Hello fellow witches!

The weather may be getting colder, and the days shorter and darker, but the team has been as busy as ever crafting content for you to get stuck into during your time in Witchbrook. In case you missed our last Dev Blogs, so far we’ve discussed the simulation of Mossport, as well as the design and inspirations of the College. This time, we’re sitting down with Senior Artist Jade Evans to focus on one of our favourite ways to express your unique identity: character customisation.

But before we were able to get into the threads and textures of player customisation, we had to ask ourselves some very important questions. How is this system used throughout the game for various characters? How detailed can we get with our pixel art clothing? Will everything look good when animated? What rules do we need to put in place to stop this from ballooning!? Can we wear scarves?! (yes, but they’ve now been designated as ‘evil’)

Here’s Jade with her perspective…

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Hi everybody! Across Witchbrook’s development, I’ve had the pleasure to have worked within many different fields, from concept art to character animation, and everything in between. In this dev blog, I’m going to hone in on the fundamentals of our character customisation and how we’ve been tackling balancing freedom for the player without creating huge production headaches.

I’ve had the fun but challenging task of deep diving into worldbuilding via its citizens: including design and animation, and spearheading how these all come together in a city as big as Mossport!  As a team, we’re pushing the boundaries of the medium through constant experimentation. Not just with art, but the tech behind it, to redefine what character design can look like in a pixel art game..

As an animator and a self-professed fashionista myself, I’m obsessed with the little details that bring personality to the forefront, and in our case, clothing is one of the critical and immediate ways to make a game world feel alive. Witchbrook is often compared to Habbo Hotel for its isometric pixel art aesthetic, but one of my influences lie elsewhere in other 00s browser games. When I was younger, I would play pixel art dress up doll games for hours, so it’s been really satisfying to tap into those experiences with our own in-game fashion. Not only am I drawing from my own tastes, experiences and countless hours of research, I often find myself coming back to the question of ‘what would young me find fun?’.

Character Creator Variety

Fashion plays a large role in life-sims, and we wanted to provide the player with a tonne of options so they could make their witch really feel their own. 

Variety is key when considering the designs for clothing. We wanted to explore different silhouettes, palettes and styles to avoid falling into the trap of everybody looking the same or restricting player expression –  whilst there’s nothing wrong with t-shirts and jeans, it’s always nice to have more choice! Mossport is also a living, breathing city with hundreds of pedestrians going about their lives – if the clothes don’t feel seasonal or weather-appropriate, they’re going to look out of place and break immersion.

Players should be able to see themselves in the game, so we’ve included a variety of skin tones and hairstyles covering a range of different hair textures. The system we’ve created includes different fringe options (or ‘bangs’ for those of you across the pond) that can be mixed and matched. Mossport’s salon will let you change up your style any time from hairstyle and colour, to trimming (or growing) your facial hair! 

We don’t believe in setting any limitations for what the player can wear, regardless of gender. Any hairstyle, clothing type, facial hair is up for grabs for the player.

Character Animation

Witchbrook may look like it involves 3D due to its fidelity, but it’s entirely an illusion – everything in this game is 2D, including our characters! 

For an isometric perspective like Witchbrook’s, 8 directions is necessary to believe you’re traversing through the gameworld. To make things more efficient for production, we animate 5 rotations and then the engine flips the remaining 3 angles to make 8. To do the maths on just walking alone, there are technically 5 directional walk cycles with 6 animation frames each. That’s 48 hand-painted animation frames!

Believability in how the player character reacts to specific scenarios was very important to us. For example with broom riding, there are tons of forces at play such as gravity, the wind, your speed and we wanted to reflect those. There’s a subtle animation of your legs swaying in the air and your hair streaming behind you. If you speed up, your character leans closer to the broom and your hair billows even faster! All these “what-if” scenarios and how we would expect a real person to react means that animations can start to stack up quick. As of writing, the player character has over 1,300 frames of animation that have all been drawn by hand!  

The Clothing System

We know players (myself included) love to accessorise, so we’ve pushed to allow as much layering as possible. Players are able to wear 11 layers at a time (not counting hair, fringes and facial hair) and we’re so excited to see how you style your witch!

