Dev Blog: Life at Witchbrook

Hi everyone!

Today we wanted to share more about what you can expect from your new life as a student witch in the bustling seaside city of Mossport. We’ll also be sharing an update on how development is going.

So then, over to the game design team!

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Enrolling at Witchbrook

So, you've received your acceptance letter and you're ready to start an adventure as a new student witch in the city of Mossport, but... what does your new life look like? How will you pay your way through it? And how will you meet your goal of graduating college?

Luckily, your aunt has left you her cottage. But classes aren't cheap, and surviving on instant noodles is depressing, so you'll need to find a job! Luckily, the greedy cottage familiar has a plan to benefit both your studies and your bottom line...

Along with Fable, you'll also have the support of your coven, a group of witches you'll be living and studying with at Witchbrook, as well as the guiding hand of your benevolent coven leader, Professor Carlyle.

Witchy business

Why not start your own witch business? The townsfolk around Mossport are desperate for goods and services only a witch can offer, and your classes at college will expand the kind of goods you can supply them with. Your trusty moped (or broom, once you’ve earned your license) allows you to deliver goods all over Mossport.

Of course, building a good business relationship is important and comes with its own benefits. Fulfilling business orders increases that relationship and unlocks all sorts of perks and upgrades for your business.

Sunday markets offer their own unique opportunity for your business. Why not bring your goods into town, stock up a stall, and see if you can make a good deal with townsfolk?

Taking Classes

Now all that hard-earned money can pay for classes. Classes teach a witch new skills, enabling them to complete college assignments, craft and obtain new items, and undertake new activities. It's also an opportunity to get to know your professors and covenmates.

These classes cover a variety of magical disciplines, from crafting tea, incense, and salves early in your student career to potion brewing, astrological divination, arcane rituals, and much more.

Assignments

Throughout the week, the college will post assignments for you to complete using the skills you learned in class. Many of these assignments will require you to head into Mossport to consult with its residents, diagnose a solution using the materials in the school library, and put that solution into action!

Completing an assignment will earn you college merits, which can be spent in the college shop for all sorts of wonderful items but, more importantly, allow entry to college exams! Often the folks you help will want to send you thank-you gifts of their own!

Credits are also earned throughout the game for exemplifying what it means to be a witch—whether that's helping out around town, completing side quests, or unlocking knowledge.

Knowledge

As you live and study in Mossport, you'll come to build up knowledge on all sorts of subjects. This is reflected in your knowledge collection!

The knowledge collection tracks everything you've learned and contains the requirements to memorise new information!

For example, finding a herb for the first time in the forest might unlock that herb in the knowledge collection, along with its description. But, information on the growth time of that herb will unlock only once you've grown it a number of times!

To start with, you'll be looking up this information in books found and borrowed from the school library (don’t forget to return them on time!), but as you progress, you'll be able to rely more and more on your own knowledge!

Taking Exams

Taking exams is an important part of your college life. You'll need to complete a set of exams in order to advance to the next grade, enabling access to new classes, spells, activities, and certain dangerous areas of Mossport itself...

You'll need passing marks in all of the grade's exams to progress to the next grade. What mark you receive will depend on how much knowledge you've accumulated in the sections of the knowledge collection that the exam tests!

For example, a magical medicine exam might test your herbal tea, salve, and Herbology knowledge categories!

Not sure if you'll pass? Attend a coven study group, where coven members will test your knowledge with mock exams.

Spells

Now, of course, it wouldn't be a witch school without spells.

Once they obtain their wand, most witches are able to move objects intuitively and without guidance, so your wand is immediately a useful tool (especially when it comes to moving heavy furniture around the house).

But there are so many spells to be learned.

Each completed exam will entitle you to learn a spell from your coven head, Professor Carlyle, who offers one-on-one spellcasting tuition to her coven.

Spells offer all sorts of useful shortcuts for a witch. From guidance spells that help track down rare ingredients to flying over the rooftops on a broom, there is a large variety of useful spells to learn!

Wellbeing

It's important to look after yourself between your studies, and that's where the wellbeing system comes into play.

Everything you do in Mossport, from petting a dog to taking a walk in nature, or having a conversation with a friend, can increase your wellbeing. Whilst staying up far too late or upsetting a friend might decrease wellbeing.

At the end of a long day, the day's events are tallied up and your current wellbeing level is adjusted.

Taking care of yourself enables all sorts of bonuses, from increased income and better deals to gifts and relationship benefits.. You might even perform better in your exam. It pays to look after yourself.

Graduation

Completing exams will allow you to advance to the next year, unlocking new spells, classes, and activities. But what about graduating from college?

Many witches decide to stay on as postgrads, looking to fill their knowledge collection completely, improve their grades in previous exams, and take their witch business to new heights.

Stories

Of course, you're not the only witch navigating a new life. Your coven-mates each have a unique and bespoke story to tell. As you increase your relationship level with covenmates you'll be invited into their stories and their lives.

These stories play out like mini visual novels that cover a wide range of tones, subjects, and perspectives.

Free Time

Your education is just scratching the surface of your life in Mossport. What about your free time?

Perhaps you'll build relationships or even find someone special to take on dates? Maybe you'll spend your time indulging in fashion and interior design? You might join clubs and begin to collect knowledge outside of school! Cooking, gardening, festivals, and much more.

There's so much to keep you busy outside college hours. But more on that later…

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Development Update

In our last dev blog we mentioned how we had been doing some (super secret) playtests to refine a few features, balancing, and ensure we’re happy with the pacing of in-game years. Over the past few months we’ve been continuing regular intervals of playtests, using the feedback to inform some important adjustments. It’s a lengthy, but important process - even playing through the first in-game year of the game can take around 40-50 hours depending on your playstyle, so you can imagine how quickly time can rack up when you do a few playtests back-to-back!

These playtests have also sparked some extra gameplay additions we’ve wanted to add, both big and small, like extra spells, pedestrian gossip, some very special magical creatures, a placeable hut upgrade system for your cottage lands, new NPC animations and covenmate behaviours, new resources for crafting, and some new music tracks. Playtests are a fantastic way of highlighting what players enjoy the most, and where they spend their time, some of which can be quite surprising! Using this info, we can then improve the late game experience by adding even more content or activities that our playtesters enjoy to ensure Witchbrook remains refreshing after so many hours into the game.

(We think it’s cute seeing covenmates expressing their personalities out and about. Here’s Pip pumping some iron by the docklands near her garage 🏋️‍♀️)

Localisation has been well underway for quite some time now thanks to our fantastic teams of translators. Like all aspects of Witchbrook’s development, we haven’t taken any shortcuts, so the translators are deeply entrenched in the game’s world, and in daily communication with the dev team answering questions to ensure each language gets the treatment it deserves.

We’ve also been able to increase the amount of playable languages beyond what is currently announced. We won’t confirm which languages yet in order to not cause undue pressure on the translators, until we’re pretty certain they will be ready for launch - watch this space!

We’re hugely proud of how far the game has come, and can’t wait to get it into your hands as soon as we can. There’s a lot of factors that could impact our release schedule, like unexpected delays in platform submissions, a pesky bug that’s difficult to track down, external team factors like porting or localisation, or extra polish needed on an important feature, so we won’t share a specific date until we’re super sure. But rest assured, we’re working hard and incredibly excited to share Witchbrook with you.

Thanks for reading everyone!

-Chucklefish & Robotality