A lighthearted adventure story game by Lori and Corey Cole, creators of Quest for Glory, Hero-U, and Castle of Dr. Brain.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Summer Daze at Hero-U is now two games!
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 11:42:08 PM
It’s been the weirdest year we can remember, but somehow we’ve managed to keep working on Summer Daze at Hero-U. However, all those outside events have cost us time.
Originally, Summer Daze at Hero-U was a game with one story and setting, but with a choice of two player characters. As the game has developed, the two halves became much more distinct. Instead of having a common cast and storyline, each part has different characters and unique events. Rather than creating one game with two ways to play, we found that we are making two separate games.
New game, new title - Tilly's Tale
Of those two games, the writing for Tilly’s Tale is almost finished, but we have months of writing and scripting to do on Ifeyo’s Adventure. The obvious answer is to treat two different games as two different games. Rocket science! This way we can also finish and release the game that’s almost ready much closer to our original estimated date.
Let’s be clear that “almost finished” still means there are months to go before we can put a finished game on the Steam, GOG, iOS, Android, Switch, and other stores. We’re working with Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye games to record voices for all of our characters, and it will take time to process those and get them into the game.
Oh, did I forget to mention that I've decided to add voice acting to Summer Daze even though we came up short of that stretch goal during the campaign? It's not as though Lori and I need to eat or have a roof over our heads if we can make the game better instead. ;-)
We're looking at a Spring 2021 release for Summer Daze at Hero-U: Tilly's Tale. We'll try to provide an alpha version to testers in 2020, but it won't have voiceovers, and may be missing some music and sound effects.
Here's a new video trailer created by Lori Cole with art by John Paul Selwood and Al Eufrasio, programming by Cidney Hamilton, and music by Brandon Blume from a theme by Corey and Lori Cole.
What about that other game, Summer Daze at Hero-U: Ifeyo's Adventure? We plan to have that out by July, but there are a lot of unknowns in that schedule. Kickstarter backers will automatically get both games when they're ready.
We're also doing something special for our top-level "Summer Selfie" backers. Their portraits will appear in the final scene or end credits as promised, but we're also adding them to the in-game journal to view any time during the game. Each Summer Selfie backer will also get an exclusive poster featuring their portrait.
Here's an example featuring a backer character you may remember from Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption:
A Tanuki in the Orchard
We're working on sending out t-shirts and other pre-game merchandise to backers who ordered them. It's more expensive for us to split shipments, but this way we can get them to you months before boxed games and other goods dependent on finishing Tilly's Tale and Ifeyo's Adventure are ready.
Halloween Marathon Live Stream
We're big fans of Halloween, and it's (somewhere around) the first anniversary of the Summer Daze at Hero-U Kickstarter campaign. We planned it that way. This year we aren't busy running a Kickstarter, so I'm going to play Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness instead. I started it last year, but I'll probably make a fresh game since this is a marathon.
Our Twitch channel is https://www.twitch.tv/transolargames. The stream will start on Oct. 31 at 1 pm PDT and end around midnight. Two hours later, it will be time for many of us to set our clocks back an hour as we leave Daylight Savings Time.
We hope many of you will join us there for games, prizes, game development talk, community, and more!
Tilly's Tale Teaser. Livestream later today.
over 5 years ago
– Sat, Oct 10, 2020 at 11:45:08 PM
I'll have a longer post tomorrow (or at least Real Soon Now). This one is to remind everyone of our live stream on Twitch at 3 pm PDT today. We'll have game play, participatory games with giveaways, the Epilogue of By the Book, and more.
And here's a little teaser about the Big Announcement coming soon . . .
Summer Daze at Hero-U: Tilly's Tale
Don't worry. Ifeyo isn't going anywhere. But it turns out that Wizards have a more intensive course of study than Rogues. It will take longer for Ifeyo to graduate to Summer Daze at Hero-U: Ifeyo's Adventure. More in the next update!
