Interview : Alexander Taylor on Witching Stone

After playing Witching Stone for review, I sent lead developer Alexander Taylor a few questions about his roguelike puzzler. (Disclaimer, Taylor sent me a review code for the game and has followed my Patreon and Cohost blogs in the past.) Note that this interview was conducted over email and has been edited for clarity.

Memory Card : I noticed that a lot of the names in the game draw on Welsh conventions. You used to live in the UK, so were there any folklore inspirations for the world?

Alexander Taylor : There are a few, but I would say they’re pretty scattered! I wouldn’t play this game expecting a kind of Welsh Hades; it’s more like Square having to name a Final Fantasy summon.

The women in Welsh Mythology have it kind of rough, but Ceridwen is to my knowledge the first witch with a big cauldron and Aerfen is a battle goddess. There are animal shape shifters who retain qualities like their animal ears when human - the original horse girls.

The game does have a mermaid named Asrai, but an asrai is more of an English water fairy. And the legend I remembered, from the mermaid carving in a church, turned out to actually be in Cornwall (and its story probably made up retroactively)…

Also the game does have a ruined factory full of advanced robots. So, it’s loose!

MC : The anime inspiration is unmistakable and the characters all feel like they're of one world. How did the character designs come about? Did you send pixel sketches to Sam [Miller, the game's key artist], did he design them from the ground up or was it more of a back and forth?

AT : Thanks, I’m glad you think it all came together! I know it’s weird mixing this crunchy pixel art and illustrations.

Yeah, Sam is my friend and we’re usually in Discord together anyway, so it wasn’t very formal. I would outline a text description and give some reference images, then we would have a chat where he shared some of his own inspirations (which were much better). Once everything was clear he’d start some rough poses and I would try and match it with the sprites. 

Gwen [the default character] was originally made for another game I dropped, but she was a pre-rendered plasticine model back then. I should clarify she was a normal 3D model made to look like she was plasticine. I was inspired by the MSX fan mag and the Monster World IV cover art.

So with her and Blodeuwedd [unlockable character] I made the sprite first. These sprites are quite low resolution so we still talked it out. And with Gwen I went back and changed the sprite so she matched the illustration a bit better: bigger hair, floppier ears, round earrings, more cloak pulled across her front, etc.

MC : Did you already have a 3D model of Blodeuwedd too?

AT : Ah, no, it's a different reason. Blodeuwedd is just a palette swap of Alarune, the first boss I made. I didn't decide to add her until later on in development.

Originally Arawn [unlockable character] wasn’t going to have dog ears. I talked about how Arawn is said to have these white hunting dogs with red ears, but Sam assumed this meant she has white hair and red dog ears. I thought she still looked imposing and cool so signed off on it. You’re a dog now, Arawn. And a woman, I guess.

MC : Arawn is traditionally depicted as a king in Welsh mythology. Were you drawing on anything specific making her a woman or was it just artistic license?

AT : Just artistic license really. I wanted to make it all girls. Maybe Touhou being all girls or Fate's various genderswaps influenced me on some level.

MC : You have updated the game several times since the PC launch, ranging from sprite changes to rebalancing to revealing the hidden characters. Do you feel with this Switch port that the game is "complete" now or do you plan/feel obligated to patch it a few more times, beyond any bug fixes?

AT : Honestly, unless some big bugs come up, this is complete. I ported it to the Switch last as I imagined it would be more painful to maintain than the Steam and itch versions as you cannot just go “whoopsie” and upload a new build in a few minutes.

MC : Every playable character and many of the humanoid enemies are women, some with the occasional boob bounce. I know that TouHou is a strong inspiration for you but do you feel that Witching Stone is friendly to a female audience? For the record I don't find the enemy designs objectifying so much as tongue-in-cheek.

AT : It’s not for me to say, but I like to think so? I have noticed the gender split has skewed towards women when it comes to streamers and website coverage. I know from working in mobile that puzzles skew more that way, but Witching Stone is not really that type of game, either. There are some monster girls who are breasting boobily and I could see someone rolling their eyes at that, but I’d be surprised if anyone got offended.

MC : How did you get your various contractors on the project?

AT : Some of the people I already knew in real life so I just asked them!

With others I just mustered up some courage and sent them an email. I showed the current state of the project, outlined what I was looking for, and asked if they were interested. And people have been kind and professional in response.

MC : Have you learned anything about scale, scope and solo development from your time on this project?

AT : I should mention that I did a post-mortem shortly after releasing the game, but this was before I put a lot more work into it.

Witching Stone released about 2 years after my last game and retroactively has made roughly minimum wage. And I do think that continuing to work on it for six months post-launch might have been a mistake. I’m torn because the game is much better now but… that Maslow and his pyramid. We will have to see how the Switch version goes, I guess!

After some soul-searching I have kicked off another project. For now, I think I would prefer working on something with a smaller period of uncertainty. Not going to take multiple years, leans into existing skills, and nothing massive post-launch unless it goes gangbusters.

Thanks to Alexander for giving his time for this interview, and answering any questions I had for my review.

Witching Stone is a roguelike deck-builder puzzler available now on Nintendo Switch and PC via Itch and Steam. It was developed and published by Alexander Taylor with music by Noelle Aman, key art by Sam Miller and writing by npckc. If you’d like to support me, you can subscribe on Patreon for articles one day early or make a one time donation through Ko-Fi.