Stardander School for Witches

Description

Short Description:

Welcome to Stardander School for Witches! Embrace your magical side by learning spells, solving mysteries, making friends and battling (or befriending) Fae creatures in a turn-based battle system. Do you have what it takes to pass your classes in a world besieged by a malicious enemy?

History

After finishing </reality>, the Visual Novel we made right before starting Aground, we had many ideas for better story-based games. But, at the time, we decided to hold off on them because of how challenging the visual novel market is. However, we both really like the magical school setting and kept trying to think of ways to make our witchy game idea better. We had loads of ideas before, during and after Aground’s development - from a tower-defense based game, to a multiplayer-only game.

We seriously started a witch management sim from the perspective of Dare (the fae-cat professor) October 2020. In September 2021, we made a spooky spinoff game, Stardander Revenant, for the Spooktober Game jam (which won second place!) After that jam, we got a lot of feedback and people wanted the main game to be more story focused, and from the perspective of the students like Revenant. So, we pivoted and made the game from the perspective of 4 recurring witches in the original management sim.

While we more or less stuck to this plan, a year later we did have an idea for an amazing twist, and had to fix up the story a bit to work it in. From that point, it was getting feedback, writing and implementing chapters/years of the story, and eventually, on October 3rd 2023, we released the game in Early Access!

Features

• Play as four complex main characters, each with their own reasons for learning magic.
• Make friends (or enemies) with your fellow witches-in-training.
• Recruit your friends to help you battle dangerous Fae in a unique turn based battle system.
• Talk to and form pacts with enemy Fae to gain familiars.
• Take classes, learn spells, pass your exams, cultivate magical plants and brew potions.
• Solve mysteries in a multi year story arc with a high-stakes conclusion.
• Grow magical materials to brew potions and enchant items!