Public news 01.03.2025
Hello, wizards and witches!
February has flown by, along with another eight days of development. It’s time to share what we’ve been working on during this period and how the development of the upcoming releases of
Innocent Witches is progressing.
The past eight days were almost entirely dedicated to working on version 0.12A. The second chapter of the second act is now fully integrated into the game in terms of text and code, and the remaining artwork is being added as it’s being completed.
The texts for the third chapter, in turn, are expected to be finished this week, by March 2. After that, they will immediately move on to translation and editing. Since the artwork for both chapters was created in parallel, most of it is already finished and will be actively inserted into the game as the text is integrated into the code.
Another task that our writers are currently working on is creating a small event featuring Luna. Since she won the (relatively) recent "Miss Hogwarts" contest, we decided to treat her fans with a special event. This will be a short but enjoyable story that will allow fans of the mysterious Miss Lovegood to appreciate her remarkable virtues.
Throughout the past month, we have also been collecting feedback and evaluating the performance of some in-game mechanics. In particular, we analyzed the mechanics of earning and spending the in-game currency, Galleons, as well as the stat progression and usage system.
In addition to our internal analysis, we also relied heavily on the results of the last two polls. Here’s what we gathered from the feedback:
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As a result, when updating these mechanics, we will focus on your votes and opinions. You made it clear that you want more interactive mechanics, as well as more active use in the storyline and game events. We will also strive to balance them properly to make the gameplay more engaging and enjoyable. This is planned to be worked on as we finish and release the version 0.12A. Thank you for your participation and valuable feedback!
We are also actively discussing ways to change and improve the development process for future game releases. The current release, which has already been in development for a long time, has shown that due to a combination of various factors, including changes in the writing team, we need to fundamentally reassess key aspects of development.
At the moment, the biggest factor slowing down progress is the massive volume of text, accompanying numerous events in the second and third chapters. This time, we clearly overestimated our capacity and took on too much work, which has led to repeated annoying delays for the release of 0.12A. Within the team, this situation is already being seen as something beyond reasonable limits.
For context: the text volume for the second chapter in Google Docs is 250 pages, while the third chapter is already approaching 200 pages and is likely to reach around 210 pages by the time it’s finished.
On the one hand, this amount of text can be seen as a positive thing: the dialogues are filled with various choices that impact future events, and they are accompanied by new scenes, animations, and artwork, making the release immersive and engaging.
On the other hand, working with such a massive amount of content takes an incredible amount of time, especially considering that most of the team balances game development with their primary jobs. This has made us reconsider our approach to content creation, so that future releases can be completed more efficiently while maintaining the quality.
To avoid situations with overly lengthy chapters in the future, we plan to reduce the amount of text and actions, shifting the focus toward character interactions rather than overcomplicated storytelling. Our main goal is to create compact yet engaging events, where the spotlight will be on prefects and other beloved characters.
At the same time, the quality of storytelling will remain high due to well-though and exciting events. A great example of this approach is the
Unforgettable Night event from the old storyline, where interactivity, plot, and rewards involving multiple characters are well balanced. Another good reference is Ginny’s introductory quest.
Moving forward, we will aim for this format, which will allow us to shorten the development time for new releases without compromising content quality.
That’s all for today, friends! We truly appreciate you staying with us and supporting the development through your donations and feedback. Thank you so much!
We’ll meet again very soon in the next news update. Until then, take care and don’t forget to enjoy life!
Peace to everyone✌
Yours,
Sad Crabs.