With the magic of Halloween in the air I decided to do a little VisDev (Visual Development, i.e. trying out how things will end up looking) for Mab.
This is a relatively simple composition, so let's break it down, back to front:
The background is Blasted Hills, seen at the end of Act VII (where MC meets the daemonic army). I added a curve to darken it a little.
2022-11-01 04:00:56 +0000 UTC
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Dates matter in Love of Magic, obviously. Halloween, or Samhain, marks the end of Act III (when the player meets X for the first time). It's also very much a day tied to his father's legend; the Horned Lord is said to die on Samhain, only to be resurrected on the Winter Equinox.
Not that Molly cares; for her it's just a chance to dress up in something sexy and have fun.
As a fun asi...
2022-10-28 06:06:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Finally managed to build and mirror these. There's a couple of minor typos and bug-fixes that I'm rolling out on Steam now, but otherwise it's the same build I mentioned on Sunday.
I also updated the pinned post, since this one probably gets lost in the seas of change :)
Hope you all like it!
Win32: MEGA - 2022-10-25 08:55:22 +0000 UTC
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It's almost exactly 2 months since Act XII+ released (28th August), so it's a good feeling to get Act XIII out. This primary story update adds another 20 days of content, side quests and a lot of new optional background content for the lore-lovers out there.
With that complete I'm moving on to Act XIII+, which will center on the King's Dragon. Expect a lot of old friends popping by to drink, chat and play in Camelot's finest little pub.
You can find it on the 2022-10-23 07:01:23 +0000 UTC View Post
Okay, the typos have been put to bed and the bugs (hopefully) squashed with version 0.2.17. I'll let the testers on Discord have their ways with it for a day or two, and hopefully do a public release on Saturday if nothing scary rears its head.
Air & Darkness is a pretty lore-heavy part of the game, exploring the nature of the Sun Court in Japan, the Seelie and Unseelie Court, and going back to the story of the Ascension and the origin of the Fae.
Hope you all enjoy it...
And with Day 233 now complete, Act XIII's main timeline events are done.
It's rolling out to Steam's development branch now (as always, let me know if you don't have a Steam key and would like one).
So what's left before a public release? I have 1-2 additional smaller events that I want to put in, that can go anywhere across Act XIII. There's also an option to buy Emily some underwear; the completion of *that* event could go either in Act XIII or XIII+; I'm still considering w...
I was doing some lighting experiments and decided to render them out at 4K, and set them up for wallpapers. I've done Emily, Katie, The Chosen, Chloe (of course), and two characters that feature prominently in Act XIII: Air & Darkness.
Speaking of that, I'm currently a about halfway through Air & Darkness, and hope to be done with it come mid to late October. Currently writing day 219, for those of you following on the Development branch on Steam (as always, if you don't have a...
I finally got around to setting up the Storefront for Love of Magic Book 3: The Return, the final part of the Love of Magic trilogy, and it was just approved today :)
Check it out here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992770/Love_of_Magic_Book_3_The_Return/?beta=0
And give it a wishlist; those are super helpful in letting Steam know real people are i...
I was rendering out a scene for Act XIII, and I liked it enough to re-render it in 4K for anyone who needs a new wallpaper.
Having a lot of fun with this section of the game, so I hope you guys enjoy it once it's done :)
2022-09-16 14:40:58 +0000 UTC View Post
I put together a Youtube video playlist of all the music of Love of Magic, in case anyone's interested. Here you go :)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwUweV-073zzjWs1LxTLFvcBZ-vJZWa1Z
I was playing with eye reflections, and testing some new ideas. I liked the result enough that I ran through a 4K render, and decided to make a series of wallpapers.
Some things that I'm testing out here is using "subdivisional surfaces" for Emily's hair; that basically involves making the hair more complex, and it looks a LOT better / less polygonal up close. It also killed my GPU, making this render drop to CPU. I also managed to work out why she has a slight white line around her l...
Here's the final links for Act XII+; as always, if you'd like a Steam key let me know, and I'll send one over.
Win32: FILESDP - GOFILE - MEGA - MIXDROP
Win64...
So... I'm almost done with Act XII+, which set out to clean up the sandbox, do bug-fixing and add more side-content.
So... what to expect? First of all there's a couple of new stories in Elsewhere, with new and old characters to meet on the paths.
The largest completely optional side-content in Book 1 was the Black Rose, a trend which continued in Collared in Book 2, and will conclude in what is likely to become the largest optional side-quest in Book 3, You Raise Me...
Act XII is going live on Steam Beta branch now, and I'm building non-Steam versions for those of you who prefer that.
Act XII introduces the Rage mechanic; as Book 3 progresses MC will gain and lose initial rage from story and sidequests, as well as from dialog choices. Some events will be locked behind Rage requirements (either needing low or high rage), and some decision points will also have different outcomes based on rage settings.
Rage, in terms of the poker combat, i...
I've finally managed to clear up all the remaining issues, and it's now ready for final play-testing. RC1 is version 0.0.34
Act XII takes you from day 194 to the end of day 213, with hopefully funny, poignant, epic and romantic moments along the way. I'll let the Patreon and Discord communities play with it a couple of days to make sure there's nothing terrible in there, before pushing it to the Steam Beta branch sometime next week.
