I first started writing Love of Magic in September 2019, talking to the characters and trying to make sense of the world they lived in. I spent weekends and nights trying to learn Daz3D and After Effects. I've actually been making games for a relatively long time; I first entered the games industry back in '99, but for most of that time I worked as a programmer; this was the first real chance to stretch my writing muscles writing for something other than a compiler.
Along the way I fell in love with my characters; an unwise practice for an author that occasionally has to do terrible things to them. There's still chunks of the game I can't revisit, even just for fixing typos, without getting dust in my eyes. I DID want to make sure the Emily, Katie and the rest had their happily ever after; hopefully with Act XVI: Eternal Summer I managed that. Book 3 goes on sale on Thursday 28th; if you haven't yet, a wishlist is an awesome way to tell Steam that this game's real, and deserves some support at launch ;) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992770/Love_of_Magic_Book_3_The_Return/ Apart from the new Act, and the Epilogue, this update also contains the usual mad scramble that occurs when, after a year worth of kicking the can down the road, you run out of road. Bugs were fixed, typos squashed, and finally collectibles and achievements added.
There's also an update to Book 2 itself, which includes bug-fixes to achievements, an improved debugging interface, and fixing some possible bugs in the Texas path, and the Stag party. So. What's next? I've got two things on my plate. First, there's Morningstar: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2396740/Morningstar_Book_of_the_Fallen/ Once the launch is over, and I can start breathing again, I'll return to Act II of Morningstar, working to continue that world. I Apart from that, I've got dreams of doing a New Game+ update to Book 1/2/3, inspired by Persona (which remains one of the touchstones for the trilogy). Some of the events in Book 3 hint that there are *other* stories left untold in the world... eventually starting a new game in Book 1, using the final save from Book 3, will let you explore some of those. But all that is the future. For now, I hope you've all enjoyed the journey, and the characters. Thanks for taking this journey with me. Droid.

The development of Love of Magic advances at two speeds; the story updates (I, II, III, etc) and the world expansion updates (I+, II+, III+, etc). These flesh out the sandbox, add additional side-content, improve the combat system and move the game from a linear to a non-linear experience.
The star of this update is of course Molly; I'd completely forgotten her birthday back on day 210 (thankfully she handled that better than my wife would have done), and I went back to add it in. Molly remains the great enabler, and her character weaves in and out through pretty much every story in the game.
While rendering Molly I came across this old poster from the movie Showgirls and I couldn't *not* attempt to recreate it. I liked it enough that it became the motif for this update's images. Apart from that, this is an update with a lot of focus on Elsewhere; new Kingdom events, new gems, new enemies and two 'epic' enemies that should provide a challenge for the most hardened poker player. It also adds character development arcs for two of the companions that were under-appreciated in Book 3, and both Katie and Dylan have fun new events. [previewyoutube=knjhjHfdvts;full][/previewyoutube] All in all, this is probably the largest world+ update in the game, which is fitting, since it's the last one. I'm now starting Act XVI: Eternal Sunshine, the final act of Love of Magic. I hope you've enjoyed the journey.

Act XV (The Return) is now complete, and out on the Beta Branch. The story of Love of Magic is nearing it's final chapter, after almost four years of development.
With Act XV done, I'm moving on to XV+, which will focus on Kingdom Events and Elsewhere events across Book 3, before starting work on the final Act XVI: Eternal Summer.
Once the whole Book 3 is complete, I'm hoping to do a pass to update all the three books to use the same engine, and making sure I port over stuff from Book 1 (like TTS support, and localization support) to the shared Book 3 engine. I'll also be looking into making a New Game+ feature. As many of you know, Persona 4/5 were two of the biggest inspirations for Love of Magic, and I always loved the ability to start a new game, using the "end of game" save, with enhanced stats, enemies and some new encounters along the way. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2396740/Morningstar_Book_of_the_Fallen/ Apart from that, I've started work on my next series, called Morningstar. It's another Urban Fantasy story, featuring many of the same 'souls' in a very different universe. I'm hoping to start Early Access of that sometime in late fall 2023, and develop it in a similar way to Love of Magic (with periodic act releases). If it looks interesting, do give it a wishlist; it's super helpful in giving it a good launch.

