Ren'Py Under Your Spell [Development Thread] (Magic School Dating Simulator)

[Shady Character 1]

Hey, everyone! This is my first post here and also the start of my devblog, I guess.
About a couple of month ago me and my friend started working on our first game. It is called "Under your spell", and it is going to be a 2D VN-style school simulator based in a magic school loosely inspired by the Harry Potter universe. After a spell-gone-wrong, you will have to carefully plan your school year: attend classes, raise stats, balance part-time jobs and leisure, to survive a dangerous tournament, and most importantly find yourself a girlfriend.

What to expect:
RPG elements - the way you create and develop your character will effect the story and end results.
Time management - you will have to spend your time with care.
Plot - the game will be plot-driven and will have a complete narrative.
Girls - a variety of girls to interact with and potentially date (we are planning to have 4 at first, but the full cast is planned to be 11).

What NOT to expect:
Porn - this will not be a purely porn game, though it will have plenty of lewdness and sex.

We are currently moving steadily to our first demo build. Until then, I will try to post some progress reports and teasers here.
If you have any questions - I am happy to answer them.​

 

[Shady Character 1]

Some work in progress sprites for our four initial girls. Only two of them are in their school uniform, and to be honest, the uniform is still a subject to change too. But we are planning to have several main outfits for the girls like "uniform", "casual", "winter", "sports" and maybe a few variations.

​

 

[Shady Character 1]

I am not sure if I will keep it a weekly thing, but for now I will try to keep it up.
The first alpha-build is coming up nicely. Slower than I was initially hoping for, but the progress is steady.
The art is the slowest part of course, but a lot of groundwork on both characters and interface is being done.
For the first build we decided to focus on the first month and a half of the school-year, and mostly on the beginning of girls' story-lines and the main plot. There will be a few random events, but only a few, since it will take to much time to make the art for.
Random events and different "companion mechanics" like shopping, learning spells, part-time jobs and the like, we will leave for future builds.​

 

[Shady Character 1]

Ok, let's see how far I will be able to take it. Week 4
Today's update is on the progress of UI. Even though it is still in design stages, the first iteration of the interface is already here.
This is the main room from where you will plan your day. Ignore the backgrounds for now, they are just generic AI placeholders, but they should convey the general idea.
Tell me if you can spot the difference
How it was a month ago:

How it is now:

Take your time, the differences may be very subtle.

So far, making the back-end for the interface was probable the most fun part of the development process. Constant cycle of adding new features to streamline the way it interacts with other systems, which adds a lot of code, and finding ways to optimize the code that makes everything work better. But it is about 90% done now, at least for the initial build, so I will need to find other ways to optimize now.

And here's a bonus image of an encounter with a wild witch-student:
​

 

[Shady Character 1]

Ok, another Friday, another another update. Nothing really major was done this week:
Character sprites are being worked on (have about a dozen more or less completed ones)
New events are being written (about 30 events are finished)
Really hoping to push out our first alpha build this weekend, which will include the events of the game up until the first major event.
Btw, what's the stance on using AI generated images these days? I was thinking to using some AI backgrounds as placeholders for now, and I was thinking whether we should instead use some sketch placeholders as AI is being frowned upon?
​

 

[Shady Character 1]

Hey, everyone. New update on the work Under Your Spell is here.
A LOT of things have been done in the last week. Most importantly is that we made our first alpha build and had it tested by a few people with lots of positive feedback. And some of bugfixes and typos, but most of those were fixed withing a couple of hours.
Second major thing is that I finally had ironed out the calendar system, for such a small part of the game, it has taken the most amount of code by far. Most of it is copy-pasting, and I am pretty sure that there was a much more elegant way to do it, but that's how I made it, and it works. It show dates of interest, keeps track of your plans, and generally helps you plan your school year

Another major improvement is that we finally started adding in the girl sprites into the game. With different clothes, expression, blinking eyes, and all the other bells and whistles that most of you probably expect to see. The sprites themselves are not yet 100% finished, but they will probably be by my next update, so I'll be able to show them off without fear of retribution from the artist.But what I did end up implementing completely is out best friend Eric, who sets up the start of the events of the game, and who follows you to whatever School House you choose at the start.
Eric from Cairngorm:

Eric from Dunagall:

Eric from Ruachan:

Eric from Talamhdan:
​

 

[Shady Character 1]

Ok, I did skip a couple of weeks because of some circumstances that were beyond my control, but I am back now, and I really hope that we will be releasing our first public build soon. In coming weeks, I hope.
That's why I believe that it is a good time to introduce our first five characters that will get the most screen time at this point.
Just like you, all five of them are students in Tír na nÓg, the School of Spellcraft and Wizardry.

Aisling Campbell - a sixth-year, she belongs to the House Cairngorm. Smart and athletic, she is nonetheless not interested in anything the school can offer her be it academic- or sports-related. Instead she spends most of her time looking for adventure and mostly finding trouble. Both for herself and whoever gets dragged into her antics.

Lily Doherty - a sixth-year belonging to the House Talamhdan. Caring and gentle, Lily is scared easily, so she prefers spending time with her friends or holding tea-parties in the garden for anyone who needs a quiet moment and pleasant company.

Violet Novac - a fifth-year that only got transferred to Tír na nÓg last year, and became a part of House Dunagall. She doesn't have many friends and prefers to spend most of her time alone in the school's library. Even though she is frail and small physically, her academic results are rivaling even those of higher year students.

Gwen Darrow - a seventh-year student belonging to the House Ruachan. One of the golden children of the school, she one of the school's top duelists and a star player of Lasracha (a popular sport that looks like a blend of rugby and handball, if you throw some magic into the mix). She is open and daring, and prefers to solve her problems head-on.

