A Witch In Suburbia (DROPPED)

Hello, I’m relatively new to CoG (started playing the games maybe 5-6 months ago) and I got inspired to try my hand at making a game of my own c: My primary inspirations are modern witchcraft/pagan practices and fantasy stories set in the modern day, mainly things like Kiki’s Delivery Service. This is currently only a working title since at least a good half of the game doesn’t take place in the physical world, let alone the suburbs, at all :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m unfortunately too early in development to have a demo but I wanted to get a WIP post up before I start classes again this coming Monday. My original goal for a demo was by the end of the month, but because of classes I’m not sure if that’s enough time for me to write and learn the code, so I’m aiming to get a demo of the prologue and maybe the beginning of chapter one out by April at the latest.

The premise: A young witch moves to a coastal town with their childhood best friend and their familiar, and manages to find themself in the middle of a conflict between the three ruling spirits of the region. Balance your life on the physical plane and your dealings on The Astral. Play as male, female or nonbinary and as any sexuality

The possible romances will be:

  • Sam Ngo (agender, xe/xem)
  • the MC’s childhood friend and current roommate; specializes in kitchen witchery (incorporates magic into foods)
  • Emmet Rodriguez (male, he/his)
  • a student at the local community college; his family owns a magic supply shop; is a green witch, meaning he specializes in using elements of nature, such as plants, in his magic
  • Liz Choi (female, she/her)
  • a classmate of Emmet’s; a sea witch, meaning she mainly uses materials from and relating to the sea for her magic

I would like to make polyamory possible, but since this is my first game and first big project, I unfortunately can’t make any promises about that because of coding :frowning:

Lore will be put under cuts. I’ve tried to summarize my world building notes as well as I could but they still came out pretty wordy

Lore: MAGIC

DEFINITION, MAGIC: the essence of a being, object, or concept

DEFINITION, WITCHCRAFT: the transfer of magic to one object or being to another; the act of transforming one form of magical energy into another

A person who performs magic may be called a witch, mage, sorcerer/sorceress, warlock (specific to men only), wizard, or any similar title. Title are generally based on personal preference, the region lived in, and/or the specific practices used. For simplicity’s sake, the most common title used in this setting is witch. Any person can interact with magic, but only some can manipulate it. The ability to manipulate magic can manifest at any age, if it manifests at all, and it cannot reliably be tracked through bloodlines. A family may have a history of having at least one magic user in each generation and then suddenly stop producing magic users with no clear reason, and a family with no previously known magic can have a magic using child. Some witches can sense other magic users, but this ability isn’t always reliable.

Magic is limited to the world around it and does not often manifest in a physical way on the physical plane. In the physical world, it is typically in the form of spells for bringing luck/calmness/misfortune/etc or divination (seeking knowledge of the future or unknown). An example of the few ways it can be made to manifest physically is in glamours, which change the target’s (usually the caster) appearance, but they are usually anchored by something, like a piece of jewelry, which needs to be charged in order to be used multiple times. Sometimes spells may give off light, heat (or absorb heat), or leave a scent behind, but only if they’re very, very powerful. A spell can be made more powerful by using an additional person’s energy (not necessarily a witch), a familiar’s energy, or amplifying objects, such as crystals or herbs. Using another’s energy for one’s own gain without the other’s consent is generally frowned upon and users are often called vampires or energy vampires.

[details=Lore: FAMILIARS]
DEFINITION, FAMILIAR: a witch’s assistant

DEFINITION, SPIRIT: a being of pure magic, may possess a solid being or object but is otherwise incorporeal

Animal familiars are essentially animal witches. Most are domesticated, but having something like a crow or an opossum for a familiar is not unheard of. Magical animals are often more intelligent and have longer lifespans than nonmagical animals. Witches usually have up to one familiar, but having two, especially if the two animals are bonded, is not uncommon. A familiar can also verbally speak to its witch, but not to other humans that it isn’t magically bonded with unless they’re on the astral plane. The exact reason for this is unknown, but it is theorized that they do this through their magical energy and their witch’s magical energy synchronizing. If the relationship ends for whatever reason and they move onto a new witch, they gain the ability to speak to the new witch and lose the ability to speak to the previous one.

Spirit familiars may be created or summoned. Created spirits are often small and weak on their own, needing frequent cleansing and offerings when first created. They are usually tasked with small chores or are used as additional energy holders for spells. They may become more powerful and more autonomous as time goes on, but it would take many years. It is not uncommon for these to be secondary to other familiars.

Summoned spirits are more powerful than created spirits and less limited than animal familiars, but they are also more unpredictable than both. They may put their witch through tests to see if they really want to stay as a familiar and are more likely to leave an unsatisfactory relationship than other familiars are.

