Spirit Swap News

Happy Halloweeeeeeen! Today is the day we’re getting (extra) dressed up, eating lots of tasty treats, and updating you all on our Spirit Swap progress!

[h2]Happy Halloween![/h2]



If you haven’t checked out our Twitter lately, today’s the day! Benny crafted this INCREDIBLE Halloween snapshot of our faves out and about on All Hallow’s Eve. Can you name all the costumes? (Psst! Check out our Twitter if you wanna check your answers!)

[h2]Mo’s living in luxury [/h2]

In addition to making sure our cast of cuties looks amazing, we’re also working on the places they like to hang out the most! Mo does not underestimate the power of making a space your own, and her living room encompasses her love of nature and luxury. Minimalism is NOT a part of their vocabulary~

Here’s your first peek at Mo’s living room, courtesy of artist, Jenny M! What do you think?



[h2]Double double… we’ve got ANOTHER First Look![/h2]

Last month, we showed off Pookie’s narrative sprite: the image you’ll see as you’re bonding and getting to know them. This month? They’re getting ready to move, groove, and swap spirits, as we’re almost done layering their animated sprite! Sam, our artist, drew both Pookie and their familiar, an African Grey Parrot named Douglass, and Dice did the layering! Next up? Khei will animate!



[h2]Talk soon![/h2]

Whether you’re staying home or hanging with friends while celebrating Halloween (or maybe it’s just another Sunday for you!) We hope you’re all staying safe and cozy!

As always, we’d love to stay in touch! Be sure to follow us on Twitter if you haven’t already, or hop into our Discord! Talk soon!

Love,

The Spirit Swap Team

Last month, we divulged lots of narrative details -- this month? We’ve got a wave of art coming your way! Get ready for your eyes to be very very happy ~ 👀



[h2]Peek at Pookie[/h2]

Dice has been hard at work delivering the romanceable portraits of every cutie in SpiSwa, with the most recent being Pookie! Pookie brings a sexy softness to the cast, contrasting nicely with Ishk and Leon and being every bit as flirty and comfortable in their skin~

From Réjon’s initial document drafting Pookie’s character, back when we still called them “Big Homie”:

“Big Homie doesn’t talk a lot, but when he does it’s for a good reason. His presence may come off as threatening to those that don’t know him, but others think he’s just a big ol’ teddy bear. When he’s not swapping spirits with the gang you can find Big Homie taking care of succulents, windboarding (skateboarding in this world?) from the tops of hills, and taking apart technologies to better understand the rhythms of their world (think solve et coagula, but with a care and attention to advancement).“



Will we ever allow masc characters to wear a full-on shirt in Spirit Swap? Unlikely, but Leon gets pretty close, as you’ll see next.

[h2]Love on Leon[/h2]

Leon is also getting the in-game romanceable character treatment! We even got the amazing tattoo artist Makoto Chi to design his tattoos! That’s only fair, since Alex did base Leon’s character on Makoto, who he even shares an occupation with. Here’s the final design for Leon that Sam came up with, alongside the tattoos Makoto designed for him:



Leon also has another of Alex’s friends sprinkled in, but took his initial face inspiration from Kpop star, Kai, of the boy band, Exo. (If you don’t know of Kai...well...just get ready and watch this video for a taste). We really wanted that moody, luscious look for our emo artist to shine through. We can now show you a peek of our spooky-loving, non-binary boo’s in-game sprite, ready for animation!



With that design set, we asked Dice to work her magic on the visual novel (VN) portrait. While that’s not quite done yet, we can show you the sketch she’s in the process of coloring at the moment just below!



Would you smooch them? Or just be very good friends that ponder the depth of existence together?

[h2]Don’t Forget: GDoC & Indieland 2021 are this weekend![/h2]

GDoC Expo 2021 kicks off this Thursday 23rd! We’re going to be very involved in this event, so if you’re on the fence still please get those tickets! It’s one of our favorite game conferences bar none, and it’s gone completely digital again this year!

Not only will we be part of the GDoC Direct premiering at 9 AM Pacific on Thursday, but we are also doing a dev interview with the lovely DaPurpleSharpie and talking all about Spirit Swap on Sat 25th, 12:30 PM Pacific time!



Our creative director Alex will also be part of a panel on game cooperatives, so if you’re interested in how we run our studio please don’t miss it! They’ll be speaking with two other game co-op founders who have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share. Tune in on Friday 24th at 9AM Pacific for the talk!



Spirit Swap will also be featured on GDoC Expo’s Gradient Convergence Steam event page, so once that's live (Thursday, Sept 23) make sure to check out the games on display, try some demos and wishlist everything you love~

As if that all wasn’t enough, we’ve also been invited by Youtuber The Completionist to his yearly celebration of indie games slash charity drive for dementia research, IndieLand2021. Spirit Swap’s 2P Versus will make its first public appearance live as our team takes on the Completionist in our very own game… Join the fun and help us raise money for a great cause this entire weekend on twitch.tv/THECOMPLETIONIST.

