Love of Magic News

Quick-fix; 1.0.15b did not link in the Steam libraries, which meant you couldn't record achievements inside the Steam App, just inside the game. Fixed and updated.

1.0.15b is primarily a bug-fix and optimization build; in general Love of Magic has had a smooth release, but some people have had bugs, and those always suck. The big one was the ability to break some of the scripted combat sequences; I fixed two known issues, and added guards around the others... hopefully that fixes this particular problem-child for good this time.

I was also updating some of the early character art for Book 2, and decided to fix it for Book 1 while I was at it. Molly initially started out blue-eyed, but by the end of Act II I had changed to her gorgeous green eyes. I'd forgotten to update her nude sprite to fix that, so I re-rendered and re-animated her. While I was at it I also updated some other sprites; Emily's casual and nude animations used a slightly different color palette than her later outfits (with more subdued colors), so I fixed that in post-production.

Thanks for the support, and I'll get back to building Act VII+, the next release to the main-line. It'll include new King's Dragon Events, new Crowley events, the start of Snowdrop's scouting combat, and an updated replayable scene with Molly.

Full notes are here:

1.0.15b
- Build promoted to Steam default branch

1.0.15
- Fixed a bug where invalid images being set could trigger an assert, halting script execution
- Fixed a bug where Olivia's combat could trigger an invalid reaction
- Updated Molly's 1st homework session to make her green-eyed
- Updated Olivia's homework art to make her boobs look less ridiculous
- Fixed a bug where you could break Emily's date 6 (lich combat) by killing the enemy before Emily enters combat
- Did a hardcore optimization pass on Android (reducing max texture size for room backgrounds, enabling ETC2 texture compression for characters)

1.0.14
- Updated Molly's nude animating character to have Green eyes (an early version of Molly had blue eyes; I forgot to open redo her nude pose when I changed them to green)
- Updated Emily's casual and nude animating characters; the color palette of the game changes, this brings her up to the slightly more colorful palette I use in the later renders)
- Fixed a logic crash bug that would cause the Snowdrop quest to be impossible to finish if you brought Bella to combat
- Fixed a bug where opening the save/load UI in combat or in elsewhere would cause the normal UI to show up
- Fixed a bug where speed-clicking the allys using the keyboard commands could end up accidentally soft-locking the conversation UI
- Bumped up the first Lich HP from 1000 to 1500; he was a bit underwhelming as an enemy, and it was possible to break the script by one-shotting him

One of the interesting aspects of a public release is that you get lots of people telling pointing out things that it might be easy to overlook as a developer / QA team that's too close to the product. One of them was that Map navigation evidently sucks. Especially on Mobile, but also on PC (lack of scrolling).

I'd avoided it before, since it's potentially a bit of a bug-mine, but I decided to go and do it today. So 0.1.8b comes along with quick update to fix up the map.

Since I was looking at writing it anyway (For Act VII+) I added in Matthew as an Ally you can bring along to Elsewhere. I also fixed some quest issues that were unclear based on feedback.

Full changelog:
0.1.8b
- You can open the Kingdom events by talking to Emily in the throne room once you get your first Kingdom event
- New Ally: you can now ask Matthew to join you on the paths. He has a static ability that adds +50% to X's slash damage, and an active ability called Cripple, which reduces enemy damage + increases damage they take by 10%
- Updated Katie's quest to not send the player to Lancaster until later
- Can now train sword fighting with Matthew

0.1.8
- Elsewhere camera can now pan (click drag)
- Hunting grounds now have labels
- Increased sized of enter location button for android
- Removed old Chloe dialog the first time you use her in combat

The way I've always developed Love of Magic is act by act; alternating between expanding the central timeline, and expanding the world. This is the first release since I launched on Steam that advances the timeline.

Book 1 ends on day 115 (New Year's Eve), with the events taking place in Edinburgh and Mexico. Book 2 kicks off on day 116, with Emily and the player waking up to the aftermath, and starts shifting the game from Edinburgh to Camelot and Elsewhere.