A crucial part of my work includes ensuring all clothing options work seamlessly with the player character’s 1000+ frames of animation. Since each frame of clothing is hand-painted, this quickly adds up to a wild amount of work, especially when we start becoming more adventurous with clothing options. It quickly became apparent that we would need a bespoke system that could be flexible enough to support multiple variations of clothes, without adding too much production overhead. This became the Clothes Mapping System.

Similarly to 3D games, a texture is designed and then projected onto a mask that’s shaped like a piece of clothing – such as a shirt or a pair of trousers. However, these presented big challenges:

• Challenge #1: Our sprites are tiny! Texture projection works best when you have larger models so there’s more room for detailed designs to fit within the mask. Early on, we noticed that complex shapes and patterns were simply unable to squeeze into a mask that’s less than 20 pixels wide. 
• Challenge #2: Our masks sit on top of our player character’s body and need to react every time the body moves, so each mask would still need to be designed for every rotation, and for every unique frame of animation.

The first image is the greyscale mask that we animate across all the player character frames. The second image is our tester texture for positioning of the clothes mapping. 

Take our cropped cardigan design as an example. While it starts as a flat design, our system dynamically adjusts how it is mapped on the character based on the mapping nodes. This happens for every animation frame in every direction. Put plainly, it means that whenever we add any new clothing textures, they are automatically projected across all of our frames without a manual rework. 

All of our clothing textures are designed using RGB base colours, which allows for separate colour assignment in our palette system. This allows us to have nearly unlimited colour customisation options so players can mix and match to their heart’s content. 

Currently, we have 5 masks for clothing – a “dress” top, a shirt, a pair of trousers, a long skirt and a short skirt. Using only these 5 masks we’ve already created 60+ unique clothing items, from vests to corsets, to biker jackets and much more. And this is before factoring in colour variations and accessories!  

Calico & Brands

The final touch for our clothing system was to design Calico (Mossport’s clothing shop, first shown in Hana’s reveal) and its fashion brands. We tried to make clothes shopping feel like a relaxing experience, where finding the right piece of clothing feels more like browsing a curated boutique, rather than scrolling through an endless inventory.

Calico sells a number of distinct brands, each with their own aesthetic and personality! My personal favourite is Labyrinthe, our gothic line featuring corsets, dip-dyed jeans, layered oversized tops, and chunky boots. Every brand offers something unique so that players can find themselves amongst the racks.

For me, character animation has alwaysbeen a true labour of love. An immense amount of work, but incredibly rewarding. Seeing how much freedom players have to express themselves through fashion, or noticing pedestrians bundled up in winter coats or students in uniform, has made it all worthwhile. It truly feels like magic when it all comes together.

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Meet Cormac

Previously we’ve introduced you to the bright and bubbly Hana, and since then you’ve met the ever-curious Eli, editor of the Oracle. Keen eyed witches will have seen that another of Mossport’s eligible bachelors, Cormac, has entered the fray!

A gifted artist and the self-proclaimed black sheep of his family, Cormac is a witch who would rather be capturing the hues of Mossport in art form, than sat in a stuffy old classroom. With a perpetually paint-streaked persona, he will find a kindred spirit in those who can appreciate and find beauty in the unconventional. You’ll often find him hunched over a canvas at The Briny Brush, an art shop down by Parasol Sands.

The Witchbrook Oracle subscribers amongst you may also have spotted another character we’ve yet to formally introduce… More about her next time!

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Got any burning questions for the development team, or want to share your excitement with our buzzing community? Join our official Discord or find us on your preferred socials and become part of our Coven. And don’t forget, we also have The Witchbrook Oracle – an in-world newspaper, for those of you looking to dive a little deeper in the daily lives of those in Mossport.

Until the next one!

Alexis & Jade

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A closer look at Mossport, and what’s brewing next year.

Hey everyone, 

We have an important update to share about Witchbrook. Originally we had planned to launch Winter 2025, but despite great development progress this year, we’ve made the difficult decision to shift the release into next year.

Witchbrook is a big project – and it’s taking shape exactly as we hoped; full of charm, depth and detail! In our first blog, we shared our goal to create a living, breathing world for you to explore, and as we bring all those elements together, we’re taking the time needed to ensure the world feels rich, immersive, and alive.

