Love of Magic News

After 4 years of development, Love of Magic is finally complete. The build is getting a final testing by the awesome testers on Discord, and will go on sale on Steam on the 28th September

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992770/Love_of_Magic_Book_3_The_Return/

The final story ends on day 288 (Midsummer Night), after which... it's done. It's a strange feeling, after 4 years working on it, but also really gratifying. Hopefully it's been a fun journey for all of you as well.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

To celebrate I went back and added a new set of 14 collectible cards to find, and added some animations for Bella's Chosen date.

The cards are the same style as the Book 3 collectible cards, with a more detailed background.



They also get an updated normal map, with more noticeable lighting.


So... what's next?

Well, the *first* thing I'm doing is returning to Morningstar. The first Act is done, and once the launch is over I'll be returning to write the second act. You can check it out here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2396740/Morningstar_Book_of_the_Fallen/

Or come join us on discord to beta-test it.

The other thing I wanted to look at doing was New Game+.

Obviously one of the biggest inspirations for Love of Magic was Persona 4/5, and one thing I loved was the idea of starting a new game using the end of game savegame, and the world responding to that in subtle ways. It might be unlock new events, new conversation options, and of course set you up with higher initial stats, cash and gems.

So that's the future for Love of Magic. I couldn't bear to *totally* stop working on it.

Thanks for coming along for the ride, and I hope you've enjoyed playing the games as much as I enjoyed making them.

Droid.

With Act XV+ finally done, I've only got a single Act left of the Love of Magic trilogy. All that remains is Act XVI: Eternal Sunshine. You can check it out on the Beta branch of Book 2, or wait for Book 3 to launch properly:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992770/Love_of_Magic_Book_3_The_Return/

I keep putting my new graphics card to use, and went back to add a couple of new animations to the early game, including two new Molly animations, a new Katie intro and a new Sarah intro.

The more interesting part, I guess, is what comes next.

Love of Magic was always very much inspired by the amazing Persona series of games, especially Personal 4 Golden and Persona 5. One thing they both share is the idea of a New Game+, where you start a game all the way back in book 1, but using the end of book 3 save. This will start you with more cash, better stats, all the characters named, etc... but it'll also open up new side-events. Meet the Morrigan or Queen Mab while pouring drinks at the Crowley, etc.

There's a couple of storylines that will only give you the final ending through a NG+ game.

We'll see how that goes, obviously as a solo dev, I've got slightly less resources than Atlus :) NG+ will also be a side-project, something to go tinker with when I feel inspiration strike. Once Book 3 is done, I'll be switching the main part of my focus over to Morningstar, a grittier story about an MMA fighter who one day meets an Angel.



I'm working on it as a side-project now; the dream is having Act I more or less done before Book 3 is complete. Check it out over here.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2396740/Morningstar_Book_of_the_Fallen/

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I like to keep the PC busy, and have gotten into the habit of having an animation set up each night for it to chew on while I'm sleeping.

Most of that goes into Book 3, where I'm splitting my time between rendering new content (Act XIV+ is now content complete, ending with the biggest and most complex sex scene so far), and working on end of game content (which, like in Book 2, is going to be heavy on both video and music).

As the inspiration strikes I occasionally go back and tinker with Book 1; in this case doing a quick typo pass and adding a couple of new animations. Most of them are for Molly, connected to her getting Chosen (3 new animations there, and one new email triggering day 80+). I can't really show any of them in a SFW update, though, since in most of them she's just wearing a choker :)

I was inspired to do this little video clip by some work I did for the end of Book 3, featuring cloud simulations. It's from Day 100, called The Last of the First. Here's a quick breakdown for those of you who're interested in the development side of things.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Book 3's coming along well; with Act XIV+ done, I've only got three more releases to go before it's done (Act XV: The Return, XV+ and XVI: Eternal Summer). After spending pretty much every free hour on this game for three years now it's a strange, and slightly melancholy feeling to know that it's ending soon... but all good things must finish.

If you haven't already, please give Book 3 a wishlist; it's hugely important at launch.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992770/Love_of_Magic_Book_3_The_Return/


Full changelog:

1.3.3
- New looping handstand video for the Chosen ceremony
- New email, day 80+
- Tweaked probability of Starcucks random encounters

1.3.2
- three new animations for Molly, at her Chosen ceremony

1.3.1
- New video for Chloe day 100

1.3.0d
- Added some guards on day 80+ to help ensure players complete the Crowley upgrade
- Day 86, if the pub isn't upgraded, the morning wakeup will include a hint that it's something you should be doing.
- Day 80+, if the pub isn't updated, entering a treasure site will give you 5 special ingredients and tell you to hand them to chloe.

1.3.0c
- Restored call of the chosen video clip

1.3.0b
- Transcoded all videos to deal with a video potentially not playing on some systems

I recently upgraded my PC, including getting a new 3090 gfx card (yeah, I know, the 4090's out, but sadly I still need the other kidney). I started developing Love of Magic with a lonely 1080 graphics card, so it's certainly been a boost to productivity.

The early days of Love of Magic didn't have much in the way of animations, since they were mostly a full day thing to set up and render, but now things are a bit faster. Book 3's getting a lot of animations, obviously, but I decided I might as well go back and spice up Book 1 a little; especially the opening act.

This update adds 5 new animations (1 for day 2 introduction, 1 for first homework, 2 for second homework, and 1 for the first date). It also cleans up the localization interface, adds support for voice-overs (one of my fans is working on doing a full set of VOs), and adds various little bug-fixes and typos corrected.

Apart from that, work continues on Book 3. I'm a bit more than halfway done, right now working on a sandbox expansion for Edinburgh. Once that's done, in a couple of weeks, I'll get started on the penultimate act of the game, The Return, then the last full act of the game, Eternal Summer.

If you haven't wishlisted it yet, it's an awesome way to help it (Steam considers wishlists a way to judge if a game is real, or just a lazy asset flip... at around 6,000 wishlists you're considered a "real" game and, you get a boost at launch).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992770/Love_of_Magic_Book_3_The_Return/



Full changelog:

1.3.0a
- Fixed missing addressables

1.3.0
- Cleaned up the localization UI
- Typo pass
- Added new animations to Act I

1.2.10
- Updated localization files and interface.

1.2.9
- Support for Voice Over

1.2.8
- Typo fixes

1.2.7
- Fixed an incorrect image
- Added guards for avoiding two additional combats that doesn't have an early out
- typos fixed up
- Fixed an issue where some characters were incorrectly dressed

1.2.6
- Fixed a bug that could derail the dialog if you used a character before the story-dialog triggered
- Fixed a bug where the Minotaur card background could fail to trigger
- Fixed a bug where people who continued play from a non-steam build could fail to trigger some achievements

What's new?
- Purely book 2 changes, getting it up to the final release build
- Various typos and spellchecking pass (thanks to all the testers on Discord for those!)
- Fixed an issue where loading a Game+ from Book 1 would give an incorrect save dialog
- You can now use the Keypad keys for controlling dialog, allies and cards.