imposed deadline (today). We have a fantastic response from about two-thirds of backers already. That’s amazing, as are all of you! But it turns out that asking survey questions, having backers answer them, and being able to download the results from Kickstarter are three different things.
Kickstarter initially wouldn’t let me download backer data at all - They’ve put in tight restrictions to prevent abuses. Fortunately, they’re very understanding, and I have access to the data now, which is around 6 pm on backer release day.
But I promised a game today, and that day is flying by quickly. Meanwhile, I’m still missing about a third of the surveys from equally awesome backers who haven’t gotten to it yet. It also turns out that we don’t have the game up on itch.io yet, which leaves Steam as the only option (for now).
So I’m doing what I did with Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, the same solution for a different issue. I’m giving all of our backers a Steam key, which you may use or not as you choose. In about a month, when the Switch version launches, and I’ve worked through all the surveys, anyone who requested an itch.io or Nintendo Switch key will get that key.
Backers gather at the Hero-U Harvest Festival, portraits by JP Selwood
What’s Here, and What’s Still to Come
So far we have the backer-only release on Steam, with itch.io to follow soon. In about a month, Silesia Games will release the Nintendo Switch version.
We’re working on Summer Daze: Ifeyo’s Adventure. It’s “art complete,” except of course for all the art additions and improvements we’ll want to add as Lori finishes the writing, and Philip gets it programmed into Unity. We have a composer lined up, but we haven’t started working with him yet. Expect Ifeyo’s Adventure in late 2024 (Lori’s estimate) to mid-2025 (Corey’s). 🙂
As we’ve mentioned previously, everyone who supported and ordered Summer Daze in this Kickstarter will get both Tilly’s Tale and Ifeyo’s Adventure. Two games for the price of one!
In between, I’ll be working with the team on fulfillment. We’ll start on the soundtrack, art book, coloring book, and other digital goodies we promised. Lori says that the art book contains some spoilers for both of the first two games, so we may delay that a bit.
We’ve already shipped many of the physical items, including t-shirts, meeps, and Rogue to Redemption boxed games. We have a few more of those to ship to people who ordered them on BackerKit. We still need to make the team poster, and collect autographs, the “flippy book,” and the Summer Daze boxed game. The latter is a bit complicated, as we promised it will include both games. That means we won’t be able to build it until next year.
In other words, we will ship everything we’ve promised, but some of the physical items will take a while. Digital goodies will come out sooner.
Tilly, Ifeyo, and Sami - Leaders of the first three Summer Daze games
Stealth Marketing
I like to describe Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale as full of “humor and heart.” Which is to say, it has lots of our trademark puns, and even more of Lori’s specialty - characters who come to life on the screen, and in the wonderful voice acting.
Because we wanted to get this game right before releasing it, I had a tough job picking a release date. That means we haven’t had much pre-launch publicity, and we’ll really need some help from all of you in telling others about Summer Daze and posting reviews.
We’re doing a gradual ramp on game publicity, and I think that fits the gentle nature of Tilly’s Tale. This isn’t an adrenaline-pumping action game. There’s no violence, no gore, but plenty of good dramatic conflict. It's a game about feeling and doing good. Tilly needs help making it through the Hero-U Summer session, and the people she meets need her help too.
The Summer Daze games are visual novels. That means, you’re playing out your own version of the story by the choices you make. There are enough choices that you can enjoy this game - er, visual novel - many times. I think of it as just like a Sierra adventure game without having to walk everywhere.
We have three more of these in the pipeline - Ifeyo’s Adventure is the Wizard story, and also about Ifeyo’s growth in an unfamiliar place and culture. Sami’s Story features a brave and mighty Warrior, who also happens to be a super cute humanoid corgi. The stakes and challenge increase in each story. Lori has just started concept and story design on a fourth game/book - Jani’s Journal. Jani has to choose between a safe life or the dangerous and exciting career of a Paladin.
These visual novels are a condensation of our story plans for Hero-U, which allows us to make them on more reasonable budgets. If we do well with them, we hope to eventually return to completing the planned Hero-U series games.
Thank you all so much for supporting our Quixotic game development quest. We hope that you’ll love Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale, and that we’ll be able to bring you more games in the Hero-U and Summer Daze series.
Backers at the Beach, portraits by Al Eufrasio
Summer Daze: Tilly's Tale release set for Tuesday, March 21
about 3 years ago
– Fri, Mar 10, 2023 at 04:53:28 PM
Our little one-year project that ended up taking four years (thanks to the pandemic and family matters) is finally headed to release! We've set the date to Tuesday, March 21, 2023. The Nintendo Switch version will launch 4-6 weeks later.
