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Hello everyone!
Another ten days have passed since the last news post and it’s time for the new update on the development status for Innocent Witches. In it we’ll show the roadmap for 2024, share the status of 0.11A, and also take a look at one of the pieces of side content planned for 0.11B. Let’s go!
First, the art-preview. As the work on any patch is underway we often get an opportunity to add or expand new or existing events with some additional pieces of art. This comes naturally during the development process when all the pieces are put together and you start to see how a certain event or scene can be made even more enjoyable by adding some changes to it or expanding it in certain ways. The decision to make these changes or not depends on the current time constraints and the availability of the artists, but we usually carefully review each such opportunity and in most cases proceed to add the proposed changes / additions. This happened many times during the development of 0.11A and this way we got a bit outside of the initial plans. However, we think it’s worth spending a bit more time on the game to make the events as enjoyable as possible within a reasonable deadline. In this context recently Siserg decided to add even more love to the elf-maid who plays a certain role in 0.11A by drawing an additional fullscreen shot of her, and here’s the line art for it:
Next, what’s been done during the past weeks:
- Most of the time has been spent on 0.11A. This included inserting all the art pieces, implementing the code and running internal tests, together with bugfixing and polishing.
As a result, 0.11A test client should come soon and will be shared with the testers and Cannoneer+ patrons in Discord for a more thorough review and to help identify more sneaky bugs and glitches.
- As a part of the work on 0.11A the scene with the elf-maid was also finished in March.
The scene is currently being animated in Live2D which is planned to be inserted into the game in 0.11B.
- Finally, we have also been working on 0.11B and the content for it, including the scenarios / texts and art for side events. 0.11B will be focused on side content in the existing chapters and is aimed to enrich the game with juicy activities and rewards, and of course expand the immersion by adding new characters and lore-friendly encounters.
Speaking of new characters, in one of the recents posts we’ve shared a preview of a new male character, Blaise Zabini, a bad boy from Slytherin who will participate in one of the side events in 0.11B. We’ve received a large amount of feedback regarding this character and the decision overall, and we appreciate everyone who shared it with us. Here’s some information regarding this topic that we hope will help clarify and address the concern of some of the fans:
- The side quest in which he will participate will also include a new female character, which will be the main focus of the quest. Blaise in this context will act as antagonist since he’s coming from Slytherin and his personality fits the narrative pretty well.
- Another concern was regarding the poor choice of where to spend our limited resources, that is, to create a new male character instead of expanding the existing ones. Some of the members of the team agree with this and think that we should focus more on developing existing characters, such as for example Parvati, Ginny and so on, or if it’s required to add new characters, they should be female. Therefore, this direction has been conveyed to the scenario team, and we will closely follow the decisions in future when it comes to adding new characters. Most importantly, the scenario team will be required to use these characters in other events outside of the ones they are introduced in, so that the characters appear more in the game and the art is properly used in multiple places and not just one side event.
- Finally, even though the decision has not been thought as much as it should’ve been, we still think that this addition will be beneficial for the game in the long run. At the moment we don’t have any “evil” characters between students apart from the most known one (Malfoy), and the addition of the new one will add more paths for the scenario team to explore. Apart from him we want to also add the famous pair of Malfoy’s buddies, Goyle and Crabbe, who we believe, even though they are male, will add extra flavor to the game and make it possible to add hilarious situations involving those two. Please let us know in the comments, how do you personally feel about such decisions? That is, what’s more important to you personally, expanding the game and making it more diverse in terms of characters and events, or focusing on the existing characters and adding new content only for them?
While we’re on the topic of Blaise, let’s look at the side quest itself in which he will participate, without spoiling too much. Apart from him, this side quest will involve a new female character from Hufflepuff, who will also briefly participate in the main events of 0.11A. During the quest we will try to investigate certain strange events that are happening in Hogwarts and in the process will get acquainted with the two new characters who were mentioned above. The female character will need assistance from Marcus to help resolve the issue she’s encountering and after everything settles down, she will have a certain reward for him
Next, here’s the roadmap for 2024:
As you can see, we’re planning to add two more chapters to Act 2 this year, which should move the story forward and add more intimate events for the prefects, as well as introduce other iconic characters. After the release of 0.11A we will spend extra time on reviewing the existing content that is not yet put into the game and make specific plans on how and in which part of the game it will be readded and possibly expanded. This is truly an exciting time since getting done with the transition of the old plot into the new one feels satisfying and motivates us to experiment and move forward. This will result, among other things, into playing with new interactive mechanics and prototyping different approaches that we haven’t tried before, with the goal to keep the game fresh and enjoyable while the story moves forward. Your feedback in this regard will be the important steering factor that will help decide if a certain mechanic is worth staying in the game and worth expanding, or if a certain experiment did not go that well and therefore we need to try adding something else. In the end, we hope to make the most enjoyable HP themed eroge game there is out there, and we appreciate all the support and feedback you’ve been giving us throughout the development <3
Finally, let's have a vote! This question has appeared in one of the recent closed news posts already, but since the topic of adding a new male character has attracted such an amount of interest from the players, we wanted to reiterate on this topic in the public news as well. So, what’s your opinion on the distribution of content between the side and main characters? Do you feel strongly against adding new characters at this point of the development, male or female, and focus more on expanding the existing ones? Or do you feel that addition of new characters is always a good thing, as it helps keep things fresh and diverse? Please let us know by voting or leaving a comment below!
- I believe that adding a new character is always a good thing. Keep them coming!
- I don’t think keeping adding new chars is beneficial to the game, better focus on the existing ones, especially females!
- I’m fine with switching between new characters and new content for existing ones, or doing a bit of both when possible.
- I don’t care / I want to see the results.
That’ll be all for today, folks! We greatly appreciate you staying around and continuing to support the development by donating and leaving feedback. Thank you!
0.11A is very close so keep an eye on the news! We’ll meet again in 10 days. Until then, stay safe and have fun!
Peace✌
Your,
Sad crabs.