Violet Witch Trials
A downloadable game
Gentiana is a quiet woman who has lived mostly in solitude for the last fifteen years, loving her arcane studies most of all. But one day, while experimenting as usual, much of her magical power was suddenly ripped from her! Unable to continue with her work, she’s tracked down the mysterious force which stole away her strength. Traversing a mystical forest, she finds a great ravine, and a dungeon that stretches unfathomably deep into the earth. Can she reach the very bottom, reclaiming her power and thwarting the being responsible? Or will she eventually succumb to the dungeon, equipped and tailored specifically to capture Witches like her?
Try, Try Again!
Explore a dungeon where progression is based upon your skill, tools, and game knowledge. Say goodbye to grinding for levels - getting ahead is all about playing smart and patient.
Think Like An Adventurer
Rush ahead without careful consideration, and danger will soon follow! Consider your surroundings and move wisely. Not every engagement is necessary, and some paths are only more dangerous to tread!
Gentiana doesn't simply forget she can use magic outside of battles. Use your elemental spells in the field to shape the earth, freeze water, jolt machines to life, reignite engines, and more! Not all of your problems can be solved with magic, but sometimes it is vital to your progression.
Losing is Fun!
Gentiana is a powerful mage, who has no MP to track. But in the dungeon, you’ll have to think about her Stamina and her Willpower. If her Stamina runs out, a ward on her soul will activate - she’ll be forced back to her Sanctuary without her items, downgraded but immediately ready for another run!
But if her Willpower is exhausted, none of Gentiana’s magic will work, including her ward - giving her enemies a chance to capture her. Enduring and escaping captivity is difficult, but will allow you to keep your items for your next run!
The Spice of Life
Content caters to a variety of tastes, and mechanics offer depth for a variety of styles of play. Play an elemental specialist empowering one type of magic, or a strategist opportunistically targeting enemy weaknesses. Play a defensive mage, negating all incoming spells with wit and foresight, or play a daredevil wielding dangerous dueling spells at point-blank range. Every item serves a purpose and niche, even cursed ones.
* The currently available version of Violet Witch Trials is the demo. The scope of the demo is just one of its five planned areas, consisting of about ten maps, with four enemies (each with their own restraint attack), a boss fight, and an escape sequence. If you enjoy the demo, please support me as I work through the year toward a full release!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
I played one run and got captured then game over'd after my second fight against goblins, which are very cute. didn't see any cursed items. I could certainly see myself going back to play more. Here's some notes I took while playing:
- Apple stealing is good, I wish I could steal more of them
- Good note on the magical gate mechanism having receptacle for elements on two different sides. that also proved a good way to get me to look at the menus and abilities available to me
- Entering past that gate rotated my direction of travel 90 degrees: Enter going left, continue going up. Might not be possible to change that now, but best to keep direction of movement consistent in future
- I like all the stuff being interactable and getting dialogue responses
- Music looping is abrupt
- Distance mechanic in combat could be interesting, I like it instinctively
- Cool ass music on the piano
- I suspect these adorable silly goblins are placeholder. if so I hope their design doesn't change too much
- The QTEs are an interesting twist on RPG combat
- Spell circle and getting teleported to jail was rather abrupt
- Often there's no indication of confirmation when you do something. You have two moves in combat but on completing the first of two there should probably be a sound effect and visual effect or something to show that
- I think if you order a manoeuvre to a different distance, the spells available should change to reflect the new distance
Really good stuff! Great attention to detail, and the main character is so cute. The writing is also very elaborate, with an impressive amount of dialogue for just being a demo. I also personally really enjoyed the artwork!
The escape minigame is enjoyable, but becomes repetitive. Maybe different microgames other than the string of arrow keys and buttons depending on what restraint you're struggling out of/what kind of "fun" you're trying to resist? ;)
One thing I was confused about were the cursed items. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't understand exactly what they did or how to uncurse them/take them off.
The combat system is fun and UNIQUE!! The distance system is awesome, requiring you to strategically plan whether to advance of retreat, as well as what type of spell to use. So cool to see RPGM games give a fun twist on turn-based combat.
Overall very fun! Can't wait to see what's next!
Pretty good game! Do you plan to extend existing fetishes like the ghost possession?
Wanted to give my detailed review for this first demo after I found everything (I think):
The Good:
- There is definitely a lot of care and attention to details. You can interact with almost everything and there are many ways you can complete every room in the dungeon: you can be stealthy or fight every monster and there are many hidden treasures and interactions within the dungeon itself.
- The fighting system is quite original for a RPGM game: I like the ability to flee the fights by actually using skills instead of pressing a button and the various items and elemental skills are well-balanced. The arrows minigame during the fight is too hard for me.
- The writing is really good, MC is well characterised and I like her reactions to the various perils she is forced into.
What can be improved:
- The art is quite rough: there is a good amount of CGs with the same art-style which isn't very detailed; however I really liked the facial expressions!
- The escape system is quite rudimental; most of the interactions with the monsters are minigame based which makes them quite repetitive. Maybe having different interactions based on the choices you make during dialogues or when trying to escape is a better solutions but I guess it might be too hard to code for a first-time developer.
In conclusion I liked this first release and I can't wait to see what the dev can create. This project has a lot of potential and can become a really solid game. I will follow the development with great interest!
Oh, and last thing for today I think, is there any chance the escape/resist minigames can be made arrows only? I feel like this sort of game works best if it can be played with one hand at any given point.
Hmm! That's wise and I will certainly include it as a consideration in rebalances to come. That change may not come to this public demo, but the struggle minigame will be rebalanced for the completed game quite some time from now. I hope to see more feedback like this as I ponder the details of that balance change!
Struggle's allotted time is a bit short.
If you need to mention that your game is in development, use the splashscreens in the Made with MV plugin, just replace the made with mv pic with your splashes.
Other than that, nice designs, mapping and overall tone of the game. Great job.
Thank you very much! I appreciate your advice, and I will keep it in mind as I continue my work. The struggle minigame is something I plan to rebalance - my goal is for it to be a tight window to squeeze through, but I think I may have made it too narrow. As I work toward a final release, I will tinker with and adjust the struggle minigame.
Oh, and another thing I've found, submissive mode seems to load in her eyes, mouth, blushing, and her restraint textures, but not her body. Instead there's just her overworld sprite in a box.
Thank you so, so very much for this report! Another player has reported this issue but I couldn't replicate it, so I assumed it was a one-off issue. I will try more rigorously to replicate this now that I know it wasn't a fluke!
Edit: Pv1.01 should remove this issue. Since it's a rather major graphical issue, I saw fit to publish a fix immediately.
Played it for the first time, one thing I think might make the escape sequence a bit better is moving the assess options to just being a ui element displayed automatically, instead of being a menu option. In something like didnapper, having it be in a menu makes sense, since you're limited by time, and assessing takes a time unit. With your energy system it doesn't seem like there's any downside to just spamming out an assess every round, and if that's the case, then I think it would be better to just display any information that's available automatically. Great work in general tho, I can't wait to see where this project goes.
Thank you so much for your feedback! You make a good point and I will keep this in mind when I polish up the escape sequence later. My intent was to keep the information provided by 'Assess' from bogging down the Struggle menu, though it contorted into a mostly descriptive affair.