Here's a possible press release with a ChatGPT assist, and some editing:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale, the first fantasy adventure visual novel from acclaimed game designer Lori Ann Cole (Quest for Glory), will be available on March 17, 2023 on Steam and other digital storefronts. The game, set in the captivating world of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, stars the mischievous student Tilly—who puts people first and the rules last. It follows Tilly as she uses her wits, charm, and skills to make the upcoming Harvest Festival a success.
"With Summer Daze: Tilly's Tale, we wanted to offer a wide range of choices and paths for players to explore, making each playthrough a unique and memorable story,” said Cole. “It’s a game that’s more than just visuals and audio. It leans heavily into friendship, fun, and adventure for a uniquely charming experience.”
"We are thrilled to have Zehra Fazal (Voltron: Legendary Defender; Young Justice: Outsiders) as the voice of Tilly,” Cole said. “Her performance truly brings Tilly's journey to life, and I can't wait for players to experience the game with her voice guiding them through the adventure."
Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale started with a successful Kickstarter in 2019 and joins the highly-rated Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption in Transolar Games’ portfolio. Lori and Corey Cole’s previous award-winning games include the groundbreaking Quest for Glory series, Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, The Castle of Dr. Brain, and Shannara.
Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale is the first in a series of three planned visual novels set in the Hero-U universe. It will be followed by Summer Daze: Ifeyo’s Adventure and Summer Daze: Sami’s Story.
Livestream tomorrow (Saturday, March 10) at 2 pm PST
We're very excited by the recent advances in artificial intelligence. Self-driving cars, graphic images from a text prompt, text written by an AI from a brief prompt; all of those were science fiction when we were younger. Now they're rapidly maturing into technologies that anyone can use... or abuse.
We'll talk about that, and of course the upcoming Tilly's Tale release, in our stream at transolargames - Twitch tomorrow, Saturday, starting at 2 pm PST. Come hang out and chat with us there! Afterwards, we (in the U.S., at least) can all set our clocks forward an hour for that abomination, "Daylight Saving Time" aka "lose an hour of sleep."
Tilly's Tale release delayed to March
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Feb 11, 2023 at 10:41:50 AM
I've been waiting for a definite release date for Summer Daze: Tilly's Tale, but we're having trouble locking that down. It's week-to-week at this point, as we squash the last few reported bugs. We expect to release the game in mid-March, with the Switch version coming in late March to April.
A backer suggested that I contact GOG.com about reconsidering their decision to not carry Tilly's Tale. I've emailed them, but not yet received a response. As over one-third of you requested GOG keys, that's clearly an important marketplace for us.
Lori and I are live-streaming in just over three hours, at 2 pm PST. We'll be on Twitch at transolargames - Twitch. The theme is love and friendship, an important element in most of our games.
Can't make the stream? I've managed to post most of our streams to YouTube under the "Livestreams" playlist. Livestreams - YouTube
Lori and I would like to wish you God Jul, Hopeful Solstice, Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, and a Joyous New Year! In short, Happy Holidays from Hero-U!
We have several cool releases coming up in 2023, starting with Summer Daze: Tilly's Tale on Jan. 31. We think of the Summer Daze series as adventure games in visual novel form, and we hope our players will love the new books/games. If you haven’t yet supported and preordered Summer Daze, make sure you wishlist it on Steam at https://store.steampowered.com/app/1139490/Summer_Daze_Tillys_Tale/.
Kickstarter backers of Summer Daze at Hero-U will of course receive their Tilly's Tale game keys on or before the public launch. Since GOG.com has chosen not to carry the title, we will provide DRM-free game keys on itch.io to backers who chose GOG keys.
The attached poster/wallpaper is a look ahead to Summer Daze: Ifeyo's Adventure. From left to right, the characters are Chang Jiao Hu, Lea, Ifeyo Kinah, Charlotte Ruse, Meria Thálassa, Percival Parsival Peterson, and Sergei Sokolav. As in Rogue to Redemption and Tilly's Tale, each character has their own backstory and motivations. We plan to release Ifeyo's Adventure in 2024.
We're also working with Neoclassical Games on a new release of Corey's tabletop RPG module, Tower of Indomitable Circumstance. Lori and Corey met at Westercon in San Francisco, where Corey showed off the scenario. Corey designed it as an introductory scenario for beginning D&D players and characters.
As with the 1980 Judges Guild version, Neoclassical will release Tower as a "generic RPG" suitable for use with multiple game systems. Pathfinder, D&D 5th Edition, and other role-playing gamers should find the new module readily adaptable to their systems.
We're continuing to work with Silesia Games on Nintendo Switch releases. Expect Summer Daze: Tilly's Tale for the Switch in March or April. We're also talking with them about porting Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption to Sony PS4 and PS5 consoles!
Our next livestream will be Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022 starting at 6 pm PST. We plan to stream until after midnight to welcome in the new year. We stream on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/transolargames.
