EDIT [2/25/18]: I’ve been working on this consistently for the past two weeks, but I’ve decided to take this in a more serious/more plot-based direction. I still plan to make it fairly short, but I came up with some ideas that I think work better with this being a little more serious. Right now I’m at about 4k words, and I’d like to have the prologuey bit (everything before the feast planning) completely done before I post anything. I’d estimate that would land me at about 8k-10k words. Then I could put a rough first draft out and see what you guys think about where it’s going
Plot Summary:
You play the overworked consort to the monarch of Adaerwin. After a short, successful invasion campaign into a neighboring country, your spouse and thousands of your subjects are returning to the castle for a celebratory feast. And you've been set in charge of planning it, with less than a day to prepare for a crowd whose dissatisfaction threatens the stability of your kingdom and the continuation of your reign. Decide the fate of the kingdom of Adaerwen in a single night of intrigue, performance, and debts. Will you keep the castle in one piece, or will it fall to ruin? Will you ensure the glory of your shared rule, or seize power for yourself? And most importantly, will you be able to plan the feast of the century?
Game Plans
You can pick the PC’s gender (man, woman, nonbinary) and the monarch/spouse’s (man or woman)
The PC’s relationship with their spouse is customizable- you can decide how PC felt about the spouse initially, why PC decided to get married, and their current relationship to their spouse (to be decided upon actually meeting them in game)
There will be options to identify the PC as aromantic and/or asexual
You can choose your PC’s origin, which will allow for some different interactions in-game and different starting stats.
Thanks everyone, I’m about halfway to the point I want to post a demo (once the character creation section ends and it gets to plot) so I should hopefully be able to get that up sometime this weekend
Everything looks fairly attractive so far - the premise and the options look promising. But how about the estimated length? The task of preparing a feast doesn’t look like something that will take long… and I’m not a fan of short stories when it comes to these games. (Of course, most CoG and HG that I’ve played seemed to end too fast for my liking, so maybe it’s just me).
I like the idea, and I like that the relationship with your spouse is customizable.
Will the way you felt about your spouse when first getting married be determined by a simple choice, or a short flashback?
How in-depth is character creation appearance-wise?
If we can pick both our gender and our partner’s gender, can we be gay? Will that change anything?
Sorry for all the questions, lol. I am very intrigued.
I don’t mind the idea of a short story at all, as long as it is well written and the plot has potential for some replayability that isn’t super repetitive.
I’m not really sure on the estimated length yet. I’m going to guess less than 100k words, maybe around 75k as a vague estimate. I should have said preparing and hosting the feast, which will definitely make it a bit longer.
Right now in my WIP, your initial impression of your spouse is determined by a short (400 word) flashback and a single choice as to whether or not you were romantically/sexually interested in them. I do like the idea of a longer flashback, but I don’t think that it fits well into where that choice is set in the WIP. If I make some changes in the intro, I might switch over.
Character creation doesn’t have an appearance selection yet, and it most likely will be more of an outfit selection that will have influence on hosting/guest reactions.
Yep, you can be gay. I don’t think that will change much other than flavor text. I’m thinking of adding kids to the relationship, but (if I do) there will be options to note that the kids are adopted or from pre-marriage relationships your spouse had. (I won’t be blocking off the option to have them be both your biological kids if you two are the same gender, which will imply that the PC is trans + comfortable with having kids)
A possible mid-life crisis is mentioned, so I assume the MC will be rather older than the usual teenage/young-adult MC? I think that will be an interesting perspective to play from, although I must ask - are we allowed to choose an age range for MC or is there a fixed age?
I’m always a sucker for medieval games, so yay! Good luck, and I’ll be looking forward to the demo!
It’s more the concept than the particular age range I mentioned in the WIP (at this point) that you’ve been married for 12 years but that might change since it’s just flavor text. I like the idea of allowing an age range selection (or even a length of marriage so far selection) so I’ll try to work those in there if I can figure out how.