Spirit Swap’s slot is on Saturday 25th, 5PM Pacific!

[h2]Hang out with Us![/h2]

The fun doesn’t have to stop here -- if you hop into our Discord, you can chat with the Spirit Swap team in addition to all the lovely folks who’re also excited about the game! We have server open/close hours (to help with our own work/life balance and server security), and we’ve got some beautiful art to help signify when the server is ready to go or if we’re taking a rest!

Check out the beautiful work done by Benny, capturing Lulu and Dio’s energies perfectly:





These images help signify our Discord hours, but also, what great ways to start and end our days by looking at these two cuties. Thank you, Benny!!!

[h2]Talk soon![/h2]

WHEW! Hopefully you’ve enjoyed all our art updates: this September has been busy, and Spirit Swap is really starting to come together!

Be sure to follow us on Twitter if you haven’t already, and wishlist the game on Steam! (Psst, the demo’s available here now if you’ve got friends who you think should give it a go!)


Love,

The Spirit Swap Team

[h2]Kanon is flying into your heart![/h2]

Our animator, Khei (@kheillustration on Twitter!), has done some absolutely incredible work updating Kanon’s animation over the past weeks! We’re really excited by the details she’s been able to capture, between the flow of the wings, the soft glances around, the hands holding the apple…special shoutout to our sprite artist, Sam, for the wing upgrade!



[h2]Lemme tell you a story…[/h2]

We’ve gotten a few questions on our Discord about how the narrative of Spirit Swap will work! So, this month, we wanted to dive into it some more.

Basically, the narrative creative process often looks like this interaction between one of our writers and the creative director:



Haha… just kidding… unless……. ahem

But back to the game side of narrative!

Let’s start with a simple overview of how story mode works (and you get to peek at our messy inVision board…)



NOTE: Just keep in mind that as we build the game and test and iterate on it, things WILL definitely change.


If you squint, you’ll see the basic framework of the game in the upper left. An initial start screen gives you access to a menu with these choices, currently: story mode, playlist, how to play, multiplayer and options.

Let’s focus on Story Mode for now.

Choosing Story Mode gives you access to three Save Slots to choose from. If you pick one and start a new game, you’ll find yourself on an isometric map of the city of Demashq and its immediate outskirts. This is your world map of sorts. The first location accessible will be Samar’s (your) home. This will be your hub: where you decorate your room, change your outfits, tweak your settings, chat with your friends on your personal computer (narrative device right there!), and change your spell loadout before going out for the day.



Typically, Spirit Swap’s story plays in “runs” which in game translate as days. Don’t worry, there’s no real in-game calendar or limit on the time you have to complete aspects of the story, this is just meant to mark the rhythm of the game and punctuate its loop. Additionally, story progress is persistent and doesn’t reset every new day/”run”.

A day always starts in your room: let’s say you pick an outfit and then a notification on your computer prompts you to check your messages. Talking to a character on your computer will sometimes allow you to “summon” them out that day. What does that mean? Every time you go out, there will be about three active locations on your map. An active location shows you that a character is present there currently. You can visit any location you like, but if no one is present there won’t be anything to do. IF someone is there, you’ll be able to either advance the overall story and “swap battle” them in 2P Versus OR advance their character specific arc and further your relationship with them.



Theoretically, you could just keep battling the same three characters and not realize you've run out of things to do...You could even accrue way too many rewards, room items or spells in one go, and it could get overwhelming to learn everything as you go if you don't decide to stop and return to your room hub where you can use them!

So, we're testing out an "event flag system", where every time you trip three of those flags (this could be three significant story interactions, or three items received, or a new spell), the game will let you know the day is over and the events on your map will disappear, prompting you to go home and check your spoils, relax, reset and go back out the next day.

Again, a day ending doesn't lock you out of any events and none of them are time-gated in any way: it's just a way to keep you engaged in what the game throws at you without getting too overwhelmed.

The game’s minimum path to completion, or “Golden Path” involves talking to each character once and winning 9 total VS battles against each one. However, this is merely the tip of the iceberg if you’re here to date, explore and figure out the mysteries of your town!



You can choose to deviate from the Golden Path at any moment and dedicate your time to getting to know one, two or every character - as long as you’ve met and battled them for the first time already.

The narrative remains linear, but the amount of side stories and content you can unlock and a ~Secret “True” Ending~ you can reach should keep you occupied for hours. Sometimes you hit a wall in your relationship with a character and you have to seek the help of other friends to figure things out, but getting to know one character better will never lock you out of romancing or befriending the others no matter how close you get. That will be interesting to write for!

