Hey everyone!
Last time, I signed off saying I was drafting out how the Enchanter's spells from the books would work on the grid. Well, the past month has been almost entirely devoted to that - and to building out the full skill system for all four classes. Today I want to talk about one of the biggest deviations from the source material I've made so far: changing the books' spell system. I know some of you gamebook veterans will have opinions on this, so let me walk you through exactly what I changed and why.
How magic works in the books
If you've played the original Blood Sword books, you'll remember the Enchanter's magic is brutal. You "call to mind" spells before you need them, and every spell held in memory drains your Psychic Ability. To actually cast, you roll 2d6 + Spell Complexity against your current PA. And here's where it gets rough:
If you fail the roll, your turn is wasted. You stand there. Nothing happens. The next turn the roll for that particular spell would be easier with 1.
If you succeed, the spell is instantly forgotten - want to cast it again? Spend another full turn re-memorizing it.
If the enemy saves against your Psychic spell, it does nothing at all.
On paper (literally), this works. The tension of gambling your turn is part of the fantasy. But in a digital tactical RPG, I playtested this faithfully and it felt awful. Picture spending three consecutive turns failing to cast a Level 3 spell while your party bleeds, finally landing the cast - and then the enemy rolls a save and negates the whole thing. This kind of RNG when transferred digitally is not tension anymore, that's a refund request.
The new system: magic that always fires, but always costs
I kept everything I could. You still prepare up to 4 spells outside of combat, each prepared spell still lowers your Psychic Ability by 1, and the casting roll is still the classic 2d6 + Complexity <= PA. The dice are sacred - they stayed.
What changed is what happens when the dice betray you:
Fail-forward Miscasts: A failed roll no longer wastes your turn. The spell always fires - but the magic violently rebels, and the Enchanter takes Backlash damage equal to the spell's Complexity. You'll see the toll on screen: a splat of dark magic, floating text screaming "Backlash!", and a screen shake to drive it home.
Diminished output: A miscast spell fires wildly - Blasting spells deal half damage or less, buffs last half as long. A clean cast is always worth the risk assessment.
Resistance no longer negates: Enemies resisting your Psychic magic now halve its effect instead of deleting it. No more all-or-nothing double jeopardy.
Cooldowns instead of forgetting: Rather than re-memorizing spells mid-fight, a cast spell goes on cooldown for a number of turns equal to its Complexity. A Level 5 nuke locks itself out for 5 turns. It keeps the "running out of spells" feeling of the books without ever leaving you standing there doing nothing.
The result: the Enchanter is now a glass cannon who pays in blood. Hoarding four prepared spells gives you versatility but tanks your PA, making every cast more likely to hurt you. It's the same risk-management fantasy from the books - just moved from "wasted turns" to "wagered health," which is a currency that actually feels dramatic on screen.
That lost predictability hasn't disappeared entirely, either - it has moved into the Enchanter's passive skill tree. Arcane Precision improves casting rolls, while Arcane Supremacy eventually lets you roll twice and keep the better result, and at its highest tier guarantees a successful cast. Together with passives that shorten and manipulate spell cooldowns, this means that while spells no longer become easier through consecutive failed attempts as they did in the books, developing your Enchanter steadily gives you more control over when and how reliably your magic works.
Back to the drawing board
Fun fact, this is my second attempt. The first version turned failed casts into a "Channeling" bonus that made your next cast (for any of your spells) easier. This was a more faithful approach to the books' system but it turns it on its head, trying to present the negative outcome of wasting a turn as something positive visually on screen - you've accumulated a bonus. The issue is - wasting your turn to RNG in a tactical environment still feels bad. Not having control leads to unexpected character deaths and party wipes that could have been easily avoided has the dice been slightly in your favour. And I don't want that.
Of course, there are spells like Servile Enthrallment and Immediate Deliverance that require a different approach with the new system. Keep in mind also that lots of different little changes are happening across the board, i.e. the Enchanter doesn't have the full spell arsenal at his disposal from the start of the game but rather has to unlock it via the skill tree. This introduces new balance opportunities for low tier spells.
It's important to note that there are also story moments to look out for when casting spells which require slight rework. Such an example is when casting a spell on Lady Grey while in combat, or trying to cross at the Gate of Carnage, etc, etc.
Four classes, four skill trees
Magic wasn't the only thing on the workbench. This month I migrated the entire skill system to data-driven resources - every skill is now a single self-contained file holding its progression requirements, targeting, effects, and combat data. Boring tech talk, but it's what let me implement skills at speed. In the last few weeks alone:
Warrior: Battle Cry (shred enemy Fighting Prowess), Whirlwind (spin-to-win against everything adjacent), Precision Stance, and Battering Ram - a charging shove with knockback and stun, complete with satisfyingly crunchy VFX.
Sage: Dazzle, Quarterstaff Technique (signature skill from the books), the Mirage summon, which conjures an illusory unit to bait and confuse enemies on the grid, and Mantra of Salvation.
Trickster: Blight Bomb - a hurled glob of venom that bursts on impact and ravages the target hardest on the first turn before slowly wearing off.
What I'm most excited about is how the trees talk to each other. The Sage's healing is the natural counterweight to the Enchanter's Backlash - with a Sage patching you up, you can afford to gamble on high-Complexity spells. The Warrior's Battering Ram peels enemies off your casters. The Trickster's smoke blocks enemy ranged attacks, creating a protected pocket for the Enchanter to shell from. Building a party is now genuinely a puzzle, exactly like coordinating around the table.
Under the hood
I also tore the entire VFX pipeline apart and rebuilt it. Every spell effect is now its own granular, memory-efficient piece, and everything preloads during the loading screen - which fixed those nasty lag spikes some of you would have hit on slower machines when a spell fired for the first time in battle. You'll never see this work, and that's the point.
So - was I right to change the books' rules? I genuinely want to hear from the gamebook veterans on this one. The dice, the preparation, the psychic strain: all still there. You'll have a chance to give me feedback on this matter when you get your hands on the demo in September!
Thanks for all the wishlists and support - see you in the next one!