Freshly orphaned just before the start of your senior year in high school, you’re shipped off to live with your estranged maternal grandmother. You know only three things about her: her name is Alice, your mother hated her, and she lives at the edge of the known world.
Out in the border lands, wild magic still seeps across the mountainous ranges that protect humanity from the ravages of the mage storms and roaming Mystics who managed to survive the magical purge. It’s a hard place to live, these borderlands, but here you may yet learn to live again, find friends, make enemies, and discover old family secrets your mother had hoped to bury.
Of course, that’s assuming you can survive the nightmares that have begun to plague you, and the strange creatures within them who seem to want your attention.
Key Features:
- Four romanceable characters with flippable genders
- Play as male, female, or nonbinary; straight, gay, or bi/pansexual as you please
- Heavy emphasis on character interactions and personality over pure stats
Romance Options / Companions
As mentioned, all the ROs will have flippable genders, to better customize your preferences, and can be romanced by an MC of any gender as well. The story does tend to assume some romance is intended, but you are free to keep all four as friends.
(I’ll be referring to them each as they/them in these descriptors.)
River Baccay
River works for your grandmother as an all-around farmhand, and has for several years now. They appear to be very close with, and protective of, your grandmother, though they aren’t inclined to talk about why. Somewhat on the more serious side, River is a very earnest individual who prefers compromise to confrontation and always tries to diffuse tense situations–even situations which began with their own temper getting the best of them.
Valentine di Lucca
“Val,” as they prefer, is the local socialite, captain of the cheer squad, and all around fashionista of Summerset Valley. Their vivacious personality has won them no few admirers and friends, as has their penchant for generous flattery and tendency to build the confidence of everyone around them – so long as everyone remembers who the real monarch is. Is there something more going on behind that over-blown facade, or are they every inch the egomaniac they appear to be?
Natsuki Kinoshita
Ever the reserved individual, Natsuki would much rather spend time in their garden tending their flowers than deal with most people. What can they say? They’ve learned a lot from their roses over the years; sharpening their tongue like a thorn to pierce anyone who might dare get too close. They don’t suffer fools, and they don’t want anything to do with you, in specific. You just can’t imagine what you’ve done to earn their ire.
Henry McDougal
Energetic and kind to a fault, Henry spends most of their time on the family ranch, wrangling livestock and their litter of siblings and cousins. As the eldest, they’re well used to taking on the burdens of their younger siblings, and have long since extended that same benefit to anyone they claim as their friend–whether or not that person has agreed to the relationship. Just try keeping them out of your life; I dare you.
Warnings
- Horror elements (mostly supernatural)
- Cursing
More may be added if they become relevant.
Possible Features
This is more of a list of things I want to do, rather than things that are definitely going to happen. It depends on how the coding goes, really, and they may find their way into subsequent books.
- Tame your own Fae companion
- A potions mini-game for both useful items and possible profit
For more details and supplementary materials (including character art,) please check out the ACow tumblr.
Current Demo Version: Alpha 0.0.3
Two chapters released, roughly 38k words total.
Change Log
10/8/20 - Alpha 0.0.3
- Merged the original chapters 1 & 2 into a single unit, and added more material.
- Added a partial chapter 2
- Completely overhauled the stat and personality system
- Re-did the stat page for a more polished look
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Old Post
Hello all! I wanted to introduce my WIP game, “A Charm of Witches.” In this game you’ll play as a young person (male, female, or non-binary) who, after being orphaned just before their senior year of high school, moves in with their estranged grandmother only to find out that they come from a line of witches dedicated to maintaining (and possibly, gods help you, fixing ) a world desperately out of balance with the natural order.
Along the way, you’ll meet a host of wonderful new friends and potential love interests, learn to fight or heal using your natural magical talents, and mitigate mystical invasions from other dimensions of existence. All while struggling with your grief over the loss of your parents.
While romance is offered in this first game, this is intended as a series in development, and the romantic options may not be fully realized in this installment. Still, you’re invited to play as either gay, straight, or bi/pan-sexual. It is written in an somewhat more “otome” fashion than many CoG games (at least, that I’ve seen,) and romance as a goal is somewhat assumed by the narrative (though sexual elements of the romance will not be; neither am I planning to make anything explicit though that is subject to change in future installments.) I also hesitate to mark this series as Young Adult, as I intend it to eventually deal with more mature themes, but given the state of today’s YA publishing… maybe it is? Use your own discretion.
Currently I’ve finished the first chapter’s beta draft, which is now available at DashingDon for those interested in getting a feel for how the game will work. (I’ll ask that you please excuse typos at this time, it’s still rough. However, please feel free to tell me if you find any game-breaking bugs or pronoun errors.) It’s difficult to say how long the game will be precisely, though I estimate roughly on par with The Wayhaven Chronicles.
I intend to update this at least once a month, until I reach a polished demo version (late-game chapters will not be available until the final beta.)
I love how differently the bar scene can go depending on the MC’s personality I was pleasantly surprised when I got even more lore for being a dick 
Will keep a (bewitched) eye on it. 
It’s really amazing how positive everyone is being.
