Witch Arcana: Magic School
Witch Arcana: Magic School was a game that we created in 9 months, with a limited budget and a small team. It was meant to be a fast-paced project, with its objective being fast turnaround and an easily scalable live-ops pipeline.
As Art Lead, I drove all visual direction—from determining the winning theme through data-driven ad tests to establishing the art style, building outsourcing pipelines, and guiding the team to deliver high-quality assets on schedule.
Theme explorations with ad testing.
Kingdoms of Heckfire is a 4X strategy game blending city-building and PVP combat. When approaching its reskin with an aggressive timeline, our key challenge was finding a theme that could seamlessly adapt to existing gameplay systems while resonating with players. Through iterative ad testing, we identified "Magical Dark Academia" as the perfect fit – a theme that naturally complemented our mechanics while demonstrating strong audience appeal.
The World of Magical Dark Academia
My goal was to craft a world that balanced enchanting mystery with eerie charm – a place where gothic spires pierce twilight skies, but warm candlelight still flickers in library windows. I aimed for that perfect dark academia atmosphere: rich with shadowy intrigue yet vibrant enough to feel inviting, walking the fine line between haunting and hospitable.
Characters
The characters are to be Heroes in a Gacha system. I wanted them to be appealing, colourful, with clear personalities, while also giving enough gameplay information for players to make decisions about them.
Creatures and Enemies
The monsters are shadowy creatures that appear from a rift in the dimension. They are creepy, otherworldly, and mysterious. They look like creatures that could belong to our world, but corrupted and strange.
However, there are also summons which are on your side, helping you fight back the shadowy forces.
One of the goals for designing the creatures is to design at least one that is cute enough to use as a mascot for the game. We settled on the cat with antlers being our mascot—she appears in many ads, as well as being the tutorial character.
Witch Arcana: Magic School!
After nine months of dedicated development, our team proudly launched Witch Arcana: Magic School on iOS and Android. This project represents our ability to deliver a stylish, compelling game while working within tight constraints—making every resource count without compromising on quality or atmosphere.
