The Witch House
You play the disciple of a great wizard, alone in a forest glade, rebuilding the master's lost recipes through magical plants and the cauldron. The Witch House is a quiet, deterministic alchemy-and-shopkeeping game with a fully offline local LLM woven into its world — a foundation prototype aimed at a more polished, art-driven full release.
Design Pillars
Deterministic Gameplay. Planting, brewing, selling and discovering — every system runs on readable, rule-based logic the player can learn and master.
AI as the Voice of the World. A local LLM writes letters, appraisals and lore, fully offline. It colours the world but never touches game mechanics — no randomness leaks into the simulation.
A Closed Diorama. No final task, no open world. The player is the only living soul in the glade, free to settle into the space at their own pace.
A Quiet Pace. Daily, weekly and monthly rhythms structure play without ever rushing the player.
From Prototype to System
The milestone build grew from a rough brewing prototype and a basic warehouse into six interlocking major systems.
Alchemy System v3 — Brewing with deterministic ingredient tags and paid AI appraisal of results.
Shop Economy Loop — Shelves, business hours and airship restocking driving the store.
Shopper NPC — Generates shopping wants and a budget from monthly demand.
Factory Line — Reproduction of goods from learned recipes.
Build Mode — Drag-and-drop placement with building storage.
Visitor / Request System — Walk-in and mail channels feeding one shared scoring core.
What's Next
Ship the Save System — Single save slot, auto-saved at day / month rollover.
Content Authoring — Final recipes, materials and the tag vocabulary.
Finish the Visitor System — More walk-in creatures, dialogues and stories.
Ambient AI Touchpoints — The glade cat, dynamic weather and seasonal planting.
Business Positioning
Free to Play · PC only, via Steam
A foundation prototype for a more polished, art-driven full release.
Target milestone: Steam Next Fest, 2027