We don’t want to talk too much about the ~Secret Ending~ because we want that to be a nice surprise for when the game ships… but in the right bottom corner of the image above you can see a hint to what it’ll revolve around… the concert date.

That’s all for how the game will work in terms of narrative progression! We’d love to hear your thoughts.

[h2]Game Devs of Color Expo[/h2]

The BEST game convention is coming soon, and we’re proud to say Spirit Swap is going to be a part of the showcase! Game Devs of Color Expo 2021 is happening September 23-27th, and not only will you be able to learn about the industry: you’ll be able to play some fantastic demos (including Spirit Swap)!
Learn all about what you can expect (and pick up tickets) at https://www.gamedevsofcolorexpo.com/.



[h2]Talk soon![/h2]

There are LOTS of events on the horizon (in addition to GDoC!) where you’ll see our team talking about Spirit Swap and game dev in general!

Be sure to follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates, wishlist our game if you haven't yet, and we’ll see you soon.

Until next time!

Love, The Spirit Swap Team

[h2]We’ve got lots to share for this months’ dev update: hope you’re ready! [/h2]

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[h2]Backer Surveys Are Out![/h2]

Please check your emails if you were a Kickstarter backer, because you should have received Backer Surveys by now! This was our first time doing this (yay, first Kickstarter survey!) so there were some, shall we call them, *learning experiences*.

We appreciate your patience and kindness as we work through some of them!
Read all about those details here in the latest Kickstarter Backer Update.

[h2] Refactoring the Demo into a final game with Morgan![/h2]

This month, we finished up a MAJOR refactor of the game! Here’s a note from Morgan, our Lead Programmer, sharing a bit more on what they worked on:

"Hiya, I’m Morgan, the Lead Programmer! It turns out, it’s really difficult to write good code and make a good project structure, while also making a vertical slice of an entire game! Because of that, a lot of the demo was held together by duct tape and dreams (if you played at very fast speeds, you might have noticed some areas got a little rough around the edges).

In a lot of ways, the demo was just a rough draft, so I spent this month just going through everything and cleaning it up. Polishing some edges, fixing some bugs, and restructuring some things so that we can build on it later. Now, everything’s all nice and organized and I’m ready to start adding new stuff, and hopefully I can show you some next month!"

[h2]Beach Episode! [/h2]

In addition to refactoring the code (which doesn’t have a pretty picture) we’ve also been working on concepting environments in the game. Ishk, for example, spends lots of time at Muscle Beach for …. obvious reasons. Check out Adriel’s concept art for this sunny locale:



(The fishies will SWIM!!)


[h2]Rotating Froggo[/h2]

We also have had Dice working on a character sheet for Froggo because -secret reasons we will reveal in time- (I mean, look at Froggo?! No reason is even needed). So, for anyone interested in what Froggo looks like from the side and back, behold!



[h2]We’d love your help![/h2]

Want to know one way you can help us as we make the game? By wishlisting Spirit Swap on Steam (and maybe even helping spread the word for others to do the same).



[h2]What do YOU want to know?[/h2]

As we’re diving into development, we’d love to hear from you! What do you want to know more about? The magical cast of characters? World lore? More gameplay? We want to make sure we’re sharing what you’re most excited about! Find us on Twitter, or hop into our Discord (we're open for hanging out from 9 - 5 PM PST!). Can't wait to hear from you!

Until next time!

Love, The Spirit Swap Team

[h2]We’re still in awe at how the campaign went: and like we mentioned before, THANK YOU?![/h2]



[h2]Kickstarter Backer Surveys[/h2]

We’re working on the backer surveys right now, and will be sending them out to you in the next week or so! In the meantime: check out this sample Shaker Charm in the sunshine! 🌞💖



Please keep an eye out for those backer surveys! We’ll be using them to get shipping addresses, sizing, and all the info we need to start production for physical goods and other Kickstarter rewards (like special Discord roles!)

[h2]Wholesome Direct on June 12th[/h2]

Shiny, brand-new Spirit Swap content will be showcased during the 2nd Wholesome Direct on June 12th!



It’ll be live on Youtube at 1 PM ET, so visit wholesomegames.com to sign up for the notification for when the event is live!

[h2]What else are we up to?[/h2]

A lot of our latest work has been spreadsheets -- which, while WE find it pretty exciting because it means Spirit Swap is happening -- probably is not the most exciting stuff to screenshot and share. But fortunately, we have THIS:



Sam has been playing with some early concepting of outfits for Samar! 😍 These are so dreamy -- we love how it’s looking already!

[h2]Until next time!
[/h2]

We appreciate you all! If you’re itching for more Spirit Swap, know that the demo is still up on Itch, so you can play to your heart’s content -- and if you wanna chat with us, we’re on Discord and Twitter.

-- Love, the SpiSwa team --