"Cannonfire Concerto" — A symphony of intrigue begins an overture to war!

Announcements
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We’re proud to announce that Cannonfire Concerto, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for Steam, iOS, and Android. It’s 25% off until December 15!

In an 18th century symphony of intrigue, your supernatural virtuoso performance begins an overture to war!

Cannonfire Concerto is a 190,000-word interactive novel by Caleb Wilson, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

You are the finest musician of the 18th century. Behind fans and opera glasses, audiences whisper that you are a bearer of Genius, a mysterious supernatural power to master your chosen instrument. At the brink of war, spies, generals, and royalty vie for control of the continent. Will you play them all like a fiddle? Who truly holds the strings?

Play as male, female or non-binary; gay, straight, bi, or asexual. For some, romance is a means to an end. For some, it’s a sonata duet of love and sex. Perhaps both.

Will you and your Genius achieve immortality, or will the poisoned pens of critics slaughter your career? Will you overthrow the church, bringing forth a new era of enlightenment, or defend your kingdom from a secular invasion?

The concert hall is silent. The Cannonfire Concerto is about to begin.

  • Play as male, female or non-binary; gay, straight, bi, or asexual.
  • Confound the competition with your musical talent on the violin, guitar, or zither.
  • Do you give a private concert, or are you really there to gather intelligence?
  • Join Bonaventure Fox on his conquest for Meropa, or fight him on the side of Rienzi.
  • Romance royalty, or rekindle your relationship with a childhood sweetheart.
  • Rebuild the nation, or leave it behind to begin anew.

We hope you enjoy playing Cannonfire Concerto. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

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Is it actually possible to play as asexual in this game? Because I was really excited, but then I played the demo and not only is the scene that sets your sexuality written in a very awkward way: “charming boldily contours” wtf and also ew but then when I went to check the code in hopes that it had been written that way but in fact was only to set the gender of another character unless you picked one of the bi options, but all four set a likesx variable to true.

Otherwise, this seems like a good game from what I’ve played so far–the concept and prose are quite good, and it uses opposed stats fairly well.

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I didn’t try I know you can decide not time to romance anyone or something like that. But I think there are attractions and that no matter that. I don’t find any I am aro question in the game. I could check later and send you a pm . The game is fun and witty.

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Thanks! So it’s not so much you can play as asexual as you can have the option to not romance anyone, from what you’ve seen so far? Pity.

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@hallofmirrors Confirmed. You have to choose being sexual attracted to male or female or if bi what sex that person has. So no not asexual experience. You will have attractions and that you could choice not romance anyone or if romance not having sex. But pure a sexual not.

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Thanks for checking for me, Mara! :smile_cat:

@dfabulich
I’m not sure if this should be advertised as being able to play as asexual? I mean, just being able to play without romancing anyone isn’t playing as an asexual–I’m pretty sure nearly every game that has romance lets you not romance people. Since you have to feel attraction and the game tells you that you feel attraction, I feel like this is less ace-friendly than a lot of other games that don’t advertise themselves as letting people play as ace.

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Well you could be an asexual that feeling romantic attractions but not sexual attractions. What you can’t be is an asexual who don’t feel anything attractive. so it includes asexual content in a way. So it is not at all false advertising

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I haven’t finished the game yet, but based on that weird “attractive bodily contours” thing, it doesn’t do the best job of portraying asexuality.

That said, so far I am enjoying it.

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I enjoyed this game a lot. Played through it twice now, one for each side of the war. I have a spoiler question, for those who have beaten it: How does one get the ‘Guardian Angel’ achievement? When I did my Bonaventure run I got locked into defending my homeland from him for some reason, which I guess prevented me from getting it (Since I assume the lady helping you is the Journalist who is Bonaventure’s spy master

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Great story! In my opinion what you choose to put in your story is your own choice, if somebody doesn’t like it they can make their own game, keep up the good writing!

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Does anyone know which are our romance options for this game? I have played thrice already but it seems like there are only the Count/ess and Anna.

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yeah I tried found anything else and I don’t.

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That isn’t false advertising then, though, if they really only go the way of romantic attraction. What this game doesn’t seem to offer (haven’t played it, though) is an aromantic experience. That sucks for everyone who is aro or aro-ace, but wouldn’t be the case for people who are only asexual like me. That being said if this game tries to tell us what a “hot bod” someone has then my toenails will curl as well, brr.

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I was hoping Cornelius, Maria, or the Empress would be romances but I’ve yet to figure out if any of them are.

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The thing is, I feel like that “charming bodily contours” is a “hot bod” sort of statement. Is that just me?

Edit: And I feel like…imagine if you had a game that gave you the choice for gender and the gender choice was one of those dress/suit options. And then the ad says: you can play as male, female, or nonbinary! And technically, if your nonbinary character used he/him pronouns and presented masculinely or she/her pronouns and presented femininely, that would be true, but no where in the text is being anything but cis referenced explicitly or hinted at even. That’s what this is like.

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…wait that is actually in the game? That doesn’t even sound smooth or nice. Yeah I think that’s definitely kind of weird.

Ohh, then I totally understand the frustration. As I said, I haven’t played this yet. But that’s sad, I’m always excited when I read you can play as asexual, but most of the time the option just doesn’t feel genuine and more like a grey area that just assumes you are fine with getting descriptions of someone’s attractiveness level thrown in your face but it’s all good because you don’t get forced to romance anyone. sigh

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The author tries to use terms in their strict sense, so charming should be seen as pleasant a non-sexual term there. Now granted, in the context it could be interpreted in the “playfully pleasing” that you’re taking it as but I still think the author meant the former and not the later.

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I thought Requin, the Bonaventurist spy, was a love interest - the text said the MC found them attractive - but I kept refusing to let the MC support Bonaventure so I wasn’t surprised we didn’t get to act on whatever feelings we might have had.

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I just now finished reading and experiencing Cannonfire Concerto. It was beautiful. It was graceful and the story flowed from one exciting performance and political stress to another. I think this may be my favorite yet, and the ending evoked emotions that I didn’t expect from a story. I would not change one thing. Bravo.

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Im on chapter five and not quite feeling this one yet :frowning: not really understanding how the stats work so I’m massively flubbing performances. I really don’t know/care enough about the different sides in this war to pick a side either, it feels a little lacking in personal context. I just wanna play my instrument damn it!

I haven’t really felt like anything has happened yet with intrigue and spying other than people asking for illicit meetings and the like. So I’m cautiously optimistic looking onward.

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