As many may know, Chucklefish, the publishers behind Stardew Valley, Starbound, and the upcoming Wargroove, is working on yet another title that has been charmingly referred to as 'Spellbound'. This project is unannounced but absolutely teased about on Twitter. It looks like Stardew Valley meets Harry Potter, which incites a spell of giddiness upon anyone who thinks about it. More details have recently been revealed on this still untitled game's features.
In an interview with PC Gamer, CEO and founder of Chucklefish Finn Brice was happy to talk about the game, as their company policy centers around transparency. As mentioned before, Wargroove is the next Chucklefish title, but the team working on it is only six or seven people deep and it's close to done, with a targeted release window of early 2018. Meanwhile, ten people are working on 'Spellbound' even in its early stages.
In the interview, when asked about influences for the new wizardry school simulator, Brice said,
"There’s a whole mixture of them. The most obvious ones were Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, there’s a lot we learned from that. I think the biggest thing we learned from Stardew Valley is that there’s an inherent value in [having] a game world that’s just charming to be in. Before you even start talking about the gameplay and the mechanics and everything else, am I in love with this game world? How do I achieve that? How do I put together a game world that really hits home, [that] I just want to spend my time in?"
"But inside and on top of that there’s a bunch of different facets of gameplay, and I think all of those are drawn on in individual games as well. For example—a lot of this is still early days, so a lot of this is still open to change and everything—but when we look at our combat system, we’re [asking], 'what about traditional top-down Zelda-style gameplay? What did that look like? How can we refine that, how can we bring that forwards?'"
Chucklefish is known for really grinding on that nostalgic itch, with side-scrollers and SNES. This game appears to be no different. But the mechanics and gameplay in relation to the nostalgia is where Chucklefish soars. Spellbound is planned to have a dating system, sort of like Stardew Valley, but more true to life. "Where other games are inviting you to live out your perfect fantasy in that you can date whoever you want, you can get married to whoever you want and it’s up to you," Brice said. "Spellbound is a little less forgiving. Dates can go wrong, things can go wrong, it’s more about that school experience. You might get a few hard knocks."
"We want people to say, 'oh, this is too real. I play this game for escapism and I feel like an awkward teenager going to school again!" says artist and designer Jay Baylis. "I think it’s more fun when suddenly you’re caught off-guard and you thought you were living an idealised life and these characters have their own independence."
What better way for a 20-something to feel nostalgia than taking it 'too far' and feeling those awkward teen years all over again, but this time with magic wands!
Brice later explains that it won't all be bad, just enough to provoke emotion and make things interesting. Baylis followed up, stating that, "It's very young adult literature in a lot of ways."
To sum it up: It's slice of life. But you're also Harry Potter, complete with awkward growing pains. In other Chucklefish news, Stardew Valley now has a release date for the Nintendo Switch.