To do that, I needed some new functionality.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Looking at it; the first thing is the new World Map. As Book 2 progresses, this will grow increasingly populated; the goal is that someone playing the complete Book 2 would have a much richer and larger experience than someone playing Act VII alone. I'm still tweaking things like the ambient critters, and editing the map from time to time. I'll also be opening up additional locations as they're needed in the story of Book 2; being able to visit Valhalla and Tir na nOg, or chill with Katie in Lancaster.

Since I'm now popping in and out of Elsewhere quite often, I also decided to streamline the party system a little. It also makes it easier to add more party members.

One of the big systems for Book 2 is the Kingdom Management; I went through a couple of iterations trying to nail it down, but I'm quite happy with how it ended up. It's roughly inspired by Pathfinder: Kingmaker, with multiple events you can undertake. Some events unlock from the story progression, others from quests, and yet others by exploring the world.

Finally I wanted to have an upgrade project; at the end of Book 1 Akane asks you which type of room you want to build as an Annex for the Kings dragon; as the game progresses you'll be able to build more of these, each unlocking new scenes and replayable activities. Right now there's only the three locations (Dojo, Onsen and Teahouse), and 7 events, but as the book progresses more will be added. The Dojo is totally my favorite so far.

So; how do I play it?

It's actually its own App; at some point in the distant future, Book 2 will be complete and I'll release it as a new game. That'll let me add new achievements and collectibles to it. But everyone who purchased book 1 will have access to it as it's being developed and afterwards, using this trick:



To play, just go to the Library tab in Steam, and click PLAY on the game. With the game updated, that will give you a new popup, asking you if you want to play Book 1 or Book 2. If you select Book 2, and "start game", it will give you the option of continuing to play from your end of game savegame from Book 1 (called act6.sav, if you want to copy some other savegame there instead).

Book 2 is very much in development; there will probably be bugs. The amazing test-group on Discord has worked hard to clear most of them out, but some invariably sneak in. If you see something weird, pop over to Discord and tell me; I'll try to get it fixed as soon as possible.

The next public build will be Act VII+, which is a world expansion release. It'll add more events on the paths, new enemies to fight, and new things to do while chilling at the Crowley or the King's Dragon.

And that's... that ;) Hope you all liked it, and that you enjoy the return to world of Emily and the rest. Let me know on Discord or in the Forums if there's anything!

While Book 1 is more or less complete now, I've started work on Book 2. We're on Day 129 / 134, with only two main date-line events left before the finale. I'm also busily testing things, fixing up new systems and adding content.

Today's update changed a couple of things. If you are on the Beta branch, you can now access the content as it's being developed. Once Act VII is complete, I'll push it live for everyone that's purchased Book 1, and start working on Act VIII. At the end of Book 2 I'll publish that as it's own app, for anyone that wants the new achievements, community items etc (I can't add more of those to the Book 1 app), but the core of Book 2's content will remain free for anyone who purchased Book 1.

There's quite a few new systems at work in Book 2; here's one of the major one, the new Kingdom Events. Over the next 5-6 acts the game will continue to add content, in the same way Act VI changed content that could be accessed across all of Book 1; the goal is that by the final act of Book 2 it will have filled the world with experiences and things to explore.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

So what else is going on? There's a push towards localization, and work is now ongoing on both Russian and German translations of book 1. There's obviously a LOT of text, so the volunteers working on it are slowly chewing their way through. Some of the early art also got a tuning pass.

And that's it for now; if you DO enable the beta-branch, be aware that it's still raw. I've got another 3-4 weeks worth of bug-squashing and tuning before it's ready for a real release. If you're interested in testing, I'd recommend heading over to Discord (https://discord.gg/NQrQrht), since that's where the testing effort is being centralized.

Thanks, and hope to have Act VII in your hands before the end of March!