Map of Mossport

So far we’ve been quiet about the size of the gameworld, but today we’d like to reveal the first look at our map of Mossport! While the map highlights the sheer scale of the physical world you’ll be exploring, we’re also hard at work filling the world with spellbinding stories, captivating quests, and enchanting systems to enrich your time at Witchbrook College.

It’s really important to note here that the coloured areas you see here on the map are playable areas!

Whether it’s hiking through the peaceful green trails of Shadhollow Forest with its concealed paths and ancient secrets, or breathing in the salty sea breeze on the golden beaches of Parasol Sands, Mossport is full of natural beauty and diverse locations.

Often home to festivals and markets, Mossport’s high street is the lively heart of the city, with shops to browse, delicacies to sample, and friendly faces to meet. Whilst the Student Village buzzes with energy beneath the grand facade of Witchbrook College, housing a lively community of young witches.

When you need a step back, Shadbrook Cottage and its verdant garden offer a quiet retreat to transform how you see fit. Just down the lane you’ll find peaceful farmlands, and even a secluded spot to fish along the winding river. Each area connects naturally to the next, creating a world that feels lived-in, warm, and ready for you to explore.

What’s Next?

The extra time we’re letting the cauldron bubble has opened the door to exploring a few additional exciting opportunities, including additional platforms and language support we hadn’t initially planned! More details on this as soon as we can share them.

We’re hoping this glimpse at the map conveys the scale and variety of places you’ll be exploring in Witchbrook, when it releases next year! We’ll be sharing more development updates this side of the year with a blog focused on character customisation arriving in the next few weeks. Also word on the street is that there’s another The Witchbrook Oracle already in the works. We can’t wait to share more.

Thank you for your patience, passion and continued support.

Chucklefish

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Hey everyone.

Following our first dev blog looking at how the city of Mossport comes to life around you (even when you’re not looking), we’d next like to fling open the Witchbrook College’s grand doors and invite you inside to see where the magic happens!

As a fledgling Witch, enrolling at Witchbrook College will be your first point of call to equipping yourself with the knowledge, spells, and skills you’ll need for making the most of day-to-day life in Mossport. 

But before we could even start designing the progression system for your scholarly studies, we first needed to take a step backwards and decide how magic works within the world of Witchbrook. Is everyone in the city of Mossport magical? Are you born with magical abilities that need to be harnessed, or can magic be taught? What type of magic will you be able to learn, and how can we make spells fun and interesting in general gameplay? 

To answer these questions (and more), here’s Witchbrook’s Producer, Rosie Ball, who alongside Abi Cooke, proposed the concept for Witchbrook (then known only as ‘Magic School Game’) back in 2016 during a pitching process.

The Magic of Mossport

From the very start, our take on magic was to be as grounded as possible. Magic is all around you in Mossport, and anyone can harness it with the right attitude and some practice. It takes hard work and passion, just like any vocation, and as such, magic is still a mystery to most people. The townsfolk of Mossport keenly rely on the budding witch populace (that’s YOU) to help them with their problems, great and small – how lucky to have a magical College on their doorstep!

You’ll be learning and refining your craft at Witchbrook College’s hallowed halls. In Alchemy classes, you’ll learn to use the local flora (and sometimes fauna) to craft remedies like herbal teas and topical salves for pesky everyday ailments, progressing over time to complex cures in the form of potions.

In the College Observatory, new students will attend daytime divination classes in tarot card reading, progressing to night classes where you’ll learn to communicate with the many constellations of the cosmos. A witch with divination skills can provide valuable advice to townsfolk on subjects such as travel, finance, love, and much more.

The Arcane Arts are taught only to witches who can prove their knowledge and pass their semester 1 & 2 exams. This is the realm of rituals and demons.

You’ll discover more classes to learn new spells to aid you in daily life as you progress with your academic studies. When it comes to applying your new magical skills, practical magic requires a hands-on approach. Every step of the way you’ll be consulting with clients face-to-face, sourcing your own ingredients, scouring ancient tomes, crafting the cures, and hand-delivering the goods in person.

We love the practical side of magic in Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books, where the protagonist’s Grandma is a shepherdess and her deep knowledge of the outdoors is considered a form of magic. Likewise Witchbrook’s approach to civic witchcraft was also inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service, focusing on using magic as a real service to the townspeople – a witch’s vocation is to help people and keep the tradition alive.

