Hello gamers, Johnny here.

In today’s Devblog, I will cover some non-spoilery things I’ve been working on, as well as an idea for which I would appreciate some feedback.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been implementing kinetic text. As mentioned by Loafy in a previous devblog, kinetic text refers to text with slight animation, such as shuddering, bouncing, and shaky text. I’ve been using effects such as shuddering, bouncing, and shaky text, as well as animated hearts across the game to great effect. It took a couple of tries to get it just right, but once I did, it’s been a great way to portray both emotions and speaking volume.

Moving on to writing, Loafy and I sat down to discuss the event summaries I’ve written for Tonks’ content. Our aim is to capitalise on their distinctive dynamic and craft a good back-and-forth between them… if you know what I mean. The fact that Tonks is almost as lewd and experienced as Genie also means we can get wild and crazy. Is there an expression for when two people are giving each other a wild ride?

Apart from Tonks’ content, I’ve also been writing unique “fail” variants for Hermione’s public favours. As you may know, personal and public events used to have the same repetitive writing when Hermione refuses to perform a favour. In a previous update, I added unique writing for her personal favours, and now I’m doing the same for the public variants.

Now, let’s discuss the idea I mentioned earlier. When I feel the need to exercise my writing muscle, I enjoy tinkering with silly ideas for side-content to make the game world feel more alive. One such area that I’d like to expand upon are the text mediums of the game. One of these mediums I’ve been tinkering with is Luna’s father’s magazine, “The Quibbler,” which players would be able to pick up weekly. With “The Quibbler” being full of bizarre theories, misinformation, and the like, the idea would be to use it as an outlet for writing that while funny may not be entirely true. To give you a taste of what to expect, here is one of the three articles I’ve written so far.

“Muggles in Love: A Study of the Weird and Wacky Ways They Show Affection

As a seasoned observer of the Muggle world, I have spent countless hours studying the bizarre customs of these peculiar creatures. One of the most fascinating aspects of Muggle culture is their methods of showing affection.

It doesn’t take long to uncover signs of affection within the world of Muggles. For instance, there is the “pavement gathering”. A long-standing tradition where women will congregate on the pavement to await potential suitors. The men, upon approaching these lovely ladies, will engage in a brief conversation before promptly disappearing into their motorised vehicle, never to be seen again. This is indeed a thrilling spectacle, to say the least.

Of course, the search for potential partners doesn’t end in the streets, but is also heavily encouraged in places of employment. Muggles have this wonderful tradition called “Casual Friday”, where they don their most outrageous attire in the hopes of attracting a romantic interest.

Then there is the ultimate gesture of affection, the middle finger. As an act of displaying true love and affection, Muggles will extend their middle finger toward a potential mate. It is believed that this symbolises a desire for physical contact, as the gesture is often followed by a vocal invitation to engage in sexual activity.

As I finish writing this article, casually observing the “pavement gathering” A suave gent, resplendent in his purple suit and adorned with a wooden cane, makes his way towards the gathering. His eyes lock onto mine, and with a flourish, he extends his middle finger in a gesture of affection. While I couldn’t reciprocate this peculiar display, I was presented with a satisfying conclusion to this story as each of the threads of these strange customs had finally been woven together to form a rich tapestry.”

Feel free to let me know what you guy’s think about the “Quibbler” idea in the comments, or on our Discord server. I quite enjoyed writing these and I wouldn’t mind sharing the other ones in future devblogs if you guys would like, regardless if they make it into the game.

See you all in the next devblog,

Johnny.

Hey there, LoafyLemon here!

It’s been about two weeks since my last post about the new interface design, and a lot has changed since then. The new UI is looking sleek and sexy, but we’re not done yet!

Today, I want to talk about some of the other changes we’ve made, like the addition of kinetic text and the new Point & Click system.

First off, the kinetic text. Since we’re already overhauling the interface, we figured why not add some extra flair? Kinetic text is a feature that makes certain words or phrases move and dance across the screen during dialogues. I know what you’re thinking – “Why would I want my text to be moving around on the screen?” And honestly, it might seem a bit silly at first, but trust me, it adds a whole new level of immersion to the game, especially during sex scenes. Normally, we’re limited to just showing the text and having it fade in and out, or use italics or embolden it to make it stand out. With kinetic text, however, we can create all sorts of cool effects. Like, for example, making the words shake slightly during an orgasm, or have them move around in sync with the action on the screen. It really helps convey the emotions and intensity of the scene, and it looks damn good too. Of course, we’ll also need to ensure that it doesn’t get too distracting and detract from the actual gameplay, but I think we’ve found a good balance so far, and no worries, I made sure to add a toggle in the options menu so players can turn it off if they prefer.

Next up, the Point & Click system. This one’s been a long time coming, and I’m super excited to finally see it come together. We’ve been asked to add more locations to explore in the game, and while we could just throw in some generic rooms and call it a day, we wanted to do something more interesting. So, we’ve created a Point & Click system where players can click on objects or characters to interact with them. This will allow us to finally flesh out some of the environments and allow me to draw more than just those four walls of Genie’s office goddamnit!

We’re still working on refining the system, but so far it’s been working pretty well. The main challenge has been figuring out how to make the clicks feel responsive and intuitive. You see, the Ren’Py engine was not designed for this kind of interaction, so we’ve had to work around its limitations. But, after some trial and error, we’ve got a system that feels pretty natural and easy to use. I admit, old menus were a bit clunky, but this new system should be much easier on the eyes and more enjoyable to play with. Oh, and it works with mods, too!

Now, I know some of you might be thinking, “What about the rest of the game?” Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about it! We’re still working on all the other aspects of the game, including the new Tonks scenes, which I have started drawing already. More on that later.

You may be happy to hear that the interface is already partially implemented in the game, including some new elements that have not been teased yet. Not only does it look nice, but it also helps us with the rest of the development process, and thanks to the custom UI system, we’ve addressed most of the performance issues that were holding us back before. Since the new interface is now a part of the game, we can start testing it right away, which means we’ll be able to catch any bugs and issues sooner rather than later.

I hope this update has given you a good idea of what’s been going on behind the scenes. Like always, there’s still much work to be done, but we’re making progress and it’s starting to show. Thanks for your continued support, and as always, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to poke us on Discord.

That’s all for now, folks!

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.