Hey tea witches, The weather is heating up here in Canada and Loose Leaf development isn’t cooling down anytime soon (unlike our iced tea)! Much of our focus lately has been shaping the narrative and characters that you’ll interact with in your cozy tea room. We’ve had a lot of help from [url=https://www.cohenedenfield.com/ ]Cohen Edenfield[/url] and [url= https://hannahnicklin.com/]Hannah Nicklin[/url] with shaping up the writing and giving us a new perspective on the story of the game. We can’t wait to show you more details about the story and characters soon, though of course we’ll try to avoid too many spoilers. The team has also made some major visual changes to the UI (”user interface”), i.e. the buttons and menus. I talked to Kitfox artist and Creative Director of Loose Leaf, Thea Kent on what the original inspiration was and why it changed. She explained that the original vision was “to evoke fancy high tea aesthetic with lots of metallics and porcelain finishes. While it was very pretty, it ended up feeling overly fancy and didn’t match the style of the characters or the more rustic, cozy feel of the setting.” Tanya added “it made sense theoretically to go for a high-tea flavor, but once Thea switched it over to the humbler paper textures, everything felt more comfortable. Our idea of witching in this world is more DIY and less officially-sanctioned, anyway.” Along with touchstones like Over the Garden Wall, Bee and Puppycat, and the Monk and Robot duology, an inspiration for Loose Leaf has been the films of Studio Ghibli, specifically the way in which they make the mundane feel magical. Though many games claim it as inspiration for art style or storytelling, we’re specifically looking here at how the relatable heft and texture to the world helps the supernatural stand out even more by contrast. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44779548/d9c9ed8abcf4d60d000aa52f80c00ce846a3ebda.png[/img] With that contrast in mind, the team switched to a more simplistic interface style. Thea was inspired by the physicality of paper, something an artist always has laying around in many shapes, sizes and textures. Paper evokes a familiar and cozy feeling and matches the style of the tea journal, something you’ll be flipping through often in the game. You’ll notice the UI is also adorned with magical drawings that will sometimes leave the paper, existing outside the purely 2d constraints. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44779548/3565131d04419a1048b306e7a67a71a0419731cc.png[/img] Overall, the UI is just one of the many ways in which we want to make you feel right at home while playing Loose Leaf. I’m wondering what are some every day items that fill you with comfort? Mine’s a cool glass of iced tea on a summer’s day (mixed berries or peach!). Join us on the Loose Leaf channel on the [url=https://discord.gg/kitfoxgames]Kitfox Discord[/url] for tea talk and more! -Alexandra