Your Coven are your classmates, the young Witches making the same journey through College as you, but not necessarily the same path! Everyone comes to Witchbrook College for their own reasons, and each Witch you meet has a story to tell.

Academic Architecture

I worked as a concept artist on the College, responsible for the “draw-over” layer, a detailed sketch over the greybox layout, which was masterfully designed by Witchbrook’s Art Director, Steph. The sketches were then rendered up by our talented Pixel Artists, who also added seasonal details, lighting and so many more details to bring the College to life.

Architecturally, Witchbrook is a sprawling collection of classrooms and campus buildings built across many years, with their style and materials reflecting the time period they were added.

The main buildings, including the Library, Observatory and Quad, are built of bright sandstone masonry in the grand style of Cambridge University, the heart of the beautiful city where Abi and I grew up. Adorned with statues and ornate pilasters, magnificent stained glass windows, and conical metal roofs. The fountain in the Quad is even based on the fountain in Cambridge Botanic Gardens, where I have visited countless times since childhood.

In the Library, I was inspired by the Wren Library in Cambridge, where the windows are above the bookcases on the second floor, allowing light to fill the room but giving the impression the room is empty when seen from the river Cam.

As you arrive into the College grounds, you’ll find yourself traversing a (metaphorical) gateway between the ordinary and mystical. Crossing a white stone bridge will take you away from pastoral farmlands and into the bustling student village – our take on a University town where witches live, work, and study, with the College main building at the heart of it all.

The curved bridge leading up to the Alchemy Lab was inspired by the MANY bridges of Cambridge.

A small detail that is very iconic of University towns is the uniformity of railings, signposts, and lampposts across the town. You can see the Witchbrook emblem features prominently in our designs – it’s hidden all over the student village. It’s also common to see these structures covered in various student flyers and their trusty bicycles! We tried to emulate this with brooms, but added the odd bike too for good measure. Flyers will also be a way for you to encounter new questlines, learn tips, and generally discover new things about all sorts of goings on in Mossport.

Many of the surrounding buildings are in a Medieval style with wattle and daub walls, timber beams, and wooden shutters. This includes the Alchemy Lab, Arcane Arts classroom and College Shop. These often incorporate the oldest elements of the College – crumbling red brick towers and archways, in the style of Dordogne, France.

There are some remnants of even older buildings in a solid grey stone, but their story is waiting to be rediscovered…

Meet Eli!

Last time we introduced you to Witchbrook’s first datable character, Hana. If you’ve been keeping up with our socials you might have already got the inside scoop on the Witchbrook Oracle’s editor (and eligible bachelor), Eli Ivers!

Eli is a well-known friendly face around campus. If he’s not on the hunt for his next headline, you’ll find him working at the School Shop near the College. Eli is currently working away on the next Witchbrook Oracle, so make sure you’re subscribed to never miss an issue!

What’s Next?

Next up we’ll be talking about all things customisation and fashion, so stay tuned for the next dev blog!

Got any questions for the development team, or requests for future dev blogs? Join our official Discord or find us on your preferred socials and become part of our lovely community. 

Until the next one!

Katy & Rosie

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We’re so excited to finally kick things off here and have you with us.

It’s been an absolute whirlwind since we dropped our  First Look trailer, and we’ve loved seeing your reactions – especially the community discord server popping off during the announcement!

With each blog we’ll be diving into a different part of the game, starting with the ever-bubbling cauldron beneath the surface, quietly weaving its energy through every corner of Witchbrook: World Simulation.

It’s what brings Mossport to life and keeps things moving even when you’re not looking. So many of these systems require the complex coding of our team, including our CTO Rodrigo, that we figured it’d be best to feature his insights for this blog! Not only is he our head tech honcho on this project, he’s also created Halley – the very engine that Witchbrook runs on!

A Cauldron of Complexity

One of the core pillars in Witchbrook is “A Rich World Simulation”. To achieve that pillar, we have spent considerable time making sure that the town of Mossport is a living, breathing, believable place.

The passing of the seasons changes the city in many ways – not only are different resources and jobs available at different times, but the city itself adapts. People dress differently (perhaps some scarves and mittens in Winter, or umbrellas in the rain), schedules change, different weather conditions are present, and the town gets re-decorated to reflect the seasons.