"By the Book" live readings. T-shirts and keychains ready to mail.
over 5 years ago
– Sun, Sep 06, 2020 at 04:35:18 PM
30 Years of Glory t-shirt and keychain design
If you requested either of the "30 Years of Glory" items on BackerKit, we're ready to mail them. Please visit https://summerdaze.backerkit.com/backer/shipping and correct any errors in your address, email, or phone number. We plan to start packing and shipping next week.
As for the game, Lori is making good progress on finishing the writing for Tilly's story and directing the art, programming, and music for it. We've had some delays due to Covid-19 worries and family caregiving, but we're working hard on the game. Lori hopes to have Tilly's half in beta next month, with Ifeyo's story to follow a few months later.
By the Book Live Readings on YouTube
Lori has been reading from her book - with Mishell Baker - during our Twitch streams. Superfan Maus Merryjest has wrapped each chapter with a musical intro and ending.
Here's what I wrote about the book in the most recent videos:
"How To Be A Hero: By The Book" is a young adult novel inspired by Lori and Corey Cole's 1989 game, Hero's Quest: So You Want To Be A Hero. In this retelling, the four character classes from that game are represented by four orphan siblings who find themselves called to adventure.
Hawk is a sixteen year old boy with holes in his boots and a hand-me-down sword he can barely draw without falling over. He lives with his two brothers and younger sister in an isolated Alpine village. Hawk soon realizes that they all have no future in the village, so he leaves to seek a new life or himself and his family.
Armed with an inspirational manual, "How to Be a Hero," Hawk sets off for the town of Siegburg, where he plans to win fame and fortune as an adventurer. But he soon discovers that Siegburg is a hopeless mess. Meanwhile, he has his hands full keeping the rest of the family out of his hair... and out of trouble. Unfortunately, the path to heroism is much less glamorous than his dog-eared manual led him to expect.
During the campaign, backers "earned" 13 chapters of the novel. I'm happy to say that we've completed that commitment plus a bonus chapter 14! Here are the chapters I've posted so far:
Our next live stream will be next Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020 from 3-5 pm PDT (California time). We stream on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/transolargames.
I'm currently looking into doing some more editing on the novel, and eventually publishing it as a downloadable book. The live readings are from the original "Beta" version of By the Book.
Help Support the Stream on Patreon
As you probably know, the market for indie adventure games is really challenging. As a result, Lori and I don't take any salary or royalties from Hero-U games. Instead, we are relying on continuing support from our fans on our Patreon.
We think supporting us there is a win-win proposition. Each patron contributes a small monthly amount, and the total adds up to a useful amount of funds for us. What do patrons get? I try to post something new a couple of times a month. Much of the content is open to anyone who visits our Patreon page, while some "premium" posts are only available to patrons
Already-available content includes the entire Birth of a Hobbit comic strip series, posts from our "Quest Log Blog," recent articles, Lori's photographic art, images from our games, and more! Patrons who donate at least $10/month get additional content including high-resolution "screen wallpaper" images and premium "heroes" role access to our Discord.
Please consider subscribing at https://www.patreon.com/coreyloricole to help keep us free to make games and do live streams. Subscribe only if you can easily afford it, please!
Also join our free Discord server. You can search for Transolar Games or use this link: https://discord.gg/mAWPeCh. We have some awesomely cool people and conversations there, and I try to contribute regularly.
Summer Daze end of July update
over 5 years ago
– Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 09:37:53 PM
Coming up this Saturday, 3-5 pm PDT, we’ll talk a little about how we look at we test, and fix bugs, in our games. We’ll have a contest for a fabulous game key prize. Lori will read Chapter 19: Spellbound, from By the Book, the Quest for Glory inspired novel she wrote with Mishell Baker. The stream will go live at https://www.twitch.tv/transolargames at 3 pm PDT on Aug. 1.
Check out our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/coreyloricole. Since we do not take any salary from Transolar Games, this is currently our only income. Sign up for $2 or $10 a month to get exclusive content and early access to our public posts. Or just keep us linked to see the latter.
Join our Discord via this link: https://discord.gg/AaT8UbM. It’s a great place to meet other fans, talk about games, and ask me questions.
The video gives a first look at the Wizbang and La Boomba mini-games and introductions to a few of the characters. We think the mini-games are going to be really fun to play.
