Serve up potions, cast spells, and go on coffee dates! As a barista at a magical university, will you craft useful charms or flip over some tarot cards for a love reading?

Witch’s Brew: Love and Lattes is an interactive novel by Cay Macres. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

After years of hiding your magical powers, you’ve been accepted into Peridot Pines University–as well as its secret society of magicians! At the cafe where Hecate society meetings are held, you find a job opening for a barista and are hired on the spot! Despite this, not everything is going your way. On your first day of classes, you learn the new chancellor might be onto the odd occurrences popping up in the sleepy town. You’ll have to decide whether to follow the rules or use magic out in the open.

You’ll also have the option to pursue a romance with one of your peers. There’s Mel: a sleepy alchemist who sips energy potions to stay awake while working at the cafe. You’ll also meet Rowan, who leaves a trail of daisies in their path and whose impulsive nature makes controlling their powers difficult. Or you can romance a mundane named Tomi who writes for the Peridot Periodical and has a feeling you have a story to tell.

You’ll need some powerful spells to keep the cafe running, the magical society a secret, as well as your studies and relationships afloat. If you get on the good side of a snarky stray cat, you might have a familiar to help with that.

• Choose your pronouns and gender expression.

• Choose your love interest’s gender.

• Romance a barista who spikes their coffee with potions, a hot-headed elemental magician, or a mundane journalism student who asks a lot of questions.

• Choose a type of magic to concentrate in: alchemy, divination, transmutation, or elemental magic.

• Work as a barista and decide what kind of magic will help out the cafe.

• Save a struggling cafe from being closed.

• Keep your magical society’s secret…or use your magic out in the open.

• Take in a stray cat and convince her to be your familiar or get help from the magical animals who reside in the library.

Will you keep your magical society a secret or use magic even when the cafe is open for business?