Hey everybody!
Welcome to Warding Witches, and thanks for tuning into the first ever devlog. As there's already quite a bit to the game, this one's gonna be a bit chunkier! Let me know in the comments if you'd rather like lengthy logs or smaller (but more regular) ones.
I'm not gonna bore you with marketing speech or elevator pitches - keeping it real in the devlogs. Being a composer (for video games, but also EDM) as well as an avid shmup-head, it's been one of my dreams to compose the soundtrack of a shoot 'em up - long story short, Warding Witches was born.
In my head, it's the "this soundtrack comes with a sick game!" kinda deal. You know, being a musician first, and a dev... 43rd. ;)
Shmup (shoot 'em up) is a genre which I'm exceptionally passionate about, and as such am confident in designing it in a proper yet modern way.
It started off as a hobby project in 2024 and would have stayed under the radar until I eventually released or was close to releasing it. Of course, that is most different now - more about that later.
Willa is a young witch, specializes in warding work - adept at defending herself and others with wards, shields, protective circles. She is joyous, curious and confident. Orphaned at a young age, she lives outside of a village together with Talia.
Gameplay-wise, she cancels bullets outright with her defensive spell, while sporting a wider shot spread to cover large areas of enemies.
Talia, while appearing younger than Willa, is suspectedly quite older. She raised Wanda since Wanda was a little child, and has not aged on the outside. Specializing in temporal workings, Talia manipulates time itself to slow down bullets or locomote seemingly instantaneously. She is enigmatic and reserved.
Gameplay-wise, Talia is more difficult to use as she doesn't cancel bullets, but offers a higher skill ceiling as her spells can be used more often, longer, and in various situations. Her shot is a classic straight shot and excels in precise and high damage output, but doesn't cover a lot of screen space, requiring more movement.
Warding Witches is set in a fantastical version of early 17th century Europe, shortly after the last bigger witch trials and persecutions. Despite mostly leaving those tensions behind, a new threat emerges from its dark depths and it is up to Willa and Talia to ward the world from impending devastation.
After getting most of the initial stuff (movement, shooting, scrolling...) out of the way, I spent most the time I worked on the game on coding and system work. Most of the graphical assets I just mocked up quickly so I could work on the code first.
Comparison of 2024-03 to now.
While that is not the biggest of jumps graphically, most of my core systems are running and scalable - that is bullet processing, basic enemy behaviour, player controlling and much more. Stuff that is in every level of the game. Now, aside from emerging bugs, polish and some minor features, most of what I have to do is add content (famous last words, lol). Not that it's little, but I feel confident about the code base.
That is about the beginning of 2025, when I finally started to make the first real (= final) assets, for example this stage 1 midboss:
As posted on bluesky 3 months ago.
Due to a chain of unexpected events, I ended up exhibiting my prototype at local 2-day gaming convention GGBavaria 2025 (Munich, Germany). Remember that up until then, I had no intentions or expectations of the sort! The deadlines and material needed for such a gig made for a great deal of stress and urgency - things that at times really make a project progress. Among other things, I've had to put on the old, figurative drawing glove and make the key art you are seeing plastered everywhere around here with the two witches on it.
Here's the timelapse:
As the convention approached, I grew extremely anxious, despite all reason and stoicism. "Who'd want to play this?", "I'm a nobody, and nobody plays shmups nowadays!".
Thankfully, people were incredibly generous in how overwhelmingly positive they reacted to the game and everything around it. It's one of those positive kinds of reality checks. My booth totally popped off!
And: SHMUP WILL NEVER DIE!
Since then, Warding Witches has also been at LFG-Con 2025 (Hof, Germany) and will be at Level UP 2025 (Salzburg, Austria).
As if that's not enough, I've had the honor of having Warding Witches be part of the Deutsche Indie Showcase, a compilation of upcoming Games from the German-speaking countries, which was livestreamed to over 30.000 people! For that, I was also curious as to what people (in chat) would say, as I believe they tend to be more candid in expressing their opinion. Most seemed to like it or said it looked like "German Touhou", which I'll gladly take. :)
There's a little more to tell, but I shall stop here for now. Thanks for reading this far! If you have topics that interest you particularly (about the game), let me know in the comments.
See you in the next devlog!
If you like more frequent updates and tidbits, check out my bluesky. Feel free to join the Sonorode / Warding Witches Discord Server too to hang with others and ask me questions.