Zenith Chronicles to Appear on Impulse for $9.99

[Blue Lemma]

I've been posting about the progress of my first commercial release, Zenith Chronicles for a while now, and I'm proud to finally announce that it is complete! Also, it has been accepted by the Impulse game portal for distribution. Yay! The game will be available this February (exact day to be announced). If you don't have Impulse, you will still be able to get the game from the Mango Drop Games store.

Because the game will be getting more exposure than I originally thought, I've decided to make it available for the super-bargain price of $9.99. It was originally going to be $14.99-$19.99, so this is a great deal! Zenith Chronicles will give you a good 8-20 hours of fantasy bishoujo visual novel/arcade shooter bliss (depending on your skill level and how many endings and bonuses you want to unlock.)

LSF's longtime resident Taleweaver wrote a fantastic script for the game, so if you're a fan of his work, be sure to give the game a spin

Zenith Chronicles also features graphics from several wonderful artists across the internet. Here are some screenshots so you can see for yourself:

The Dragon Goddess hates humans but loves frying them to a crisp :-3

Selene is a crafty and flirty snow fairy princess!

Half visual novel and half arcade/2D shooter, ZC is a unique gameplay experience. Your actions in missions and during the story scenes will lead you to any of more than 7 endings. Find happiness and love with one of your companions, lay waste to the humans or demons, or discover the bigger story of Dain (the protagonist) and his friends.

If you're not adept with arcade/2D shooters, don't worry! There are three levels of difficulty so even shooter newbies can join in the fun

Meredith the demon temptress makes an assault on the Gates of the Dead with Dain

Thanks for reading, and keep an eye out for more news and ordering info soon!

[sake-bento]

Woohoo! Congrats, and I look forward to playing. owo

[jack_norton]

Cool move, I've an old shooter of mine there and sold surprisingly well (considering is a 6 years old game). So they must have a good audience for that kind of games

[DaFool]

Impulse! They have Shira-Oka and Spirited Heart and the whole RPG Maker XP conglomerate. They seem to be the most open to anime games (or at least not as elitist as Steam!)

Blue Lemma, jack_norton >> you're under NDA regarding getting onto Impulse? Can you reveal what they're looking for and thus have better chances of getting in?

[Aleema]

Ooh, I use Impulse for all my downloadable game needs. Congrats. :3

[jack_norton]

They basically accepted all my games (including old ones not manga). Is also true that I've been unable to contact them again for Flower Shop though. Like with all portals / big sites unless you have a top game, is all about getting in touch with them (US people have a big advantage in this case).

[Taleweaver]

This is really a project I'm proud to be a part of - a game where I was hired as the writer! I'm pretty confident you're going to love the story every bit as much as the gameplay, and with multiple endings to discover and different paths to follow through the game, there's tons of replay value! Plus, if you don't like my writing, you can even pay me back by... whoops, now I almost gave away some of the hidden content.

Whoops. Maybe I shouldn't have given away there was hidden content...

[dstarsboy]

Looks great! Grats on the release! Exposure is a great idea for dropping the price. Look at what happened to Pixelmator.

To summarize... software that they have been selling on their own site for years for around $79... so they decided to drop it on the Mac Store for $29 and whammo!... a million bucks in 20 days.

That's also the reason I strongly encourage commercial VN makers to deploy for iPhones and Droids at $0.99 cents or $1.99... even though it feels wrong because the game they sell on their main site goes for $20. Selling something for 10% of the price at 1,000,000% the exposure will usually net you huge rewards... not to mention it builds your brand name while you're at it.

Now that I think about it, Blue Lemma can probably drop this to the Mac Store as is with very little effort.

[Blue Lemma]

Blue Lemma, jack_norton >> you're under NDA regarding getting onto Impulse? Can you reveal what they're looking for and thus have better chances of getting in?

Yeah, not allowed to discuss the agreement, but as for what they look for... no clue. A good game? I hope?

Maybe I shouldn't have given away there was hidden content...

Actually I'm glad you did! I forgot to mention that there is TONS of bonus stuff in the game, and we took special effort for it! Bonus art galleries, extra missions, bonus endings... And yes, some of the creators might even make a special appearance for you

Now that I think about it, Blue Lemma can probably drop this to the Mac Store as is with very little effort.

Interesting idea, although there are no plans now. I'm not so familiar with Mac, but since I used SDL and C++ it shouldn't be TOO hard. I think. We'll see!

[jack_norton]

That's also the reason I strongly encourage commercial VN makers to deploy for iPhones and Droids at $0.99 cents or $1.99... even though it feels wrong because the game they sell on their main site goes for $20. Selling something for 10% of the price at 1,000,000% the exposure will usually net you huge rewards... not to mention it builds your brand name while you're at it.

Haha "usually". Sorry, not really. All games I had on iphone (both VN and other games) made me 1 / 10000000000 of the income I had on PC/Mac. The itunes store is so swamped by new games that you don't get 1,000,000 the exposure, rather the opposite...0,00000001%
iTunes is a lottery, and is based more on simple, fun mechanics than what a VN can offer. I really think a story-based game like a VN cannot ever be successful there. I cannot say figures for my VN, but they were all VERY VERY lower than desktop sales!
The best use probably you can do is make some freeware VN like Ripples to promote your site. But when I heard people investing lot of time/money on iphone specific games...poor them

[Taleweaver]

Maybe I shouldn't have given away there was hidden content...

Actually I'm glad you did! I forgot to mention that there is TONS of bonus stuff in the game, and we took special effort for it! Bonus art galleries, extra missions, bonus endings... And yes, some of the creators might even make a special appearance for you

>_< That was my general idea when I wrote it, making people curious about "forbidden hidden secret ninja-y stuff...

[Muse]

So, I hope this is okay to ask, but I was wondering what exactly are the chances of this coming to mac? I know you said you were considering it, but I was wondering if it's likely or not, or you just have no idea? I'm basically debating over getting it for windows on release, or waiting to see if there will be a mac version, since I much prefer to play my games on the mac side.

Thank you so much to everyone who worked on this and for the price drop: I am most definitely looking forward to this!

[Blue Lemma]

Muse: Thanks! Sadly there are no plans right now for a Mac release, but it's not totally ruled out. I suggest going with the Windows version if it'll work for you since any Mac release would be of the order of several months away if it happens.

[Muse]

Muse: Thanks! Sadly there are no plans right now for a Mac release, but it's not totally ruled out. I suggest going with the Windows version if it'll work for you since any Mac release would be of the order of several months away if it happens.

Will do! Thank you very much for the further information!

[shwippie]

Whoa~ It looks amazing! Congrats on getting it put on Impulse! (sadly, I'm not on Windows OTZ) I love the look of the backgrounds and characters, though ^^