Celso Riva

Celso Riva (born c. 1974) is an Italian independent video game designer of several critically acclaimed games, including The Goalkeeper, Universal Boxing Manager, Magic Stones, the Heileen and Vera Blanc series, Bionic Heart, and the Loren the Amazon Princess.

Life and game design career

At the age of twenty, Riva began his career, designing small-scale games for the Italian market. He took a seven-year sabbatical until 2003, when he discovered the shareware distribution model and created the sports management video game Universal Soccer Manager using BlitzBasic.

He moved to C/C++ language and published 10 more games under the Winter Wolves label, then opened a new company, Tycoon Games, on which he has published 6 games: the space war game Supernova 2: Spacewar, the dating sim game Summer Session, the visual novels Heileen and Bionic Heart, College Romance: Rise Of The Little Brother, and Spirited Heart. For the games Summer Session and Heileen, he moved away from C/C++ to embrace Python programming language and in particular the tool Ren'Py.

The stories of The Flower Shop: Summer In Fairbrook and The Flower Shop: Winter in Fairbrook were written by Ayu Sakata from sakevisual. Starting from 2020, some of his games were ported and published to consoles by Ratalaika Games.

Awards

In 2004, both his games The Goalkeeper and Universal Boxing Manager were nominated among the 5 top Sports Games of the Year ^[1] by the online magazine Gametunnel. In the 2011 Best Ofs from VNs Now!, Winter Wolves was named "Studio/EVN Circle of the Year".

Games

Release Date	Title(s)	Genre(s)	Platform(s)
2003	Universal Soccer Manager	Sports management	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2004	Spin Around	Puzzle game	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Ignazio The Frog	Pac-Man clone	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Universal Boxing Manager	Sports management	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Quizland	Quiz game	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	The Goalkeeper	Simulation video game	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Supernova: Galactic Wars	Strategy video game	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2005	Magic Stones	Card game, Role-playing video game	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2006	Universal Soccer Manager 2	Sports management	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2007	TV Station Manager	Simulation video game	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2008	Supernova 2: Spacewar	Strategy video game	Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Summer Session	Visual novel, dating sim	Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Heileen: Sail Away	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2009	College Romance: Rise Of The Little Brother	Visual novel, dating sim	Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Spirited Heart	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Bionic Heart	Visual novel	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Heileen 2: The Hands of Fate	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2010	Card Sweethearts	Card game	Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	The Flower Shop - Summer In Fairbrook	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Vera Blanc: Full Moon	Visual novel, detective game	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
	Vera Blanc: Ghost In The Castle	Visual novel, detective game	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
2011	Love & Order with Christine Love	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Planet Stronghold	Role-playing video game, visual novel	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Always Remember Me	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Spirited Heart Girl's Love	Expansion	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	The Flower Shop - Winter In Fairbrook	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2012	Loren The Amazon Princess	Role-playing video game, visual novel	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Loren The Amazon Princess: The Castle of N'mar	Expansion	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Heileen 3: New Horizons	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2013	Heileen 3: Sea Maidens	Expansion	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Bionic Heart 2	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Nicole	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
2014	Roommates	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
	Tales of Aravorn: Seasons of the Wolf	Role-playing-game, visual novel	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2015	Bad Blood	Expansion	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2016	Planet Stronghold: Colonial Defense	Visual novel, card game video game	Android, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	C14 Dating	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
	Heirs And Graces	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Queen of Thieves	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Never Forget Me	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2017	Amber's Magic Shop	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2018	Cursed Lands	Role-playing video game	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
	Love Bites	Visual novel, dating sim	Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2019	Corona Borealis	Visual novel, dating sim	Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
2020	Planet Stronghold 2	Role-playing video game, visual novel	Linux, Microsoft Windows
	Volleyball Heaven	Visual novel, dating sim	Linux, Microsoft Windows
2021	Tales From The Under-Realm: Hazel	Visual novel	Linux, Microsoft Windows
	At Your Feet	Visual novel, dating sim	Linux, Microsoft Windows
	Summer In Trigue	Visual novel, dating sim	Linux, Microsoft Windows
	Love Notes	Visual novel, dating sim	Linux, Microsoft Windows
2022	The Curse Of Mantras	Card game, role-playing video game	Linux, Microsoft Windows
	Tales From The Under-Realm: After Midnight	Visual novel	Linux, Microsoft Windows
2023	The Beastmaster Princess	Visual novel	Linux, Microsoft Windows
	Save The World	Visual novel	Linux, Microsoft Windows
	Tales Of Aravorn: An Elven Marriage	Role-playing video game, visual novel	Linux, Microsoft Windows

References

1. 2004 Sports Games of the Year Awards 9 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine

Interviews

• In The Company of Wolves: Celso Riva Interview from rockpapershotgun.com
• Interview from gamesetwatch.com
• Interview from pig-min
• Interview from Indie Superstar

External links

• Winter Wolves computer games site
• games forum
• his personal blog
• the games videos on YouTube
• Celso Riva at The Visual Novel Database