A Tale in the Forbidden City (WIP)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Hi, I am new to the forum here. But I am determined to write a game so I appreciate all the help that I will need. I am not sure if it is too early to create a thread here regarding my idea. But I thought I would record my progress here as I move along.

I have currently written around 1,000 words story wise, which is not a lot. And to add to that, they are not in a linear fashion. I am writing possible scenes that come to mind (with extreme difficulty from this lousy writer).

Here is my idea:

The game will be set in Historical China (Either the Qing or Tang Dynasty) and the focus will be on Romance. I do not claim to be historically correct in my writing, but will try to stick as close to the ancient traditions (eg. greeting methods, customs etc.) as possible. But this is first and foremost a ‘Love’ story.

The story will revolve around a daughter from a noble family (Manchurian descended) that has to participate in the mandatory Imperial Consort selection process to elect eight wives for the current Emperor (With an existing Empress).

The characters I currently have in mind are (possible love interests):

Emperor
Empress
Prince (one of the Emperor’s many brothers)
Eunuch
A concubine

There will be quite a lot of scheming ahead in this story. The selected concubines will never be able the leave the Forbidden City for life. They either fight for the Emperor’s attention or never know another man’s touch.

The story won’t go deeply into the feud between the concubines so much as the main character’s interaction with the characters above. At the most 6-7 characters will be majorly featured, at the very least four.

I intended for this story to contain a lot of alternate paths and branching lines. Which is pretty ambitious (and stupid) of me, so do wish me luck :smile: I am tentatively aiming for 20,000 to 50,000 words.

I am not a good writer at all. And coupled with my zero knowledge regarding Choicescript, I am genuinely worried about whether this little project of mine will take off or not. So, I am posting things here at the very beginning to motivate myself a little.

Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think of the idea.

GOAL:

50, 000 min words

DURATION:

2 months max

UPDATE:

28/11/2014 - 04/12/2014 (5,100 words)

05/12/2014 (5,300 words)

14 Likes
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This seems really neat! Would love to to play the demo

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Romance and intrige… Count me in.

4

A game with focus on Romance sounds awesome. :smiley:
I’m only wondering… will it be possible to have m/m and f/f romance interests?
Anyway I can’t wait for the demo. :wink:

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Thank you for your interest! You come into the game as a female. This is fixed for the sole purpose of realism.

There will be heterosexual romance (emperor, prince, eunuch) and homosexual ones as well (possibly the Empress or a concubine).

There might even be a threesome (tentative idea).

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Thanks for the fast reply. :smile:
Now you got me even more curious and interested :wink:
Good Luck with the game :smile:

7

Sounds very interesting can’t wait to see how it turns out

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Welcome to the forums, @claire1805!

The setting is refreshingly unusual. The concept itself sounds similar to Choice of Romance, were you inspired by it?

I hope will there be any sideplots where the MC could influence politics or interact with the outside world.

How are is romance with a eunuch supposed to work??? Will it be just a platonic/soulmate thing?

Is the empress the emperor’s wife or his mother?

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The poor Eunuch if you succeed in romancing. XD he’s gonna carry around a ruler at all times saying “we have to be this far apart at all times!”

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Awesome idea! I love it! Never played a choice script based on China, plus romance/intrigue! Sounds too good to pass up. :slight_smile: Supported.

Poor Eunuch, :frowning:.

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This sounds like a really good idea I will be watching it closely :smiley:

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I’m interested as to why you chose the protagonist to be of Manchurian descent. Wouldn’t Han Chinese make more sense in this case, especially if it’s going to be a historical novel? I was under the impression that the Manchu reign in China was mostly prevalent in the Qing dynasty only. Tang or Ming dynasty is really reminiscent of ‘ancient China’, with the dress and the culture and the whole shebang. Whereas the Manchus are not ethnically Chinese, I believe they’re part of the Tungusic people?

Either way, sounds like a great game! Looking forward to playing the demo :smiley:

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I am probably going to set the game in the Qing Dynasty, shettiejw. The imperial family at that period in time consists of Manchu descendants even if the Han Chinese are a majority in population. The mandatory consort selection would only require nobility (Manchu girls) to participate since the Emperor’ immediate wives should be ‘pure of blood’ and ‘intelligence’ (The royals genuinely believed that Manchurians are genetically more superior than the Han Chinese).

I am following quite closely to history for the setting. Then I am probably going to take a lot of liberty in further writing.

Choosing the protagonist to be a Han Chinese would be a little faulty since the selection would then need to involve BOTH Han girls and Manchu girls (you can’t leave out nobility), we will be looking at an immediate selection of hundreds of wives at once! Which is a no-no for a choice game. :slight_smile:

Thank you for your interest! I honestly hope that the writing process will go smoothly.

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I’m just wondering how this went? I’m not a games expert at all but I’ve just written a novel called The Fragrant Concubine (out a couple of weeks ebook and paperback) and I thought it would be amazing as a game: it has romance (m/m, f/f, m/f) as well as a potential assassin element. I would LOVE someone to make a game based on it!

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@Maddey, here at CoG , the mods have a thing about asking people to make a game. The code here is fairly easy to learn, and if you pm me, I’ll gladly give a hand with anything code or story related.

1 Like
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Oh, sorry! Thanks for the heads up. I wouldn’t have time to develop something myself (I stick to the writing) but was just curious as it was a subject close to my heart… but thank you very much for the offer of help.

17

It has romance so count me in.

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History-wise the Forbidden City does not exist in Tang Dynasty, and Manchurians (or 女真 to be precise) were considered to be barbarian until Qing.

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Closed due to inactivity - OP, if you would like the thread reopened please let the mods know