If you've been waiting for "Act XII to be done"...
I was hoping to have a Release Candidate for Act XII earlier this week, and release it this weekend. Unfortunately I picked up Covid, so the last couple of days have been less than productive. Having said that, I'm back at 50% capacity or so, and hope to finish up the last bits and pieces of Act XII this weekend, and have it ready for the testers.
Having said that, it's mostly small things that are still missing. Mostly I need to start a clean playthrough from day 194, and see if there...
I was doing a test render for a Book 3 character, and ended up enjoying it enough that I thought I'd share it with you guys.
Act XII is now almost story complete (I have two more events to write), after which I've got some side quests to complete before the act is done. The first act of each book is always a lot of work; the new sandbox needs to be rebuilt, old content cleaned out and new content planned, while and at the same time there's bugs to be squashed from the previous book's l...
I love epic music, and this song by Finnish composer Sami J. Laine ended up being played on repeat for a while; it felt like it really echoed a part of the central message of Book 3 of Love of Magic, and after reaching out to him I got permission to make a little AMV using it as a track.
Development wise it's DAZ->Spine->AE fo...
Japan's probably my favorite place to visit, and with the world locking down due to Covid it's somewhere I haven't been in far too long. I put together this little snippet using some stock photos of Mt Fuji in the background.
For those interested I did a quick breakdown of the making of this video, playing with effects in After Effects.
Book 3's now well underway, with content currently ending day 204. With that I intend to open up the sandbox a little more (Day 194->204 is pretty hectic), before ending the act around 210 or 214. If you're curious to see it as it develops, it's on the DEVELOPMENT branch on Steam.
I'm also scouting ahead a little, and working on some of the locations and characters I'll be needing for Book 3; this lady's been mentioned a few times, but we haven't had a chance to meet her yet. Once I...
So I finally got my Steam trading cards, backgrounds, emotes and badges approved!
So what's involved? I've made 15 collectible cards, a full badge
Emotes, and backgrounds.
I also ad...
And Book 2 finally launches on Steam:
It took 18 months from the launch of Book 1 (Dec 12th 2020) to the launch of Book 2 (31st May 2022). It's been a big journey, hopefully the end product was worth the wait.
Book 2 involved a lot of experiments, some of the successful, others less so.
Kingdom Management
I had a lose idea of what I want...
2022-05-31 13:18:49 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm trying to do a little competition for the Steam launch of Love of Magic: Book 2 (happening tomorrow). I've never done one of these before so it'll be an interesting experience.
The competition is open (and since I give away free keys of both Book 1 and Book 2 to any Patreons that might want one, maybe less useful to you guys), but if you want to give it a little boost, y...
The best way to play is really on Steam, and I give any Patreons that want on a free Steam Key to both Book 1 and Book 2. Having said that, I know that many people don't want to have adult games associated with their Steam account, so I also make it available as a direct download.
Here are the latest download links; let me know if any of the mirrors are dead. I'll try to keep this updated as I push new public builds.
Book 1 (v1.3.3)
So, while I wait for Book 2 to have final approval (they're asking for more detailed information in the User Facing "Adult Declaration" that shows up, so I extended it and try again), I've started the work on Book 3.
For anyone who's gotten a Steam Key for book 2, you'll notice the development Branch just picked up a new option to play Book 3.
It's still very early days, with just a day and a half's worth of content... I'll need to get started retooling the sandbox, hiding stuff ...
2022-05-14 05:06:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Steam pushed back against my current trailer for only showing cutscene footage, so I'm putting together a new trailer (we'll see if this is good enough, or if they want one that's solely focused on gameplay footage without effects around it :)
Resubmitting today, and we'll see how it goes.
I haven't done a "Making off" video in a while, and since I just completed this little 5 second animation for Book 3 I thought I'd share it with you guys.
I'm busily writing the opening 2 days of Book 3, since it's vividly in my mind; on Book 2 I've got a single event left (Getting drunk with the Orcs in Common Ground), and some enemies to implement... it's about a day's worth of work, so I'll likely get around to it this weekend.
Steam is currently doing a build review; it ...
2022-05-07 03:28:13 +0000 UTC View Post
So I finally have a launch date planned for Book 2; 31st May. It'll be a hard run to get there, but I think it's doable. As such I'm pushing the current build from development to beta, and getting ready to clean up the last lose ends.
If you haven't already, one thing that's super useful for helping it have a great launch is giving it a wishlist here...
2022-05-03 05:41:04 +0000 UTC View Post
With Book 2's storyline now officially done (you can play from beginning to end on Development Branch), it's time to refocus on some of the various issues I've been pushing ahead of me.
The first one is the 'strategy combat' system. It was a cute idea, but at some point in the lifetime of a game's development you get to the point where you either "juice it" or "lose it", or in other words either I make it work properly and look polished, or I cut it. It's a hard choice, since I di...
2022-04-30 05:14:43 +0000 UTC View Post
So, after the debacle that was Act X's multi-pronged timelines, I decided to change things around a little going forward.
Basically, Beta Branch will be the "stable" version, that people can grind on and play safely. I set up a new Development Branch, where I develop events as I go, with the explicit understanding that, yes, savegames can get broken... please don't grind here. Hopefully that'll help prevent problems in the future. Failing that, at least I get to say I told you so. :)