I alternate story sequences and world expansion events (Act+ updates); this update to Book 3 is a World Expansion event, focused on Edinburgh.
I didn't actually *intend* to make this a super sexy update, but it seems to have accidentally happened anyways. Molly shows a fascination for shoes, triggering her Shoe Fetish sequence after Jenny's Shibari sequence.
Buying Emily's lingerie also opens up a new questline with Chloe, and a sexy scene to go with that. I've got to say, Kath is rocking that outfit.
Nobody's more surprised than me that I got inspired to make a new Sarah scene; there's no sexual content, but a little more backstory on everyone's favorite sex-ed teacher.
The capstone of this update is a big new replayable sex scene with Akane (again, triggered by buying her an outfit). Originally planned to be a short sex scene, I got inspired by how she looks in that outfit, and it... escalated from there. It also spilled over into a small update to her dining room scene (when you order sushi from her, you can now also request she wear the lingerie for you). There's also a new book to read, and old friends to meet up with in the Crowley at night. Hope you like it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992770/Love_of_Magic_Book_3_The_Return/ As always; if you're enjoying my work, please help make it a success by giving it a wishlist before launch. I've now got only 2 acts left, so... the day of it being complete are coming :) For those of you who have Book 1 on Steam, I also updated it this weekend with new animations. Molly's Chosen ceremony got a big update, there's a new email sequence from her, and a new animation for Chloe on day 100. Thanks for all the support, and let me know what you think of the new content in the comments :)

[previewyoutube=vdZGAT4l8DA;full][/previewyoutube] Book 3's progress continues, and Act XIV (Dead Man Walking) is now done. With that I've got 2 more Acts (The Return, and Endless Summer) before the epilogue, then the public release of Book 3. Act XIV saw some changes. I finally managed to get my hands on a 3090 gfx card, and that's made a huge change to my ability to render animations and more complex scenes. I also made some small AI Art tests (most prominently seen in the new Paths of Elsewhere), and played with making movies a cleaner and more integrated part of the story. Next up is Act XIV+, which will return to Edinburgh. See what your old instructors are up to, grab a drink in the Crowley and maybe enjoy a cup of coffee. But first I've got to see a girl about a pair of shoes.

Before diving head-first into Act XIV I decided to do a small update first. Part one was an experiment with AI and motion. I suspect it's because my life's been immersed in game development for two decades now, but for the last week it's felt as if the entire world was talking about AI (in a mixture of rage and wonder, depending). There's been a lot of progress over the last few years, but November saw two really impressive updates, and I diverted into a rabbit hole for a couple of days playing with it. The first of these is ChatGTP, an AI camouflaged as a chatbot.

It's remarkably intelligent, knows how to respond to feedback, and is very much a child of the internet. It also knows how to hotwire cars, but it really doesn't want to tell you... that's what happens when you give an AI training net access to the internet and let it go. The second (and far more controversial) one is MidJourney, a text-to-image generator. Where ChatGTP was given access to the internet at large, ChatGTP was essentially handed a very very large selection of images download from Art websites, like ArtStation. You interact with the AI like a bot in Discord, "prompting" it with inputs to which it responds. a fairytale princess marries a dark, handsome prince 2D game, volumetric light, dust in air, realistic, ar 1:1 --v 4 --q 2

(In case you're curious, the tags at the end set the aspect ratio to 1:1, uses version 4 of the AI, and bumps up the quality to max). There's a number of things that are controversial here. The first one is *where* the data came from; like ChatGTP the MidJourney AI has been quietly ingesting information from the internet, in this case hundreds of thousands of art pieces made by thousands and thousands of artists, most of whom never thought their hard work would be fed to an AI.
Well. Damn. Part of the reason most people didn't worry too much was that as late as 6 months ago the results of AI generated art was pretty low-quality, fiddly and hard to access. With MidJourney all of that changed, and a number of artists (understandably) panicked. While the results look really impressive (especially in terms of lighting and shading), it's not without it's issues.
it can't do text to save its life, it struggles with details (especially hands, feet, swords, etc), and it doesn't really know composition (here is "red ball on top of a green cube").
You can get it to make a really impressive stand-alone scene, but making a VN using it is (so far) impossible; you couldn't get the specific details and composition you need. You can also prompt it to use an image as input. Here I gave it my background from the Dark Paths of Elsewhere, and asked it for some variations:

Wow... that ended up looking *really* good. It's abstract enough that you don't need to worry about 6-fingered hands or messed up text, it's primarily derived from my image (which makes me feel a little less guilty about the art that went into the training set), and it looks pretty. Now a sensible person would have said "neat", and either just forgotten about this, or picked one of the images to replace the existing one, and moved on. Sadly I'm not that sensible. So I crank up AfterEffects and go to work. [previewyoutube=6pbNYMgjNpQ;full][/previewyoutube] There's a couple of things happening here; I'm warping the image from one to the other, then adding special effects on top. I ended up loving it enough that I made two versions (one for the Dark paths, one for the Light paths). I then made 4 small clips (2 looping still images (A and B), and two transitions between them). When it plays, it goes something like: "Loop A 1-3 times, Play A->B, Loop B 1-3 times, Play B->A". It adds a nice bit of randomness, and captures the idea that the Paths are never quite static... they constantly change and morph. I think AIs are at the cusp of revolutionizing a number of aspects of our society, and along the way we're going to run into various ethical challenges. I don't think it can be *stopped*, though, so at the very least we need to understand it, and know what it can and cannot do. Apart from that, this update adds in an option for a replayable Chosen 4-some (at night in the KD Bedroom), and cleans up a number of little bugs and typos that snuck in. I've started writing and rendering Act XIV, so that's up next. Was this kind of "behind the scenes" information useful? Should I do more of it, or less? Let me know in the comments.

It's the Steam nominations seasons again, and Love of Magic hopes for a nomination as an Outstanding Story-Rich Game. Follow the erotic Epic Urban Fantasy tale of Owyn, Emily, Katie and the Chosen as they wage the battle of our age. Come for the pretty girls, stay for the characters and story.

I continue to work on Book 3, and wanted to share the progress so far with all of you. Act XIII+ is a 'world expansion' update, so it doesn't advance the timeline of the game, but adds in new content to play on the side, filling the sandbox with life. Specifically we return to the King' Dragon, and revisit old friends.
Emily gets some new optional content, both SFW and... less so. It's the first time since Book 1's Sword Training content I've made significant amounts of optional content for Emily; hope you like it. The Black Rose was the biggest side-quest in Book 1, and Collared was the biggest in Book 2. I continue that trend with Jenny's Book 3 quest, You Raise Me Up. Get ready to explore the consensual BDSM relationship with your first worshipper.
Apart from that, the King's Dragon will be host to a number of smaller sidequests; spend time relaxing in the baths, meditating or having a drink at night to advance the story. With that I'm about halfway through Book 3's content. All of it will be built out on Book 2's Beta Branch as it goes, and then when it's complete I'll launch it as a full game. If you haven't already done so, helping give it a wishlist is super helpful. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992770/Love_of_Magic_Book_3_The_Return/ With that... it's time to start working on Act XIV: Dead Man Walking. I expect the final saga to be 17 Acts (Act I - XVI, then the epilogue), so it's strange knowing that after 3+ years of development, the end is in sight. I've likely still got 8+ months of development to go, though, before MC, Emily, Katie and the Chosen can have their happily ever after. As always, hope you like it, and feel free to drop me a comment below, or come join us on Discord ( https://discord.gg/NQrQrht). Come for the pretty girls, stay for the amazing community, good music and theorycrafting.

