Thematically, it's a stewpot of Studio Ghibli chill, Stardew Valley choices and Persona 5 charisma. It's a stylish life-sim in pen and paper form, letting you tell the tale of a turbulent year in a young witch's life as they navigate ancient magic and time-old teen troubles in an unfamiliar city.

Overview

This is a game for one player, designed for contemplative solo play. It’s a bubbling cauldron of simple rules and writing prompts, stirred together to produce the story of a teenage witch spending a year away from home in an unfamiliar city—Koriko.

You'll use this book, a deck of tarot cards and a teetering tower of dice to explore the city, work to improve your witch's fortunes and meet some of the city’s weird and wonderful residents.

The game’s primary inspiration is Kiki’s Delivery Service, both the Studio Ghibli film and the Eiko Kadono novel. I’ve watched the film countless times as it’s one of my son’s favourites, and its story and themes have burrowed their way deep into my soul.

You don't need to have played a roleplaying game before, and you certainly don't have to talk in a funny accent (although I won't stop you). A passing familiarity with witches, urban exploration and teenage drama is all the background you need.

You'll tell your story across the entire year, creating a spread of tarot cards at the start of each season to create and inspire the key moments in those months.

Then you'll choose how your witch spends their time: working to help the city's residents with your witchcraft, exploring the districts of the city to find time-worn treasures and future friends, or hanging out with those friends (confidants) to deepen your relationships and uncover their stories. Sometimes these activities will be risky, requiring you to add dice to an increasingly-precarious stack in exchange for a reward, but mostly they'll simply be a chance to exercise your creative writing muscles and shape your witch's tale.

At the end of each season you'll send a letter home from your witch, choosing prompts to guide you as you tell the story from their perspective.

You'll then move to a fresh season of events and ephemera that will guide you through the gentle rhythms of the year. Finally, at Winter's end, you'll make the biggest decision of all: does your witch stay in Koriko and become their resident witch, or do they leave—back home, or off to pastures new?

There are also optional rules to play the game as a group asynchronously, telling your individual stories in solo play and then writing letters to each other each season about your experiences. You play witches from the same town—childhood friends, awkward lovers and petty rivals. It doesn't change much about how the game works, but it's a fun little extra if you've got some friends who enjoy playing at the same pace as you.

Space for stories

This is the biggest game I've made to date in terms of content—not because it's a complicated game (the rules are leisurely paced across ten or so pages), but because I want each story you tell with the game to feel unique. Koriko is heavily-influenced by the Harvest Moon and Persona series—specifically the life-sim parts of those games, where there are several interesting paths in front of you but you can only ever choose one.

I want Koriko to feel like that. I want you to talk to a friend about their witch's year and be surprised by what they found and the direction it took their story. Through card draws and player choices you'll chart a unique course through the year, and there are even secrets hidden in weird places across the game (like the Wheel of Fortune confidant, which you can only encounter by successfully stacking 21 dice in your tower).

So it's a big book, around 120 pages in print, but I've worked hard (so hard 😅) to ensure that you're doing a minimal amount of flicking around to make it work. I'm hoping to evoke an air of mystery and wonder, not actually be mysterious or confusing in its utility!

The digital edition will do an admirable job if you're just interested in playing the game, and we'll make sure there are options for cheap/home printing bundled in as well. We'll also have our usual spread of screen-reader friendly and plain-text options.

However, the main event here is the book. A chance to step away from the screen, set yourself up in quiet refuge and spend a while in the analogue.

I've learned a thing or two about making fancy books over the course of my game design journey, and this one will be no exception. The longer length of this game means that it makes sense to go with a casebound, A5 hardcover book here.

My philosophy for printed books is that if we're going to go to the trouble and impact of making something physical, it ought to feel special. As such, the base specification of the book will feature the following upgrades:

I have big plans for the book if this project takes off—almost all of my stretch goal content is focused on making this specification even fancier.

It'll be printed down the road from me by Solent Design, a family-run independent printer. This makes it easy to revise and check proofs, delivery is a doddle (several trips, not container ships!), and I can easily verify working & environmental conditions.