Devlog #7: Witch & Layout

January, February & March Recap

Its been some time since an update. With some priorities rearranging that required me to develop and work on new skills my progress on content I am comfortable releasing has slowed down substantially. I am still incredibly busy working on Ambition its just that the floor for work I make public has gotten substantially higher. Additionally in January I published Fragmented Memories, a TTRPG Setting that was exceptionally time consuming and challenging for me to do. I couldn’t be more happy with how it came out and it laid the groundwork for the layout workflow I am working in for the current Witch update.

So here’s whats been done in the last three months.

The Spellcasting Update is finished and has created a new foundation from which Witch, Papercraft Mage, and Weaver can feel mechanically unique in a way thats exclusively Ambition.

First and second level for Sundance have been completely updated and reworked, and Lionheart and Bulwark have had the mechanical areas that need touching up identified for their retooling.

The Witch rework is about 70% done. There are two new expressions and one cut expression, so 5 total. Pact of the Nameless, Pact of the Whisper (reworked), Pact of the Crossroads (new), and Pact of Vertigo (new). 1st and 2nd level features and flavor text are completely done and finished, Pact of the Nameless has one chosen feature left, Pact of the Tower has a required feature rework, and the other three expressions are the biggest chunk of work left.

Every single witch spell has been updated to the new system, 5 spells were cut for various reasons. (Echo, Dancing Wispfire, Disaster Aura, Soul Shrike, Overwriting Abduction.)

12 new witch spells have been made and added and Ambitions first ritual. (One-Way Window, Muster Small Desires, Smolder, Steep in Silence, The Place Between Silver and Green, Warmth, Forked Pathfinder, Blame (currently coolest spell in the game), Black Blood, Myth-Hunter Scythe, Storyweaver, Grieving Wildfire.)

Final layouts for Witch are currently being worked on. This has been a large undertaking and currently where most of the development time is going, but its getting quicker and once done the final release will be completely book ready. Which is the goal for all future releases going forward.

Ambitions pick up and play module; “You’re in the unknown, you’re more lost than you know” has been playtested a bunch and is exceptionally polished, I just need to do layout and assets for it. Will be published in the next errata.

Content Coming Soon

Devlogs are going to maintain this monthly to bimonthly release until I can get quicker with the layout work. But here are the current content releases I am juggling in a relative order.

• Witch Rework, finishing Crossroads and Vertigo
• Witch Rework, finishing all 5 familiar statblocks and features
• Witch Rework, designing 4-6th level features
• Witch Rework, Layout
• Sphinx and Human Bloodline, 5th level features
• Sundance Minor Rework
• Spells, finish all spells needed for next release and 4th Spoke Spells
• Spells & Spellcasting Update Layout
• Downtime Update, borrowing mechanics from Majula
• All 6 Bloodlines, Layout
• Lionheart, Bulwark, and Fool Revisions
• Lionheart, Bulwark, Sundance, and Fool; designing 4-6th level features
• Papercraft Mage and Perfumer, designing 1-3rd level features
• Papercraft Mage, Spells
• Lionheart, Bulwark, Sundance, and Fool; Layout
• Finish small subsystem clean up to prepare for v0.1.2 errata release
  • Want to publish with a very loose layout that follows basic paragraph and page style of final book
  • Grimoire Cleanup
    • Fill-out equipment, consumable, potion, misc item, loot, and kit section
  • Building an NPC section cleanup
    • 4 simpler statblocks to use for minion typing
      • The Shiv (done), the Sling, the Spark, the Voice.
  • Editing
• Publish v0.1.2
• Untamed and Weaver 1-3rd Level Features
• Weaver, Spells
• Deserter and Investigator, 4-6th level Features
• Deserter and Investigator, Layout
• Perfumer and Papercraft Mage, 4-6th Level Features
• Papercraft Mage, 4 Stroke Spells
• Perfumer and Papercraft Mage, Layout
• Weaver and Untamed, 4-6th Level Features
• Weaver and Untamed, Layout
• Ink Spells and Materia Spells, Layout

Alongside this, Anna has been working on art bible work in the background. My design work has taken a bit of a backseat while I work on layout assets for the final book look. She is currently working on Satyr, Pookah, and Sphinx.

Devlog #6: Spellcasting and Witches

With the spellcasting update done the writing content part of designing Ambition is happening much faster than it was beffore. The current biggest hurdle is the layout work but the final book look I am shooting for has already given me a lot more social media engagement and created a stronger narrative and game feel to hook into for when I share the game. Here’s a preview for Witch :>

I’m incredibly happy with how these mockups are coming along. Being able to see layouts in context as I write content or do design, like the designs for the spell origin icons or the intro text on the spread, is making me create better content. The new flavor text for Witch, and a lot of the ways the rules are written now has been changed to read better with the layout. To communicate more information with less, to visually express a mechanic alongside just being something you read.

Also for witch spells, here are some teasers of my favorites for each level. Blame is my new favorite spell in the game.