The MC’s familiar is a house cat that will be the same gender as the MC (note: being the same gender only applies to the MC and their familiar. Other characters in the story will have familiars that don’t have the same genders as them). I’m currently debating on whether to have the cat be the classic black cat, a white cat modeled by pangur-and-grim’s Pangur, or have the appearance be chosen by the player[/details]

Lore: THE ASTRAL

The Astral Plane, also known simply as The Astral, is a world parallel to the physical world and linked to dreams. It is where spirits reside. The majority of the explored Astral is made up of ‘bubbles’ - sort of pocket dimensions. The ones in-game will include your Astral home, which is small and malleable to your needs and tastes, and the domains of the three main spirits of the game. The Astral can look similar to the physical world it’s parallel to but it doesn’t follow the same rules. For example, distances may be significantly longer or shorter than they appear and paths and doorways may not lead to expected places

I have the basic story pretty figured out, but I’d like feedback to help me with details about the actual ‘suburbia’ side of the story since I’m struggling with the MC because they’re such a blank slate. What would be your reasons for leaving home and what would you look forward to most when moving to a new town, for example? What would you be looking for there?

Any suggestions, critiques, comments, and questions will be very welcome and thank you for putting up with my wordiness :stuck_out_tongue:

UPDATE LOG:

  • 2/25/17 (post 21): Demo pushed back from April to maybe July. Separate storylines need to come together somehow. Ideas for stats being considered. Timeline needs to be figured out. Characters still need work
  • 5/10/17 (post 30): expecting at least semi-hiatus early September to mid December because of school
  • 6/1/17 (post 38): laptop broken, not sure how progress is gonna go now
  • 6/1/17 (post 39): laptop magically fixed?? Demo will be started soon but also not sure about how long laptop will stay working. EDIT: nevermind, it lasted roughly 12 hours
  • 8/15/17 (post 42): new laptop and can finally get some real work done again. Stuff has been refined since the last update but has not made it into my official notes yet because I only just got the laptop, updating notes is main priority right now. Rewriting prologue. Hoping to get a good amount of work done before school starts
69 Likes

I’m certainly intrigued. There can never be too many magic games, and your world seems very interesting and unique.
I’d like to say, though, that letting the player choose their familiar would probably be preferable, unless they’re a cat for story reasons.

1 Like

That was my original idea, however since the familiar has a speaking role, it would be rather difficult to do. Some of the other original options were going to be a dog, a raven, and a snake, but the cat’s personality ended up sticking out the most. If I end up revisiting the world in the future, I would like to give that option a try though

6 Likes

This sounds interesting

So… It’s like Hustle Cat? I love Hustle Cat!!! Def buy for me!

3 Likes

Hustle Cat is that one dating sim where you work at a cat cafe and everyone turns into cats right? I haven’t played it but I really want to! Might get it for myself for my birthday or something :smiley_cat:

But no, the familiar is more along the lines of Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service and Salem from Sabrina The Teenaged Witch (and speaking of which, how okay would it be if all the suggested names for the familiar were pop culture references?) The cat will stay a cat, just more chatty

4 Likes

Yeah! They’re all cursed by a witch to turn into cats! Buy it, it’s great!

/thinks abt the cats in Tellius/

/explodes/

1 Like

Aww I loved Sabrina The Teenaged Witch when I was a kid. Please include references :grinning:

Looks good so far - I’m sure your animation experience will be a plus here in writing this too.

Edit: As far as motivation for moving goes … sometimes a person just feels a change in their life is needed. If I were moving to a sea-side community, the things I’d look forward to would be the ocean, the sun-rises and sun-sets … the beaches and coastline… if you need more ideas just pm me - I been in a few such communities my whole life. Heck, I still live one block from the ocean, so technically I am still in one.

Also, there are many different types of “coastal communities”, each with their inspirations.

What I had in mind was somewhere along the California coast since that’s what I’m most familiar with and also the geography would be fitting since one of the main spirits is a forest spirit and another is a sea spirit. More like Santa Cruz than San Fransisco, but I live further inland and don’t visit often. Have you lived in areas that get a lot of tourists? I’m still deciding how much tourism the town would get in the summer since Emmet’s family and their shop would definitely be affected by that

The town also doesn’t have a name yet. I’m thinking of just pulling up a list of California city names and drawing inspiration from there. I just don’t want a San/Santa name or anything else that could be a somewhat common human name

I’ve lived in several Southern California coastal communities … NorCal coastal communities are more like the ones here in Washington…

The community I suggest you look into for inspiration is Luguna Niguel - a community that has a huge arts and artist-colony influence to it.

There are so many different vibes you can mix, match or draw from… beach communities with a strong surfer tradition, communities where the rich and famous have taken over and have built up… communities that are isolated and “sleepy” …

“San and Santa” just mean Saint …

Edit - ya, lots of tourists in all the different communities … different types of tourists depending on the community of course. Some got tons of surfers some like the art community cited above got lots of “artist-types” … communities like I live in now get people who “go into the wilderness” for the weekend and holidays…

like I said, the possibilities really are endless.

