Hexes & Heartstrings

Rise and shine, familiar! It's the start of the new year, and you've got all these tasks ahead of you before the sabbath at All Hallow's Eve towards the year's end. Tend to your master, tend to your duties, and develop a tendency for poking your nose into situations where they don't belong.

After all, a good familiar knows when to back down and when to step forward. And you're the best of them all, aren't you?

Content warnings:

Major character death, graphic depictions of violence and gore, cannibalism, mild yandere themes

This game was completed in a month for the 2025 SWAK game jam!

Expect more polishing and fleshing out, our second love interest, and a secret bonus ending to follow sometime during our next sabbath.

Currently, in this jam version of Hexes & Heartstrings:

• Play as a cat, crow, or snake familiar to your witch master, with effects on narration, choices, and even your elusive backstory.
• Make the harrowing attempt to win over your master, finding love — and true love's kiss — across a few hours of gameplay and a whopping total of 40,000 words. 
• Experience the aesthetic joys of beautifully rendered sprites for the two love interests and everyone's favorite and long awaited kiss CG.
• Pluck every plant but the dreaded mandrake in the exclusive gardening minigame. Mark out where the mandrakes must be, and avoid them at all costs.
• Uncover a mounting mystery in one of three endings; one bad, one very bad, and one just somewhat acceptable. 
• Seal your fate (and maybe even more) with nothing but a...kiss?!

• Katherine Song: Writing, editing, marketing
• Lea Sioson: Programming, UI/UX, backgrounds, editing
• Rae Wong: Sprites, CGs, backgrounds
• Maia Hernandez: Logo design

With special thanks to Feniks's EasyRenpyGUI and Inline Conditions.

Additional thank you to Kevin Macleod's music for the soundtrack! The full list is below:

Soundtrack credits

"Comfortable Mystery 2" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Windswept" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Summer Day" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Satiate" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Blue Feather" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/