Paisley’s Heart: A Magical Girl Origin Story
Created in just over 2 weeks for the Yuri Game Jam 2020!
Paisley Clark is a normal girl in a world of Nightmares, Magical Girls, and more. Her best friend, Tama, recently became a Magical Girl. As Tama makes new friends and shares adventures with them, Paisley begins to feel as though she's being left behind. But is there more to this feeling than that?
Game 4 in the Basin Lake Magical Girls series!
"Paisley's Heart" can be played by itself. However, it is part 2 of Tama and Paisley's adventures. Please try the other games if you'd like the full story! To play them in order:
- https://shibeyfacegames.itch.io/within-her-heart
- Paisley’s Heart: A Magical Girl Origin Story (You are here)
- https://shibeyfacegames.itch.io/entangled-hearts
- https://shibeyfacegames.itch.io/a-birthday-surprise
Controls:
This is a short Visual Novel. All control is mouse based:
- Click buttons on menus and choice selections.
- Click to advance text, click again to speed text up.
- Click on various objects during mini games.
All Art, Design, and Scenario by ShibeyFaceGames.
Music and SFX credited on the "Credits" page on the main menu.
For more Magical Girl games, please check out my Basin Lake Magical Girls series: https://itch.io/c/1097042/basin-lake-magical-girls-series
Development log
- Version 1-2 updateJan 17, 2021
Comments
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This game was the tenth one!
Can I get an ending that makes me evil or something?
Nvm I got three endings - abandon Tama, become magical girl, become massilvey evil. Does anyone know if there are more endings? Also liked the game
Hi there! Thanks so much for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
There are 3 primary endings obtained during the introspection mini game (the floating hearts), which it seems that you've found. There are a couple of "Game-over" style ends (losing the first tennis match, for instance) but I wouldn't say they're worth hunting for.
This is the only visual novel in the series currently, but there is a direct sequel on my main itch page ("Entangled Hearts", a beat-em-up that continues the story) and a prequel ("Within Her HeArt", a short RPG that takes place before this game).
I may do another visual novel for Yuri Jam 2021, if I have the time. Thanks again for checking out "Paisley's Heart"! :)
Hello back! Thank you for creating. I have played the others - all the others in the series and the spinoffs but I couldn't complete many of them. Thanks again!
Thank you checking out my other games! I hope you had fun with some of them, even if they were hard. I've considered posting playthroughs on youtube at some point when I have time, for anyone interested in the story, but having trouble with the game.
Finally played through this tonight ~~ it's super good!
I got a suboptimal ending, so I'll have to try again. ^_^U
Your art style really helped the characters stand out for me. Even though some of the motifs are well-worn, the story is consistently fresh and exciting. I didn't see any of the major beats coming.
I also dig the introspective way you write emotions, and the multilayered dialogue where characters say one thing and think another. I've never seen that technique used in a game before ~~ very cool!
The first minigame surprised me! It's super fun and I was surprised by how well I did, haha. I was like, "Phew, glad that wasn't too challenging!"
Then there's the second match and I was like "Oh no, joke's on me!" but in a good way XD
The way you blended the mechanics and the storytelling in the second match is very awesome!
Excellent work! I'll definitely check out the other games in the series once I get a different ending on this one!
Okay, just replayed from the checkpoint and got a better ending! <3
"It might be one of the most difficult commitments you ever make." Truuuuuth!!
Thanks so much for playing! I'm really glad you enjoyed the writing, as that's an area I'm not super confident in... but judging from overall feedback, it worked out!
Mini-games/interactivity in visual novels are important to me. I've enjoyed a kinetic novel here and there, but visual novels with something else blended in always end up standing out more!
If anything, I would have liked to have included a little more choice and interactivity, but due to my majorly late start on this jam, I had to scale the ideas to fit the deadline. Jams are such a double edged sword for me... they give me the drive and motivation to finish something, but also leave me feeling like I could have done more! (I do have a small update planned, but it's mostly just polish to some of the background art.)
Thanks so much for all your comments and feedback! I really appreciate it!
Yeah, I feel you! I actually got a good start on my game this year (as opposed to prior YuriJams) and I still had to cut a lot of what I'd planned. But imo it's so much better to cut and get something done than to stick to a large design and never finish.
I really enjoy mini games in most genre, honestly. Especially in narrative games I feel like a well-integrated mini game can really enhance the role playing experience. But a lot of the VNs I've played (and even some that I've worked on) the mini games just feel tacked on -- I really liked how yours melded with the story so well!
Oh, one other thing -- I think some of the name captions might be wrong during this scene? It's possible something was going on story-related that I didn't understand due to not having played the other titles yet, but to me it looked like these were Paisley's lines being attributed to Camilla.
Thanks for pointing that out! Definitely a mistake on my part. I'm surprised this didn't happen more often, as I hurriedly cut and pasted dialogue, names, and other flags into a giant spreadsheet at the last minute.
I'll fix this when I update the BG art! Thank you!
Visual novel? Great stuff! Will see if I can finish it fully later when I have time, but from what I've seen (I think I've only played for 5min XP):
-Your art has definitely gotten much, much better since the first time I saw your works. The arts here are simply amazing.
