It Starts With a Summon

Project Overview

It Starts With a Summon is a visual novel made for a game jam, set at a magic academy with three romance routes. I was brought on as game designer to build out all four minigame systems: the classroom activities that give the game its mechanical layer. Each class feeds a character stat that opens up dialogue options and bonus scenes tied to a specific love interest.

My Role

I designed all four minigames from scratch and wrote the full design document the team used to implement them. That covered mechanics, difficulty scaling across five in-game days, scoring, juice specs, narrative payoffs, asset breakdowns, and scope fallbacks for when the jam clock got tight.

Design Philosophy

The big problem with minigames in VNs is that skill-gating story content punishes players who are just there for the romance. So I built the system so every route is completable no matter how you perform. Good performance unlocks bonus scenes and extra dialogue, but nothing is locked behind a score threshold. Players who want to engage with the systems get rewarded for it. Players who don't still get the full story.

I also wanted each minigame to feel genuinely different. With four classes running across five days, having them all be variations of the same mechanic would get stale fast. So I designed them around four distinct skill types: pattern memory, deduction, timing, and intuition.

The Four Minigames

Astronomy: Star Charting

Stat: Myth  |  Route: Keith  |  Skill Type: Pattern Memory

The professor shows a constellation for a few seconds, then it disappears. The player clicks the scattered stars in the correct order to recreate it from memory. Each day adds more decoy stars and cuts display time. Correct clicks play a rising chime; completing the constellation triggers a starburst. The feedback is designed to feel like you're actually learning the night sky, not just playing a memory game.

Keith is from Earth and has no reference for these stars at all. High Myth unlocks a stargazing scene where he describes Earth's constellations and you share the stories behind these ones. It's one of the more intimate moments in his route.

Herbology: Plant Diagnosis

Stat: Science  |  Route: Riven  |  Skill Type: Deduction

An unknown plant specimen shows up on screen and the player has a limited number of tests to run: Check Leaf, Smell Flower, Poke Stem, Check Roots. Each test reveals one clue. A reference chart with all known species stays visible the whole time. The player cross-references their clues against the chart and picks the right species. Later days shrink the test budget and introduce more species with overlapping traits, so picking the right tests matters more.

Riven resents the player for coasting on family reputation. High Science unlocks a moment where you correctly identify a specimen that Riven gets wrong, and you finally get some real, if grudging, respect out of them.

Spells: Power Channeling

Stat: Arcane  |  Route: Aldric  |  Skill Type: Timing

A power meter pulses in a wave pattern and the player clicks to release the spell when the wave hits the sweet spot. Casts come back as Perfect, Good, Weak, or Backfire depending on timing accuracy. Wave speed increases and the sweet spot shrinks across five days. Backfires get comedic animations so failure stays fun rather than frustrating.

Aldric was expelled for misusing powerful magic and has no patience for book smarts without actual ability. High Arcane unlocks a confrontation scene where you match his spell with a well-timed counter, and he genuinely doesn't see it coming.

Potions: Intuitive Brewing

Function: Gift Crafting (Affection System)  |  Skill Type: Intuition

Instead of memorizing recipes, players read visual and contextual cues to figure out what kind of gift each love interest would actually want. Ingredients have a visual mood: Warm and Cozy, Impressive and Rare, or Dark and Dangerous. The game seeds hints through natural dialogue: a classmate mentions Keith was staring at his tea like it reminded him of home; Riven gets overheard criticizing someone's "pedestrian" gift choice. Players who were paying attention make better gifts. Players who weren't still make something.

Writing for Jam Scope

I wrote the document knowing the team was working against a hard deadline. Every minigame section includes a minimum viable version in case time ran short, a juice priority list ordered by impact vs. implementation cost, and an asset breakdown split between minimum requirements and stretch goals. I also laid out an implementation order from simplest to most complex (Astronomy first, Herbology last) so the team could make cuts without losing a complete experience.

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