Eric Greenfield - your best friend for many years. Quick-witted and energetic, he prefers to use his talents for having fun and playing pranks. His new ingenius idea going wrong is what sets the game's plot in motion.​

 

[osanaiko]

So how is "Aisling" pronounced? Ice-ling, like some monster from Frozen?

 

[Shady Character 1]

So how is "Aisling" pronounced? Ice-ling, like some monster from Frozen?

Quiet the opposite actually. More like 'Ash'-'ling'.

 

[osanaiko]

Ohhh, it's the origin of "Ashlynn". Thanks.

 

[Shady Character 1]

Ok, hey, everyone.
I was really hoping to release the alpha of the game today, but I got some feedback from friends, and they urged me to wait until some more content is in. On the other note, they aren't really used to WIP and Early Access games. So this one is not as much of a dev blog entry, as it is a question.
How much content do would you expect from the game for an early sneak peek release?
I also added some art to the first post of the thread, hope it looks better now.​

 

[lfgals1]

First time seeing you're thread and your stuff looks really nice.

I would say that a first release for sure needs at least one full cycle on the gameplay loop. If your game is built around "A Day" then being able to play through "A Day" with all the mechanics involved present sort of feels obligatory.

I will also say, if you're looking for a good response here then "content" is important. It sounds like the lewd components take a back seat in this game, which I am a-okay with, but I think might cause you some issues with the general audience around here.

 

[Shady Character 1]

First time seeing you're thread and your stuff looks really nice.

I would say that a first release for sure needs at least one full cycle on the gameplay loop. If your game is built around "A Day" then being able to play through "A Day" with all the mechanics involved present sort of feels obligatory.

I will also say, if you're looking for a good response here then "content" is important. It sounds like the lewd components take a back seat in this game, which I am a-okay with, but I think might cause you some issues with the general audience around here.

Hmmm, it is really hard to say what would constitutes one complete cycle of a game loop in my case. I guess, it would be "raising a stat, and then have that stat used in an event". I kinda have a lot of that already. I have a more or less completed 1,5 months of content done (about 2-3 hours of gameplay). But on the other hand - might not be enough. And most of the artwork is not done yet. Mostly just character sprites. That's exactly what the aforementioned "friends' feedback" was about.
As for "content", yeah, that will be much further into the game, so I was already kind of mentally prepared to get some backlash from some people. But thanks for the warning.

 

[lfgals1]

2-3 hours is definitely more than most games release with around here, but yeah, if that gameplay isn't actually done and has a lot of filler art and stuff I could see that being worth a bit of delay to get more of the art done.

 

[Shady Character 1]

Ok, another update here.I was actually planing to release the alpha build of the game already, but apparently I can just can't yet for some reason. I contacted the mods for clarification, hopefully it will be cleared up.Until then, I decided to make another post here in case it is my lack of activity on the forum is the culprit.
So for we did a few changes to the build based on our latest feedback. These are the most important ones:
-Three new random events for extracurricular activities. These have a chance to trigger randomly whenever you do the activity
-The first half of the Trial of Mind should trigger on November 1. First five doors out of ten should be available
-Removed the AI backgrounds and replaced them with WIP hand-drawn ones. These might not look as good as AI ones yet, but they are ours and will convey the mood of the game better. (some examples in the thumbnails)
-A lot more stat checks have been added to hopefully easier convey the stat uses
-A lot more variety in the short descriptions that you get when you attend a class or do an activity, but no event requirements are met.​

 

[KeenKareemArt]

I love the art and design for all the characters!! The lines are beautifully crisp!!

 

[lfgals1]

Those are some damn fine backgrounds.

Is this a more point & click wander about game or a more "pick from menus" game?
If its a point and click might I suggest a map to get around instead of a ton of "in between" backgrounds to click through.

 

[Shady Character 1]

Those are some damn fine backgrounds.

Is this a more point & click wander about game or a more "pick from menus" game?
If its a point and click might I suggest a map to get around instead of a ton of "in between" backgrounds to click through.

Pick from menus. So the backgrounds are for matching events only. And you don't really walk through the locations, you go directly to them.

 

[Shady Character 1]

Big day for us, the first build is finally up!
https://f95zone.to/threads/under-your-spell-v0-1-0-shady-characters.215741/
This will hopefully help us get some more feedback.
Now that this alpha, or proof of concept, or early access is up, we will focus on some polishing work first. UI needs to be polished, the backgrounds need to be finished. Also, we have a lot of missing sprites and no artworks. All of this, sadly falls of the artist's shoulders. But while they are working on beautifying the game, I will will have time work on events and gameplay more.
I do plan on keeping this blog up, so stay tuned
Next in the plans are:
- Implement the shopping and inventory mechanics
- Finish the first major event (Trial of Mind). Right now it is about 70% done
-Implement part-time jobs mechanics
-Polish the exams mini-events
-Expand the prefect baths location
-And, of course, 7 more girls to write and code​

 

[KeenKareemArt]

Big day for us, the first build is finally up!
https://f95zone.to/threads/under-your-spell-v0-1-0-shady-characters.215741/
This will hopefully help us get some more feedback.
Now that this alpha, or proof of concept, or early access is up, we will focus on some polishing work first. UI needs to be polished, the backgrounds need to be finished. Also, we have a lot of missing sprites and no artworks. All of this, sadly falls of the artist's shoulders. But while they are working on beautifying the game, I will will have time work on events and gameplay more.
I do plan on keeping this blog up, so stay tuned
Next in the plans are:
- Implement the shopping and inventory mechanics
- Finish the first major event (Trial of Mind). Right now it is about 70% done
-Implement part-time jobs mechanics
-Polish the exams mini-events
-Expand the prefect baths location
-And, of course, 7 more girls to write and code​

Congratulations on the release!!!