Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Stromatosoft’s Witch and Lillies will be releasing in Early Access on Steam on May 24. The game will be available in English, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. Early access is planned to last for about a year.
Witch and Lilies is a 3D dungeon crawler RPG with a romantic girls’ love twist. You build and lead a party of five girls, exploring dungeons and engaging in turn-based battles. When forming your party, you can choose from 10 possible classes such as Warrior, Knight Wizard, etc. As the game progresses, your party members will evolve through a skill-tree based system.
As far as basic game mechanics go, Witch and Lilies ticks off all the boxes of a good old dungeon RPG. On the other hand, the game is set apart by its unique relationship mechanics. The girls in your party will have mutual affinity/dislike parameters; and raising affinity between party members will lead them to form bonds, profess their feelings to each other and date. When two characters form a romantic relationship, they will be able to protect each other and use powerful joint attacks in battle. On the other hand, party members will also potentially experience break ups and jealousy. How you pair up characters and nurture their bonds will affect the dynamics of the party.
Stromatosoft, the publisher behind Witch and Lillies, is a Japan-based game company founded by Shunsuke Fujita, who has previous experience at Namco Bandai Entertainment and COLOPL. The company is not new to the girls’ love genre, having previously released the yuri card game Yaba Yurikai no Imototachi.
Witch and Lilies’ credits boast some big names, as the scenario was written by Makoto Kedouin, author of the Corpse Party series, while planning and production are being led by former tri-Ace developer Yoshinori Yamagishi. Bandai Namco Music Live is participating in production, and development is being led mainly by Tasto Alpha.
Having raised 21 million yen in crowdfunding back in 2022, Witch and Lilies is a hotly anticipated release. The Early Access launch will include the base game and main story, and the developers hope to make improvements and balancing adjustments based on user feedback during the one-year early access period.
Witch and Lilies releases in Early Access on May 24 for the PC (Steam).
Source - Automaton West
