Approaching the release
What's up everyone, Harvey Games here.
The Witch's Cauldron, our very first game, has finally been released.
We've been working on it for two years while closely listening to the feedback, watching streams and trying our hardest to make a game which would reward you with if not the most hardcore, then at least not wholly unpleasant experience.
The game has been released on Steam and was wish-listed over 7000 times by the release date.
A little about the release version of The Witch's Cauldron
Unlike the demo and Prologue, this version of the game features every bit of up-to-date content:
Full version of King's story branch
Bandits story branch
Archbishop story branch
Auto-brew function which becomes available after learning most of recipes and can be turned on and off in options
Arcane Circle story branch which grants the ability to manipulate Fame and Dread using rumors
A modest wardrobe for our witch – new apparel unlocks with certain endings
List of every possible ingredient combination (Experiments tab in your recipe book)
Ability to drag and drop Bobby the Cat (into the cauldron too) and feed him the ingredients
Several new cinematics
The Witch's Cauldron released on 24.01.2024 and (at the time of this post) got about 200 reviews on Steam. It's still featured in the New & Trending tab on Steam.
First problems. Fixes. Patch.
Release revealed several important problems. The biggest one was probably the one that got named The Day 30 bug. What was supposed to happen: when the player runs out of story cards, the Moving ending should activate. Instead the moving happened randomly and when it was supposed to happen originally the game locked or crashed instead. We fixed it and now everything is working as intended!
Here's the most important fixes of the 28.01.24 patch:
The Rainbow Drakkar and Story of the Chalice achievements now work correctly
Fixed the black screen caused by the previously installed demo version
Fixed the sound settings that weren't saving
Now the game doesn't lock after playing for more than 30 in-game days
Moving ending fix
Can now switch between unlocked skins by clicking on the witch
Other wardrobe-related bug fixes
Fixed the bug that happened after closing the game on the ending screen
Recipe book: animation fixes, updated font on the Ingredients tab
Some adjustments to Fear balance
The Riddle of the Blind Man rework
Some minor fixes and adjustments to the plot
Feedback
All in all, our reward for finishing our work was more work. But it was more then worth it because of how well the game was received. The feedback was nothing short of fantastic, with ton of useful advice and player support. Our Discord chat took active part in looking for bugs and offering ideas for improving the game and we are immensely grateful to each and everyone who participated in discussions. It motivates us a lot. Steam reviews were helpful as well in identifying some problems. And of course we couldn't forget about streamers and bloggers who gave us exposure and wrote reviews. We tried to watch every stream and participated in some of them to discuss the weak and strong points of our game with players. Special thanks to the iXBT guys who allowed us to reach such a wide audience!
What's next?
We won't make any promises – that way we won't disappoint anyone (that's what Bobby the Cat would do). Let's just say we've listened and we heard you. And we're gonna keep brewing.