Boom Wins... Most of the Time
Keychains On Order
We've ordered the "Thirty Years of Glory" keychains. Once these arrive at the end of August in early September, Al will start mailing t-shirts and keychains to backers that ordered them. As promised in the Kickstarter campaign, we'll throw in a Lucky Coin with each order (one per backer).
30 Years of Glory Keychain
Upcoming (Tentative) Project
Hero-U: Wizard’s Way is on indefinite hold for now. We can’t afford to produce it on our own, and we don’t currently see a path to find a publisher or outside backer for the game.
But we do have something else in the pipeline. Did you enjoy the mini-games on the way to Dr. Cranium in Quest for Glory IV? Or the game that inspired them, Castle of Dr. Brain? What if we could make a new game with puzzles like those, but with more story? We could set it in a dark and moody atmosphere reminiscent of Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness?
Castle of Dr. Brain was a fascinating project. My team and I built it under SCI, the same game engine used for Quest for Glory and other Sierra adventure games, but it was a completely different type of game. It was much more condensed, with the emphasis on puzzles rather than exploration. I’ve thought about making another game like that many times, but want to build a real story into the game as well.
We’re working on a prototype and a few puzzles as proof of concept. If they turn out well, Consulting Magicians (working title) might become our next game after Summer Daze at Hero-U. We’ll keep you posted here.
LockDownCon starts tonight! Early rewards news.
almost 6 years ago
– Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 03:25:28 PM
Neal Hallford - writer on Betrayal at Krondor, Dungeon Siege, Champions of Norrath, and more - is hosting LockDownCon this weekend. It's a "Virtual Fan Convention," free admission, with some amazing guests and speakers. Scroll way down in the linked page to get to the schedule.
We're last-minute replacements for Ray Muzyka of Bioware fame on "The Golden Age of Computer Gaming" panel Saturday at noon PDT. Matt Barton of Matt Chat is hosting, and we'll be on the panel with Trip Hawkins (Electronic Arts), Warren Spector (Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Deus Ex, etc.), and John Cutter and Neal Hallford from Dynamix (Betrayal at Krondor, etc.) It's a star-studded panel and promises to be amazing!
Today (as I write this), Friday, at 7 pm PDT is a panel on "Narrative Design for Computer Games" that might be of interest to many of you. I'm looking forward to the 3 pm Saturday panel on "Restoring Scientific Thought in America." There are also a number of panels on acting and filmmaking, lots of interesting content.
Best of all, you don't have to get in line outside Hall H for four hours before each panel! And, as I mentioned, it's FREE! Come join us online for LockDownCon this weekend.
Summer Daze Backer Reward Fulfillment
We still have a long way to go on the game, but we already have many of the promised rewards. I took a few hours this week to fulfill the digital game keys for Quest for Glory and Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. If you backed at the Summer and Winter Games level, or chose one of those games as an add-on, you can find your game keys at https://summerdaze.backerkit.com/backer/digital_rewards. You should also have received an email from Backerkit about them.
Incidentally, I made some errors in the GOG.com keys the first time, so please accept your key as soon as possible, and let me know at [email protected] if you have any problem getting it. Error #1 was to upload the file with Quest for Glory keys twice, the second time as if they were Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption keys. Error #2 was in the instructions for how to redeem the GOG.com keys. The correct place to redeem a GOG key is https://www.gog.com/redeem.
I've fixed both of those, but there is a slight possibility you'll try to claim your Quest for Glory key and find out that someone else has already claimed it. I still have a (very) few QfG keys left, so let me know if you had this problem.
Thirty Years of Glory T-Shirt design
I've also ordered the "30 Years of Glory" t-shirts, and we'll try to send those out in July and August. I'd like to replace the game disks in the boxed games with the latest version, which is delaying those. In general, we save money by combining shipments, but we'd like to get some of these out to you sooner rather than later.
We only had four orders for Summer Daze "Hero-Ewe" t-shirts, so we'll be checking our stock and working on those. We may have to issue refunds or substitute another t-shirt design for any of those we don't have available in the correct size. T-shirt prices triple in very small orders.
