Alchemistresses

Becoming a funded Kickstarter: Alchemistresses' Ambition
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Jun 29, 2022 at 09:41:17 PM

Hello everyone,  We’re amazed to be at over 90% of our goal for the game! This week, for a lot of reasons, we’ve been taking it easy on social media– but that just means that we’ve had more time to work behind the scenes!  

The higher tiers have been an incredible success (we're looking forward to working with each and every one of you who backed at the Land of Cephiro and Makoto's Ex-Boyfriend tiers!). To give new folks some more options, once we hit our goal, we're going to add a new (very limited) add-on where I will hand customize an item found at one of our local thrift stores into a custom magical girl transformation item for you!  

Here's an early WIP. I’ve then been casting some magical heart crystals out of resin, and wiring them with LEDs. Keeping in mind this is not at all done, let us know what you think? I made Dee drive around to numerous thrift stores this weekend to make it happen - look forward to honoring her sacrifice after we hit the goal.  

We’re so excited to be so close to making Alchemistresses a reality for everyone, and hopefully hitting stretch goals to have the time and budget to put even more stuff into the game (and pay our contributors even better!) 

Thank you as always for helping us get this close!

The news
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 08:29:10 PM

Hello everyone,

It’s been a rough day for a lot of people. The news from the US impacts so many people’s rights, and here in Quebec our premier has continued his racist attack on minorities in the province.

I was traveling today so we didn’t have a chance to talk about things with the whole team until this evening. We’re grieving along with so many other people about the incredible evil that we all live with and our fear for ourselves and the people we love.

We encourage everyone to check out local aid funds. There are probably people in your own backyard doing work to help people access abortions. (the National Network of Abortion Funds is a good place to start)

We  also wanted to say that going to keep promoting Alchemistresses through this because:

• it’s pretty important to us financially at this moment. 
• living in this unjust world is a marathon and not a sprint
• we collectively deserve a game about teenagers fighting evil and having messy crushes - we deserve feminine and queer joy even amidst all this bullshit.

We might slow down a bit though, because social media is pretty rough.

Finally: our friend (and long time playtester of the game) Jess wrote a thread today about playing Alchemistresses that touches on some of the ways Alchemistresses feels relevant to our current moment, which is worth a read. <3 We’ve included a screenshot of the relevant bit, but you can read the whole thing here.

Thanks,

Dee (for the team)

The Alchemistress Team's Idol: The Graceful Genius Léonore
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 01:57:28 AM

We’ve hit 100 followers! Every time we hit a new milestone, we get even more excited knowing people will be playing our game and bringing their own magical girls into the world.

   We promised some insight into our art direction process when we hit 100 backers. So, without further ado, a glimpse into the character design, cover art, and what getting from my wildly vague google slides to beautiful finished art looks like.

   I found Léonore’s art more or less by accident, just clicking around my timeline on twitter. I knew right away I wanted to work with her because her art is gay, prominently featured body diversity, and is of course gorgeous. I kept them in mind for a bit, and then once I was ready to get art assets I reached out.

Once Léonore was on board, the first step of our artist collaborations was to design our Alchemistresses.
 

The direction they were given:
 

• body diversity (with primarily fat folks!)
• racial diversity
• at least one non-binary character (play with gender expression!)
• a prosthetic (there could be something cool in the magical version of this)
• in our world each magical girl has an element: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water

And that was essentially it. She asked me for a little bit of direction and inspiration for the uniforms, and I sent the first of what was to be many google slides

Léonore came back with these beauties

Needless to say, I was in love - go back and re-read the brief, and then look at this, and ask yourself: have you ever seen someone nail it more. We worked together on a few more iterations and small tweaks until we got to our final Alchemistresses for the book.

Once we had them designed, I could start making wild anime-ass-anime requests in the form of weird google slides, which Léonore turned into the wonderful illustrations you find accompanying the game. I tried to capture a number of different classic tropes both for our characters in their magical girl forms, and as high schoolers.

Finally,  we needed to put our lovely Alchemistresses on a cover! Léonore made some sketched proposals, and I got to choose my favourite. It’s so interesting to think of the covers that could have been, they each would have been beautiful in their own way. 

Eventually, my final choice turned into this:

I chose this cover for a very particular reason, one I haven’t yet revealed, so this is a hot scoop: I wanted Léonore to also do a full colour art piece for the back cover. And I will reveal the concept for the book design in a classically Allison-style google slide. 

We have the art for the back, and are working on putting it all together to bring you an amazing book : )

   I can’t emphasize how amazing it was working with Léonore, and how much she has contributed creatively to this project! You should most definitely check out all of their work, and if you ever need an artist, HIRE THEM!

Thanks so much to (all one hundred!!!!) of you our backers, as usual, and I hope you enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes!

•  Allison
   

Allison's Resolve: I'll Reach 100 Backers
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 09:57:43 PM

Hi there senshi and student council members!

Two quick updates today. First, Allison and Dee did an interview about the game at Cool Crowdfund, and spoke a lot about the themes behind the game, their inspirations, reality tv, and anime. Thanks so much to Midgardia for hosting us!

Second, we're SO CLOSE to 100 backers! It's incredible that the game has reached so many people, and we're grateful to each and every one of you. When we hit 100, we've decided to celebrate by releasing some of the early designs and concept art from our conversations with artist extraordinaire Léonore Renahy. As you can tell from the campaign, all of Léonore's work is breathtaking, so even the sketches are gorgeous. 

Thank you as always! 

In the name of love and justice,

Dee

Magical Girls Unite: The End of the Alchemistresses Series on Character Creation Cast
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jun 20, 2022 at 09:28:03 PM

Hello everyone! It's been a big couple of days - a huge welcome to our newest backers! Believe it or not we are at 74% funded!!!

Today we wanted to give a shout out to the Alchemistresses series on Character Creation Cast. Allison and Dee went on the podcast to make characters with hosts Amelia and Ryan, and talk about the game over three glorious episodes. The last episode in the series came out today; we think it turned out great. A big thank you to Amelia and Ryan for this amazing showcase of the game. They run a pretty incredible show and we're so grateful for the platform. Not only that, but they've both been huge boosters of the game since - in fact, they'll both read this because they're both backers. Thanks y'all <3

You can check out the now-completed series on the Character Creation Cast youtube if you want an in-depth look at the game. While you're there, check out some of the other amazing games they've featured!

That's it for now - we'll keep fighting for love and justice (in the form of fully funding and maybe picking up some stretch goals) and we'll keep being grateful for your support.

Thanks,

Dee