What’s up gamers, Johnny here.

In today’s devblog I wanted to share some insight into the evolution of the project and my approach to writing for it, along with some of the writing additions that we’re adding to the UI focused update.

In the early days of Silver, the project had many contributors, which led to a diverse range of ideas being implemented. However, this also led to a lack of cohesion between characters, storylines, and individual character progression. When I joined the project, I brought my own ideas to the table, just like the others before me. I created my own mini-stories that also didn’t affect the rest of the game, such as the Mirror of Erised, and the card-game, which was initially separate but included ties to Hermione’s progression later on.

As I became more involved in the project, we began looking at the various additions that had been made over time to see if we could address the issues with character progression, and create a better foundation where both the game and its characters have room to grow.

One of the earliest additions utilizing this mindset was a new introduction for Tonks. When we released it, the community seemed pleased, so we started looking at giving similar treatments to other characters. Since we were already working on redrawing characters at higher resolutions, we decided not to include potions initially so that Hermione’s new doll could be added as soon as possible. This was a difficult decision at the time, as we knew players would miss potions. However, we wanted to ensure that when we added them back in, we would expand their potential by involving Snape and make sure to incorporate Hermione’s character progression.

However, the most controversial change came after that with Luna. When we started working on her content, many problems emerged. The underlying code was nearly impossible to work with, and most of her unique CG scenes had been traced, which meant that even though there was plenty of original content in the game, we were often reminded of this looked-down-upon practice. At that point, we made the difficult decision to begin reworking her content with the same mindset we’ve established. This meant introducing Luna earlier so that she could have more involvement in other parts of the game, including a new intro. Making all these changes was very stressful at the time, but now that we’ve emerged on the other side, I feel like I can finally believe what I’ve been telling myself the whole time: it’s worth it in the end.

This mentality can be extended to other aspects of the game, whether it’s code, writing, or art. It’s an ever-evolving process that changes as our abilities, expectations, and support for the project change over time. Despite these changes, one thing that has always remained true is our desire to put a smile on our players’ faces, whether through humour or “enlightenment”.

Anyway… What I wanted to get to before going on a tangent is that there have always been elements in the game that have been underutilized or could use a fresh coat of paint. Some of these I’ve been working on alongside Tonks planning, to be included in our Tonks-and-UI focused update.

First off, I’ve been expanding on the “jerk off” option. Previously, there wasn’t much reason to do it unless you had a character’s panties at hand. And even then, the actual “jerk off” section didn’t offer much. With my new additions, you’ll now be able to pick between characters you’ve met who Genie should be imagining. Instead of just a single bit of repetitive writing, it will now play a random bit of dialogue each time, so feel free to spam the same option to see all the variants.

On top of the characters from the game, I also went ahead and added an option where Genie will imagine a random character from other popular media. As you guys have probably guessed by now, I don’t like to share my writing before release as it’s often iterated upon during implementation, but since this is side content, I thought I’d give you guys a sneak peek and make you laugh:

Narrator: “You fantasise about a British time-traveller with a pulse pistol.”

Genie: “(Hold onto something love, because I’m about to teleport my dick inside you.)”

Narrator “You fantasise about a badass zombie slayer.”

Genie: “(Oh yes… Once I’ve finished fucking your brains out, no zombie will come for you.)”

Narrator: “You fantasise about a superheroine with the power of storms.”

Genie: “(Your powers are nothing compared to the thunderous claps I’m about to unleash against your ass!)”

If you have any suggestions for characters Genie could reference or even a reference itself, feel free to leave a comment in the comments section or in the suggestions channel on Discord.

I’m also planning to expand the “jerk off on panties” options in the future. These events will involve longer scenarios, where Genie imagines the girl whose panties he’s jerking off with watching him, and commenting on what he’s doing. The idea is that he could imagine the girl ‘hating it’ or ‘loving it’ and since he’s imagining the whole thing, the girl’s characteristics would be very exaggerated.

Additionally, I’ve been focusing on adding new interactions between Genie and Snape during their hangouts. Many players have mentioned how much they enjoy these little chats, and I figured it’s been quite a while since we added to them. Apart from the regular banter you’d expect between them, I’m also focusing a little bit more on Genie’s backstory.

That’s it for today’s devblog. There are several more bits of side content and ideas that I’m working on, but I’ll talk more about them once they’re further along. I’ve also been working on outlining Tonks’ personal content and events, but we’ll discuss that once the current UI improvements are ready.

Upside-down spider-man kiss,

Johnny.