Act XIII: Air & Darkness is now complete, and available on the Beta branch of Book 2. This is the 2nd out of 5 (or possibly 6) Acts in Book 3, and opens with the player arriving in Kyoto. Expect epic, fun and erotic times, exploring Akane's homeland. Adds another 20 days of primary storyline, lots of side content and returns some options from Book 2 that were missing in the opening act of Book 3.
The main theme for Act XIII is of course Mab, the Queen of Air & Darkness. Spend some time with this mysterious and volatile character, and explore the origins of the Fae.
Finally, it advances the main storyline by 20 days. Go on a date with Emily, flirt with Katie and cozy up with your Chosen.
With that done it's time to start work on Act XIII+. Act+ updates are a 'world expansion' sprint, focused on adding side quests and optional content. Act XIII+ will focus on the King's Dragon, adding content that can be played across much of Book 3. Friends will visit, good times will be had, and Jenny's Book 3 Questline (You Raise Me Up) will be completed. A reminder that there are 3 build branches for this game: Default: Just Book 2, for people who prefer to play just the complete game. Beta: Which contains the latest complete Book 3 content as well (In this case Act XIII). Development: Which contains the bleeding edge content (bugs and all), as I develop it. As always, hope you like it. If you want to do beta testing I totally recommend joining the Discord ( https://discord.gg/NQrQrht)

The development process is reasonably continuous on my part. Every time I have new content I will push it to the [DEVELOPMENT] branch. Keep in mind that because it's where I test stuff (with the help of the wonderful volunteers on Discord), it frequently has bugs. Once I've ironed out all the bugs, and completed a chunk of content, I'll promote the game to the [BETA] branch. Beta branch's reasonably well tested, and I promise to do my utmost not to break savegames by forgetting to set flags, etc. It'll update every 6-8 weeks (for the big story Acts) and 4-6 weeks (for the smaller World Expansion Act+'es). Once the full Book 3 is done, I'll create a new App for it, and it goes on sale on its own. I don't know if this is the best way of doing it (perhaps I should have made it an early access thing, instead?), but I like having players involved in the continuous testing, and watching you guys enjoy yourself is key to my own motivation. If that means I lose out on sales, so be it. Act XII+ is focused on rebuilding the player's sandbox. It adds new story content to the World Map in Elsewhere, adds new content to Edinburgh, and implements a bunch of fixes and tweaks. The biggest chunk of new content is connected to Jenny, the barrista in Edinburgh. In the same way that Black Rose was the biggest side-quest in Book 1, and Collared was the biggest side-quest in Book 2, it's looking like You Raise Me Up, Jenny's Book 3 side-quest, will be the biggest chunk of optional content in Book 3. That kicks off in this update, though there's still lot left to do. If you want to test on Development branch I totally recommend joining the game's wonderful Discord community (https://discord.gg/NQrQrht), where bugs are reported and squashed, typos are found, and people discuss the carrying capacity of African vs European swallows while listening to great music. As always, hope you guys enjoy it, let me know in the comments!

I love sharing the game development process as I made it; I started out making adult games in an episodic format (releasing each Act as it's complete), and I wanted to continue doing that when making the game for Steam. There are now 3 distinct Branches of the game: - Default branch is just Book 2 - Beta branch has each complete Act or Act+ as I've finished it and tested it - Development branch is where I develop the game, and where I share the very latest updates. With version 0.1.0 the first Book 3 Act is complete, and moves onto the Beta branch. This is the complete Act XII: For the Want of a Nail, taking the player from day 194 to day 213 in-game.
With that done, the next step is to work on Act XII+. This will be a "world expansion" update; for each Act (which mainly focuses on driving the main story forward), I'll also do an Act+ that focuses on expanding the sandbox, adding side-quests and optional content. Act XII+ will focus on Elsewhere, adding new characters and stories there, and perhaps catching up with some old friends. The Act+ expansions are usually a little faster to make, so I'm hoping to complete it in ~4-6 weeks, after which I can focus on Act XIII: Air & Darkness. Thanks for the support, and hope you're all enjoying your time with MC, Emily, Katie and the Chosen, as the final book in the Love of Magic trilogy begins.

