I just pushed our first build with 100% of our VO hooked up and it feels GREAT. Launch is in five days and I absolutely couldn't be more excited. I'm taking the week after that off and my hope is just to obsessively refresh various screens and watch some Twitch streams.

As I near the end of processing all this VO, I'm hitting sections that I love, but are also fairly out of the way. To find them you have to make some odd choices, or play characters in a certain order. They're delightful and I hope some folks find them.

I feel like marketing wants me to make all sorts of grandiose statements about being the best at this or that. All I really want to say is that Heartspell is a thing we really wanted to make and we think it's really special and fun and you might really love it too.

We had an AMAZING time at GeekGirlCon and watching people play that built all weekend gave me that last little bit of confidence to send out access to Steam curators. 10 days to go, fingers crossed. #indiegames #geekgirlcon #steamcurator

Our demo booth is all set up in the gaming hall at #GeekGirlCon!

We're trying to track down a bug I can't reproduce that causes the puzzle game to lock up. If you've hit this in the demo please get in touch so we can get this figured out.

Come see us at GeekGirlCon in Seattle this weekend!

Thank you so very much for taking the time to check out Heartspell! <3

Release management is scary. Every time I push a new build I test all the new features very extensively, but worry constantly that like...I'll have adjusted the volume of one line and as a result no one will like the game anymore.

Our new demo update unlocks the practice arena. This lets you test your spellcasting puzzling skills infinitely AND gives you a little sneak peek of Dawn, our sports werewolf. #indiegames #match3 #puzzles

Our new demo update has three more of Morgan's chapters. Whether you're new to Heartspell or returning for the update, let us know if you're streaming and we'll come hang out and see what you think. #indiegames

Phew, this always makes me nervous, but we've pushed a big new demo update. There are three new Morgan chapters, an infinite practice mode, and all sorts of smaller improvements. Check it out! #indiegames #otome #visualnovels store.steampowered.com/app/3142920/...

We did it, fam.

We're getting set to release our last big pre-launch demo update, which will add three of Morgan's chapters and also unlock the practice arena, so you can cast spells to your heart's content. #indiegames #match3 #playforever

Hey everyone. I haven't been posting much lately and a lot of that is working hard, but also I've been pouring a lot of my time and energy into helping Pooka, who was diagnosed with cancer a couple months ago.

We've been trying so hard to get to 7k and one month out from launch, we're there! Thank you so much to everyone! #indiegames #otome #datingsim #visualnovel #wishlists

Exactly one month until launch! We're hard at work getting everything all buttoned up and polished.

It's an exciting day for me. We've gotten as much feedback as possible and now I'm putting together our final list of last-minute VO requests. Once those go out and get processed, VO in Heartspell will be 100% done for our release!

For anyone curious, it's for the utterly delightful Heartspell: Horizon Academy by @direkittengames.bsky.social There's currently a voiced demo available! store.steampowered.com/app/2113350/...

A new Frontline’s out with @direkittengames.bsky.social I don’t usually cover magical dating sims — if I saw Heartspell on Steam, I’d probably scroll past. But every “fringe” game is someone’s life’s work. www.indieformer.com/p/frontline-...

Early sketch timelapse for Miko the moth fairy 🧚‍♀️ #art #sketch #drawing

Working on spell fx. #indiegames #unity #vfx

New spell mechanic and vfx! Obliterate your match-3 homework with the power of the sun 🌞 #indiegames #cozygames #wishlistwednesday

We've pushed a new demo build! Notable additions include final background art, a lot more music, and screen-reader support. #indiegames #otome #visualnovel store.steampowered.com/app/2113350/...

Getting to some finishing touches, like Miko's phone pic of her human glamour 🧚‍♀️ #screenshotsaturday #indiegames

The story of a lil' Match3 dating sim with a lot of hear trying to find its way in the world. #indiegamedev #steam #indiegames

And it's only the first day... #indiegame #wizardschool #datingsim

Voice actors are magic. If you'd like Amara to be mean to you (yes, you!) go play the demo of Heartspell now! #cozygames #indiegames #tsundere #icequeen

We've been hard at work on art that we can't show publicly yet, BUT we also just finished all our achievement icons and we CAN share those. Here's a few to kick things off! #indiegames #romance #petthedog #visualnovel

We're at just about two months out from launching Heartspell! Now more than ever if you could help spread the word, we'd appreciate it so much. #indiegames #cozygames #datingsim #romantasy store.steampowered.com/app/2113350/...

We're starting to learn new exciting marketing things, like youtube shorts. What an exciting time to be alive.

More background+music for #ScreenshotSaturday. This piece is *mostly* Heron's theme, but we use it in other places that feel particularly optimistic, just like our favorite magical himbo chef. #indiegames #peaceful #madebyhumans

Outside the main storyline, you can always invite someone to practice magic with you in this private corner of the academy grounds. #screenshotsaturday #indiegames

Release Date Trailer, wooooooooooooooooo! We're so excited to be launching in just a few short months. Any help spreading the word about our cozy, puzzly, heartwarming game is always appreciated. Wishlist and play the demo on steam now! #indiegames #datingsim www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ7V...

@soitsalley.bsky.social Thanks for checking out the demo!

Pour one out for everyone who scheduled a release date anywhere near Silksong.

Game marketing is such a scary and confusing space, but it's very satisfying when you do something right. I'm just starting to figure out reddit and what communities are the right ones for us.

I wanted to share some of the work we've been doing on the "Academy Grounds" environment, which is home to a few scenes and the practice/challenge mode. I had a lot of fun making the petals. Sigh. I wish I could visit. #indiegamedev #otome #visualnovel #romantasy

Commissioned some amazing art of our monster-boy, Lin!

I'm going to start posting about Heartspell on Reddit, but I'm not much of a Redditor. Does anyone have suggestions of subreddits that might want to hear about our romantasy puzzle adventure?

Making tools is so satisfying. I modified the script exporter to spit out a list of dialogue nodes that don't have linked audio files and that's going to save me approximately a bajillion hours of testing.

As I continue my efforts to market us as a game that has some fun spice, but is NOT hentai, I'm increasingly happy that we discarded the name idea Eros Arcana. As much as that name sounds rad.

"Magic Academy" is a very fun genre/trope and I've had so much fun making one of those stories. It's unfortunate that the most well known example is so problematic, especially when there are some other really exceptional entries.

We've been heads down in polish, but soon I'll be putting more effort into marketing. We need about 2k more wishlists in the next 6 weeks for Very Good Things to happen. Any help spreading the word (or leaving reviews) would help an absolute ton. #indiegame store.steampowered.com/app/3142920/...

That hardest thing about validating all the content in the game is having to choose options that make Miko sad.

Doing this big polish pass is being such a delight. Revisiting story and VO that I haven't reviewed in many months and continuously blown away by the VA performances. Increasingly excited for everyone to see the full game soon.

Have folks had recent experiences with Keymailer? I used it like 4 years ago and it was a little rough.

After such an amazing journey, it's so exciting to be starting on our final polish pass. #indiegamedev

There's a lot of technical aspects of processing VO, but the most difficult part is not just posting half the lines to socials. I am constantly blown away by the talent of the people I get to work with <3 #indiegamedev