Hello! My name is J.V. Cruz, and you can call me Janus. I enjoy writing and, for years now, I have been a long-time lurker (I’m shy…), reader, and purchaser of Interactive Fiction. I’m finally writing my first IF, and posted a demo of the prologue a few days ago.
Summary
Bethroned is a mature low fantasy game in which you assume the role of a customizable (male or female, to start; gay, bi, straight, asexual and/or aromantic) spare heir in a fictional world. While your older siblings were being groomed for politics, you were being wielded as a weapon of war. You’ve never had much of a say in your life, yet have been largely left to your own devices after being put in command of your father’s troops. After over a decade of war with a neighboring empire, you are suddenly pulled from the frontlines and married off to the enemy – whether your want to or not.
This story deals with themes of PTSD, lacking agency and autonomy, and finding a chance to grow and seize agency under difficult circumstances. It features 6 romanceable characters, 2 of whom are gender-locked.
Currently, only the prologue is out, and there are 10 chapters planned. I plan to publish Chapter 1 by November 2024, and update every month.
As someone who can understand the frustrations of someone who maybe has won a battle or war and killed the greatest champion and can use that as a victory that’s fucking sucks they could have won literally they can make the deal more better if they can force more ground token or the enemy to lose more but I can understand both sides I’m right now playing in the mindset of my character who just had most of his or her life into 12 years of military service being forced to be paraded as someone’s property thinking they won no they could have easily took in the victory from the enemy they could have weakened the empire further into a more further agreement
Thank you for your input! I love seeing people really get into the mindset of the character. It’s one of the joys of both reading and writing Interactive Fiction.
I hope you enjoy as the story progresses. The MC really goes through it, but there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. Whether that light is a burning inferno or a healing sunbeam will be up to the player.
Only reason how my characters might be going to change your point of view if my people are themselves as treated equally the thing about people is if they’re treated like property or tools they have a negative impact so the person that character is marrying better have a good personality and understand personal boundaries or we’re going to be in hell for a ride
It was not very intuitive that some of these options would actually impact your stats in a certain way. You might want to have a feature which displays which stats are boosted by your choices, which could be toggled on/off.
A royal convoy is on its way to the last known location of your encampment.
Not strictly incorrect… but I guess you meant envoy?
Also, I’m no expert on medieval history, but did common soldiers bathe with hot water, even on special occasions? I imagine this was something which existed, but was only available to the upper classes, and even then, not on every occasion. If this were high-fantasy, I’d buy it, but I think your story seems to be aiming for something a little more on the side of historically accurate.
But this is my final comment and weddings the first the bride if you’re going for a proper marriage the father is the one lady their child down the the carpet I would like not to have the king be the one doing it but the field Marshal as in personal fuck you I’m Petty like thisXD
Thank you for your feedback! A toggle for stats descriptions is a good idea, I’ll consider implementing that in a future update.
“Convoy” is the correct term here; an envoy is a messenger on behalf of someone, whereas a convoy is an escort. In this case, the king is visiting and is accompanied by guards, the princess, and his advisor.
This world is fictional and thus not a 1-to-1 representation of our world and history; however, even going by our world history, it would depend on where just as much as when. The practices involved in bathing have never been practiced entirely the same in every single culture at any one point in time. While overall the technology resembles what much of the world may have had in Medieval times, there are some areas and cultures where it manifests differently – for example, there is an allusion to automatons existing in the Dawn Empire that will be further explored in the story.
In short, though, historical accuracy isn’t exactly a priority for this story since it does not take place in our world. There are certainly analogues to various cultures and points in time in our world, of course; but the only historical accuracy that matters for my purposes is that I am consistent within the world I have crafted.
So after slaying the empire champion they get another champion, isn’t that suppose to be increasing the negotiation weights, do we as MC able to impose term on this? Or the negotiation already signed and finalized?
Accepting the betrothal with terms seems reasonable instead just accepting as King want.
As with stats MC has been around long enough to say they’re at least veteran combatants, but the stats still very low at least the stats should have higher combat stats but low on other stats like investigation and influence maybe charm, I mean like sword 20-30% and able to defeat champion seems quite low, by this age and 12 years front line experience MC could easily win straight combat but probably vulnerable in other area of expertise, at least thats how I imagine that.
I think it’s not just that that I pick the character that had a negative reaction to this and the one I think that really calmed me down was the field Marshal I feel him more fatherly and more respectful to his men and his people then the king that was silent and not saying that much and not trying to make the character understand only using the Duke as his lap dog to speak
