v1.30 Development Log: Chunky Changes

Story

It’s nice if every major patch has a headliner and for this one it’s that we are adding more story. Or, to be less charitable, adding story. It’s probably a stronger angle than "I added some Spells to those characters you don’t have unlocked" but more on that later, too.

While I really like the characters in Witching Stone, their personality is conveyed only through their visual designs and Spells. I think, on the whole, they feel like vectors for gameplay mechanics rather than real people with thoughts in their heads. This isn’t because I am a mechanics purist who doesn’t want the story getting in the way of the gameplay! It’s because I cannot good write.

I dropped a “we” above and that’s because, although this is largely a solo project, I have asked the talented npckc to help with the writing. And by help I mean she did all of it while I made a rudimentary dialogue system.

I would definitely recommend checking out her games if you like to occasionally play something more narrative based. Where you don’t have to do the mental maths on killing a Medium Ooze.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2620590/Marrons_Day/

Also, it is all skippable so please don’t be weird about it if you’re just here for the numbers! I’ve also made it so you can skip the floor transitions. That is irrelevant, but good news for fans of skipping things.

Pwca, Blodeuwedd and Arawn Quests

When I first launched this game Pwca, Blodewuedd and Arawn were hidden. And when I say hidden, I mean not on the character select, not in the quest screen, and never mentioned by me once on cohost - where I used to post development updates.

But I realised I wasn’t going to hit a critical mass and nobody was going to post a big YouTube video on how to unlock Blodeuwedd after looking up a pronunciation guide. So the next update I added them into those screens, but with cryptic clues instead. This may have ruined the magic a little, but at this point I started looking at unlock rates and they were super low.

However, the thing about cryptic clues is they are cryptic. And these only really make sense retroactively. So, I have decided to add a new mechanic to these quests. Once you have 2/3/4 full clears with different characters (not “victory?” clears, I hope getting those is not a mystery!) it’ll… just tell you. I don’t really like this limbo between a secret and an unlock but I’ve kind of painted myself into a corner.

Modifier Rerolls

In my head these are going to be some massively controversial changes. But the old design is preserved and improved, so I don’t know why I’m sweating about it so much. I’m not trying to tell anyone they’re “playing the game wrong.” I just want to reward certain behaviours and discourage others. You know, that game design stuff.

One of the design pillars of Witching Stone is the player scraping together a build from decisions and mechanical knowledge. Sometimes this will be a sweat and sometimes the stars will align and you’ll cackle as a slime is reduced to atoms.

This journey should start right here on the modifier screen! However, since you can just restart to reroll