-The writing too. This is very well written (so far)
-I love the tennis minigame. Visual novel games really need minigames like this to break off from just reading and reading and choosing and choosing.
I think my only complain is when I accidentally clicked too fast in the first choice dialogue... A little polish here is to slightly delay the appearance of choice dialogues before appearing.
Personally I'm not a fan of Yuri but hey, this is quality stuff.
Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed the art and writing... both areas that I'm working on.
I 100% agree on the minigames! I love it when visual novels break it up a bit. There's another major minigame toward the end of the story. (Not the second tennis game, something after that) If I make another VN in the future, definitely expect more minigames.
Good feedback on the buttons, I'll see what I can do there. I may do a small polish update at some point... I'm cleaning up a couple of the background images that got rushed more than others. Thinking about trying to make a quick holiday game first though, we'll see haha. I'm low on time, so it'll probably be way less polished than my last few.
Let me know if you finish it! The whole thing is probably only 10-15 mins long, as I did this in a bit of a rush. (Didn't start until 2 weeks before the deadline...)
Thanks as always for checking it out!
Hi! I've just discovered your work but i'm a huge fan already, and i have an idea i've been sitting on for a while but haven't been to act on as i have no game making skills of my own. I know you likely don't care, but i want to share this anyways. You see, i love the idea of magical girls, but i had always thought "what if one wasn't a girl to start with?" In essence, I am thinking about a closeted trans girl who awakens their magical girl powers through the method of coming to terms with their true self and working up the courage to tell loved ones. Again, I don't expect you to care, but i just... this idea is important to me
Hi there! Thanks so much for checking out my games!
A game about a trans magical girl could be really interesting. I haven't developed any specific stories about this topic, but it's an idea that's crossed my mind before. I'd definitely want to take some time if I were to work on this topic, as I'd want to handle it with thoughtfulness and care. I do a lot of game-jams, and those tend to be made at a break-neck pace. Paisley's Heart was made almost entirely in 2 weeks... and I work a full time job, so I can only work on personal projects on weekends and evenings.
It sounds like you've got an idea in mind! Have you considered writing it? There are a lot of free tools to develop visual novels, or even just text-based branching story games. I haven't used any of those specifically (I'm a Construct 3 user currently), but if you've got an idea that you really want to make, it's worth looking into! Even if you don't want to build an actual game, just writing out the story could be a good place to start. I don't consider myself a writer exactly, but still enjoy telling stories regardless.
Anyhow, thanks again for stopping by! I can't promise anything specific, but I do have plenty of additional stories, scenarios, and games that I'd like to make. I hope you'll check them out! :)
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for replying. This was just something i wrote late late late last night, sleep deprived, because it's just been on my mind for the longest time. I do like to consider myself a pretty decent writer, so I might just take your advice. Your games that I've played so far are all a delight to play, so you've definitely earned a follow from me. If I do end up making my own text-based adventure game, would you mind if i were to... um... "borrow" some of the plot ideas from your own series of magical girl games? Like the nightmare/dream theming and whatnot
Thanks again for the kind words! I don't mind if you use themes of dreams and nightmares in your story, I certainly don't hold any exclusive claim. My work is already heavily influenced by other stories and games I love.
That was very adorable, very polished, and very well made. Then again I'd expect nothing less, all the games in the series have been excellent.
I thought I was going to get the bad ending but that ended up not happening.
The only thing that tripped me up a little was that I sometimes had trouble telling who was talking, partially because of the way the scenes were set up and partially because I'm just terrible at telling people apart.
Thanks so much for playing! Really happy you enjoyed :)
As for the bad ends, there are a few in there... but since I didn't get time to make a proper save/load setup, I made them fairly easy to avoid. (And there's always a "try again" option that picks up near the fork/event) The choices do effect the final mini-game, but again, not so harshly as to force the player to do the whole thing over again.
That's a good note about the speaking characters. Maybe if I had the name-plates move under the current speaker graphic it would have been more clear. Something to think about if I update this or do another VN. Though I should probably just learn a proper VN system like Ren'Py or something, haha. Might save me some headaches.
I appreciate the feedback, thanks again!
Cute magical girl story. Love the decision making and the interactive stuff.
Thank you! I had planned to add more of that, but 2 weeks was a crunch. (Late start on the jam, lol)
really cute story!
Thank you for playing! :)
Nice work, your art is getting better :)
You can't click on certain areas of the start button (on the title page), had to click it a few times before actually being able to start
You should definitely consider putting all of these on newgrounds or something similar, it'll get them more exposure and you'll get a lot more feedback.
Thanks for checking it out! :) Oof, in my hurry to get this done in time I forgot to check the auto-generated hit zones on the buttons... I'll have to fix that in an update. Thanks for letting me know!
Newgrounds is probably a good idea! Sounds like something I can setup while I take a breather from making any new content. Though I'll certainly be back... finishing projects like this usually goes: (Relief --> Brief Satisfaction --> Boredom --> Start New Jam)