Dev Log — March 2024

Hi everyone!

It's already been a month and time sure flies when you're busy! Last month I released a Steam page for the game on Steam, a landing page for Battle Mages: Erotica, and worked on over 200 fortune card designs!

Steam Page

The Steam page for Battle Mages: Erotica is now live on Steam! If you haven't already, please consider adding the game to your wish list ❤️

Getting the Steam page ready was tough because we don't just want to show the game how it is today; we wish to show how the game is going to look by the time it is released on Steam to the best of our ability. I would've loved to show something for the dynamic avatars as well, but they aren't far along enough for me to include them in screenshots. 

We also have a landing page for Battle Mages: Erotica that I will use to show additional details about my vision for the game and its progress. Eventually, the battlemageserotica.com domain will take over from the current domain and be where you can play the game in your browser. This old domain will redirect to the new and to make the transition as seamless as possible, but there will be some work required on my part to execute the move.

Keeping a Steam and landing page update is an ever-evolving process and I already have more ideas for better displaying planned features like the dynamic avatars, crafting, and fortune cards, but for now, I will try to refrain from working more on these as the game also needs my attention!

Fortune Cards

As part of the PvE overhaul I need cards that represent spells you can cast during a challenge, and for that purpose, I went to take a look at fortune cards because I want them to use similar layouts.

Here you can see some different mock-ups. The multi-colored card on the left is meant to be for spells, which give you an additional d20 for your roll during a challenge.

I'm quite happy with the designs and as you can see the cards are quite versatile, with with many elements that can be adjusted to best display the motive and necessary info.

Before I could define the requirements for the layouts, I had to get an overview of how cards might be used in different places of the game, and that had me working out the finicky details of the fortune card system and finalizing cards.

There are over 200 planned fortune cards, and you can find the exhaustive list and everything you'd want to know about the cards in this document 

The purpose of fortune cards is to create characters that are fun and interesting to play and to ensure unique character traits a limited. While many of the vice cards are designed around submissive or degrading playstyles, some are also designed around providing dignified and dominating players with interesting variants to their playstyles and providing everyone with unique mechanics and backgrounds that foster creativity and empower fantasies and roleplay. A lot of work went into creating an expansive, yet concise list of cards that weave together and play into one another for added effect and fun, and I hope you'll be as happy and excited about the list as I am!

Extra Character Slot

Everyone who backs the game this month will receive a permanent extra character slot to their linked game account, similar to the extra stash tab backers received through January, and some of you may already have noticed that you have an additional character slot. I will make a separate post after this one that outlines the details.

Brutal Month

Getting the game ready for Steam in time for the summer Next Fest signup deadline has been rough, and to add insult to injury, today the Danish Tax Office slapped me with a huge bill for a trivial mistake in my tax declaration, someone decided to post a scathing Steam review on an indie game I've helped develop because they wanted it to be something different instead of taking it for what it is, and earlier this week I got a ticket for riding public transport without a ticket because the ticket I had bought was off by one zone.

I'm usually pretty chirpy, but today feels like getting out of a rough patch just to get double-tapped and tea-bagged out of nowhere and I don't know whether to cry or laugh. Being a businesswoman is hard, and I just want to make video games, damn it!

I bought a ticket and I filed my taxes to the best of my abilities and it just feels unfair to get bled dry when you're doing your best to be an honest person. I barely make ends meet by the grace of your support, and I love you all dearly for providing me with the means necessary to work on Battle Mages, knowing that many of you have little to spare yourselves, and I just feel awful that I lost some of that money to senseless, unfair bureaucracy...

I'll try to find a time to stream again soon, hopefully this weekend. I could do with feeling the joy and excitement of players right now, and I almost got into a rhythm of streaming more frequently! You always make me feel welcome and appreciated and it makes the sweat and tears that go into developing games worth it ❤️

Thank you again for all your support and I'm looking forward to a month with more time to work on the actual game!

Cheers,

Tinon