Edit two: As far as the ocean and forest connection - this trail in Luguna Niguel fits perfectly: [quote] The Aliso Creek Trail is also known as the “Forest to the Sea Trail”, as it is planned to connect the Santa Ana Mountains in the Cleveland National Forest to the Pacific Ocean. [/quote]

Some people like blank slates because it allows better for self-inserts. I’ll admit I find blank slates really tough to write. If I’m not personally interested in the protagonist, if I don’t find them exciting, I end up just giving up.

Are you looking for positive reasons for leaving home? Or possibly negative ones?

Relationship breakup and wanting to start again. Lost job. Or been offered a new job in the area (which may or may not fall through). Meeting up with an old/internet friend. Family are originally from the area so moving there. Just felt like it, spur of the moment thing. Inherited a house/business. Kicked out by parents. Wanted to move to somewhere less restrictive. Off to college. Their familiar told them to move! Or their childhood best friend wanted the move. OR the spirits told them to! They had a dream!

And is the new town bigger than the place we’re from? So more things to do?

1 Like

That helps a lot, thank you! :grinning:[quote=“FairyGodfeather, post:12, topic:23458”]
Some people like blank slates because it allows better for self-inserts. I’ll admit I find blank slates really tough to write. If I’m not personally interested in the protagonist, if I don’t find them exciting, I end up just giving up.

Are you looking for positive reasons for leaving home? Or possibly negative ones?

Relationship breakup and wanting to start again. Lost job. Or been offered a new job in the area (which may or may not fall through). Meeting up with an old/internet friend. Family are originally from the area so moving there. Just felt like it, spur of the moment thing. Inherited a house/business. Kicked out by parents. Wanted to move to somewhere less restrictive. Off to college. Their familiar told them to move! Or their childhood best friend wanted the move. OR the spirits told them to! They had a dream!

And is the new town bigger than the place we’re from? So more things to do?
[/quote]

I’ve been debating with myself whether to have the protagonist be a recent high school graduate or college graduate. A college graduate could have more possibilities because they’d have a bit more experience and age, but I also like the high school graduate because I feel like it highlights how everything is new to them. Right now what I have written so far has them as a high school graduate. If I keep them at that age, I thought about giving the option for the protagonist to start college at the end, though I think I might give the option for them to be starting college from the beginning since that could add an interesting element

The reason for the location is because the best friend’s uncle lives there and offered to help them out when they first move out there. For reasons for them to come along, I’m mainly looking for anything that could be made into into a stat. I don’t have the stats narrowed down just yet but figuring out the MC’s motivations could help me. The two that I’m sure I want are charisma and cunning, and I know I want one that has to do with magic, I’m just totally stuck on figuring out the word for it :stuck_out_tongue: For ideas on what the MC wants, one idea I have is knowledge which could be made into something like ambition? It’s vague but I will build more on it after the prologue

I did give the MC a backstory, but I want to keep it vague. Their parents were distant at best and their hometown didn’t give them much exposure to other witches besides the friend and didn’t have many noticeably powerful spirits

Thanks for the ideas!

3 Likes

Sound really good can’t wait

This sounds like a really fun premise for a story. Coming up with a legitimate reason for the main character to leave home might be tricky though.

I suppose they could be an orphaned child who doesn’t really have anything to stay for. Other than that, you could go with a Kiki/Pokemon explanation where, for some reason or other, it’s just traditional for children to leave home and go adventuring at a really young age. Unless of course the character is a young adult, in which case they could leave home for better work or education opportunities. :blush:

A modern witch game is always welcome to me :blush:
Sam is my love already, haha. It’s so good to have a major non-binary character.
Well, don’t force yourself too much since it’s your first try to make a game, but I appreciate your consideration in putting a polyamory option, I’d like that even if I end up choosing a monogamy route.
Looking forward to it, good luck :yum:

2 Likes

I’m glad you’re interested :smiley:

I think I like the idea of the MC being a student. I’d like to give the motivations as fields of study in that case, so that would probably narrow things down a lot

Glad you like Sam! :smiley: More and more CoG/Hosted games have given options for nonbinary MCs but I’ve barely seen any nonbinary npcs at all, especially as ROs, so having one was one of the first solid decisions I made for my game. I’m sure there’s others probably in games that I haven’t played, but the only one I can really remember is Prince Everly from the Versus series. I’ve put the polyamory option on the backburner for now but if I’m able to figure out how to fit it in after I’ve finished the main game, I’ll probably give it a try. I always get way too ambitious in projects like this :,D

3 Likes

Ooooh, sounds fun! Also, even just the idea of a polyamorus relationship is nice. They are a thing and deserve to be acknowledged. :3c

1 Like

Please do not post in WiPs that have not been active recently. If the author would like this reopened, PM me or one of the moderators and we’ll be happy to.