Those changes are not instantaneous either: for example, you’ll see the town gradually filling up with flowers as Spring progresses, culminating in the Tulip Festival in the third week of Spring.

Along with the changing seasons, a smooth day-night cycle transitions Witchbrook from morning to afternoon, evening, and night.. The length of day even changes depending on the season – for those long summer days and long winter nights. You might have seen a tease of the view through the telescope in the Witchbrook Observatory – even this is affected by the same systems, (although I might be getting a little ahead of myself, as we plan to talk more about this in our next blog!)

Mossport and Witchbrook college are home to the cast of major characters (coven members, professors, shopkeepers, and more) that you’ll get to know (and, for some of them, date!) as you study in Witchbrook, but also to hundreds of unique and diverse citizens. The world is persistent, which means EVERY citizen has their own look, name, and home. They’re not just background characters, they’re part of the world’s fabric.

They are grouped by archetypes, which dictate how they dress and what activities they’re interested in – pay attention and you’ll be able to identify students, tourists, affluent residents, etc. You’ll be able to meet them and assist them with their requests, or you can just follow them around town and see what they get up to. Finally, you’ll also encounter a wild variety of wildlife, from small critters and birds, to larger, persistent animals.

The character’s daily routines allow them to get up to all sorts of activities around the city, and will change based on weather, season, or special events. All of this is fully simulated – even when they’re far away from the player, every single one of the hundreds of people who live in Mossport is still being tracked and updated. They will arrive at the same place at the same time whether you followed them or not, without any magical “behind the scenes” teleporting or spawning of characters.

To achieve this, the game has two levels of simulation: a high fidelity, graphic simulation for the chunks around the player, and a lower fidelity simulation for the rest of the world. The lower fidelity simulation still keeps track of all the important data, but without wasting resources with things that are currently invisible, like animation.

In addition to all the pedestrians, we also have a full traffic simulation in Mossport. The cars drive on the roads while respecting (British) road rules, signal with their indicators, and even wait for pedestrians to cross, helping to sell the feeling of being truly immersed in a big city. If you block the traffic, a small traffic jam might start developing – and the motorists will be sure to let you know of their displeasure by honking at you! There’s also a regular bus service that you can take to get around the city while enjoying the view.

Meet Hana!

In case you missed it, we recently revealed Witchbrook’s first dateable character – your peppy covenmate, Hana Satō.

You may have already spotted Hana’s signature pink ponytail in Witchbrook’s trailer, or perhaps hanging out in front of Mossport’s clothing store in the latest issue of The Witchbrook Oracle. Hana is a great friend to have around, with a sense of all the latest fashion trends from working at her part-time job at Calico, and a positive attitude towards every situation. How will you foster your friendship with Hana?

We’ll be gradually introducing you to more of Witchbrook’s cast of datable characters as we work towards the game’s release. We know you’re all dying to know how dating exactly works in Witchbrook, but that’s a topic for another day!

A Mammoth Task

It’s fair to say that game development is rarely a straight path, and Witchbrook has grown in ambition over time! We hope these blogs will give everyone in the community a look behind the curtain into our development approach, and why re-evaluating our plans has been so pivotal to standing out in the ever-growing life-sim space.

Witchbrook’s fresh isometric view reflects that, and moving to our new engine has allowed us to fulfill these ambitions. Whilst the larger concepts remained, this was a huge undertaking for our close-knit team of under 20 developers. It’s certainly taken us a little while to get here, but Witchbrook’s larger systems and foundations are in place and we’re finally on the homestretch to release!

What’s Next?

Thanks for reading! Whether you’ve been here since Spellbound or just joining us for this broom ride, it’s great to have you with us on the journey.

Got questions about Witchbrook or want to chat with other cozy spellcasters? Join our Discord and connect with our enchanting community. Speaking of which… our next blog dives into Witchbrook College and some of the fun activities you’ll be participating in… so stay tuned! Word is also on the street: The Oracle has a new editor, so definitely worth signing up to not miss the latest issue! If that isn’t your thing, we’re always active on socials, and if you haven’t already please give us a wishlist on steam, it really helps us out!

Till next time students!

Socks & Rodrigo

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