What's new? - Various typos and spellchecking pass (thanks to all the testers on Discord for those!) - Fixed an issue where loading a Game+ from Book 1 would give an incorrect save dialog - You can now use the Keypad keys for controlling dialog, allies and cards.

What's changed? This is primarily a spellchecking and typo pass build, fixing up a bunch of small issues, correcting incorrect images used in certain locations, and in general tightening up the language. A huge thanks to the various testers that helped report bugs, typos and logic issues.

This hotfix is mostly fixing small issues; typos, incorrect character dressing in some scenarios, and one of the card back unlocks not triggering correctly. Balancing wise I also changed it so Kingdom Events no longer take time to trigger/debrief, which hopefully helps with the early book feeling too full. I also tweaked Toxic Shock to be even worse :) 1.0.8b - Fixed the Lancaster cardback not triggering (Triggers after Katie's whisky bottle side-quest) - Fixed the second Bella cardback triggering (day 194) - Toxic shock base poison reduced (300->200). After doubling it now doesn't clear poison stack applied 1.0.8 - Typo fixes - Kingdom Events no longer takes up a timeslot - Fixed a bug where having left the Black Rose questline half-done in Book 1 could soft-lock the Coffeshop in book 2 - Toxic shock gets an upgrade, and now triggers the poison, after doubling it - Doubled max number of savegames to 512 - Fixed a bug when copying wallpapers out to pictures folder

Normally I let bug-fixes build up for a while before I do an update, but this one's pretty important. A data error on my side caused Day 167 of Book 2 (the first new day of Act X) to not trigger. Since it's a pretty major scene, I decided to rush a hotfix for it. If you're already past it, and want to see what it was, you can use Load from Day (167) to just view that specific sequence; it doesn't set any flags or do other things that would mess up your game logic. Apart from that I dd a quick typo pass based on feedback. 1.0.6 - Fixed a bug where the two timeline events for day 167 wasn't triggering correctly - Typos and spellcheck pass

This is a small hot-fix update, mostly focused on bug-fixing for Achievements. It cleans up some achievements that could fail to trigger, a few graphical glitches, and a few continuity errors (where a spot in Elsewhere could show up before the story opens it). On the Development branch book 3 is now at day 203, telling the first half of Act XII: For the want of a nail. 1.0.5b - Fixed a bug where Molly's Achievement had 8 stages, but only 7 triggers - Fixed a bug where sometimes setting up the elsewhere team wouldn't register the correct flags (which could affect Mermaid quest, Treasure hunt and Molly's Pervert) - Fixed a bug where Bella overlaps Chloe day 118 - Fixed a continuity error where the daemon staging grounds show up before day 138 1.0.5 - Fixed a bug where counting achievements wouldn't trigger locally at the right time, only on Steam - Fixed a bug where story-changing character parties didn't give the right flags () - Fixed a bug where Act 11 has started could keep popping up after you have already resumed it - Fixed Molly's Achievement (kiss the bartender) potentially being broken - Fixed How to train your dragon not triggering correctly - Fixed card collector achievement being more forgiving, and verifying each time you collect cards - Fixed Drinking Problem achievement only triggering once per savegame - Fixed Explorer triggering the same sub-achievement, instead of advancing the main counter 1.0.4 - Val's no longer hanging out naked at the Onsen after her event - Fixed Ice and Poison Mastery achievements to correct text - Clusterstrike base damage shifted to 150 points from 100 points - Fixed incorrect text in day 151 battle start - Fixed KingdomEvent Barricade 2 not triggering. - Fixed Embassy Lobby text label

I had reports that some people were seeing Book 1 collectibles reset by playing Book 3. Obviously this was terrible, every save is sacred, so I'm rushing a quick-fix through. Other fixes I'll keep an eye on as the game rolls out, I'm following up on a couple of other bug reports, but that one was potentially bad enough that it woke me up at 5am determined to put a patch on it. Changelog (1.0.3): - Made Book 2 & 3 use its own system save file - Save/Load button restored on Settings menu - Loading new book 1 content from inside a conversation / ingame now cleans up itself properly (removing existing conversations, computerUI shuts down, etc)