Crème de la Crème Discussion and Romance Guide (Spoilers Within)

Omfg I just reread the character info for the other school! Lady Renaldt has a romancable child??? Another rout I guess!

Spectacular game, jumped to the top of my fave list. Loved the interactions and the story.

Was depressed most of the time though sadly, especially after my favorite character Blaise gets captured and imprisoned fairly early in the story, thus most of my time was spent hunting for Blaise, tracing footsteps with the archery match, following the shadow in the town, even searching for rumours of Blaise, rather than making any actual memories or spending time with the character, which was super saddening because I LOVED the whole tsundere character, which you don’t see much in IF novels but yeah, that’s my only complaint. If you make a sequel or another IF novel with a character that’s similar, please :tired_face::pray: give the PC more face time with the character.

On a side note, I look forward to your next release.:yum::+1:

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Thank you so much, I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I have some ideas for the future that are brewing, and can definitively say that if there’s a rival-type romanceable character they will have more screentime than Blaise :slight_smile:

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Yay!!! I look forward to it!!! :yum::+1: I loved the scenes with Blaise, as soon as I found out that Blaise was being held in the mines I got myself captured. Lol :joy::joy::joy:, then the drawing scene at the end, and the marriage. Really wanted a wedding scene though.But I did love the scene where ya finally shack up and then the mother yells at them that dinner was ready and Blaise yelps and starts fixing your clothes.Lol

Spectacular story, I look forward to any more that’s coming next.

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We’re coming up to the two month anniversary of the Crème de la Crème release! I’m planning to post a little postmortem, probably around the 1st of February, about how I feel the project went and how I’m feeling about it with (a little!) more distance… So if you have any burning Crème questions you’d like to know the answers to, please post here!

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Some facts about Blaise please!!
:laughing:

Heh, I take it you’ve already read the interactive short story and trivia post? I’m entertained that Blaise ended up so sought after, though from my fandom awareness I can’t say I’m surprised!

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@HarrisPS

I have a question. How come vengeful Delacroix is more ambitious in terms of getting an internship with the art dealers as opposed to benevolent Delacroix?

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More about Max and Rosario please. :heart_eyes:

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I’m curious. Why would anyone romance Blaise?

The whole enemies to lovers trope. Their anger is justified, targeted at the wrong person though. We’re both suffering with the consequences because of MCs parents decision. And whatever other reasons people romance characters.

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Blaise was the first character to really pique my interest because of all the drama connecting them to the MC, and although the early-game interactions were mostly adversarial at best, there was an emotional intensity not yet present with the others. Although they went missing, there were still plot threads and mystery that stopped the previous interest from dying, and, at the very end, making a daring escape from slavery together is the kind of thing that really brings out latent romantic feelings.

Also, given that the MC and Blaise’s parents knew each other prior to the start of the game, I like to imagine that they had at least a passing familiarity with one another before things turned bad, and I prefer the idea of having known romantic interests for a while, instead of starting a relationship very soon after meeting them in a new environment.

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Does anyone have a walkthrough or other tips for RO Rosario? This helped a lot but I’m still having trouble getting the engagement ending…

How do you get the ending where you go to Reisinger with Delacroix?

There is no way to get it.
Delacroix needs to be vengeful to go to Reisinger, but only if you got the art internship. If you didn’t, then she gets it.

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Is there any ending where you two are together instead of separated at different places?

Delacroix’s endings are:
Reisinger
Art internship
Doing nothing

There is no mention of them being physically together in any is those 3.
But I think the time they spent apart of temporary, only for them to finish their plans.

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This was an unintentional oversight on my part - I actually wrote some material about Delacroix and you discussing being at Reisinger together after graduation, but didn’t put together that those outcomes are (I think?) mutually exclusive. Sorry! It’s a lesson to me for the future to simplify things.

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Creme de la Creme has turned two months old! If it was a cat, it might look something like this:

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(Disclaimer: this is not my cat. My cats are middle-aged gigantic fluffbeasts. #rolemodels)

In celebration, I made a Tumblr! I had one years ago so this feels comfortably retro. Give it a follow if you like pretty pictures with Blood Money and Creme de la Creme aesthetics, and me flailing about fanart.

Things I learned from making Creme:

  • Clarity of stats is really important so the stats mesh with the story. Poise/Spirit and Manipulative/Intrigue were the biggest points of confusion. I’ve been thinking a lot about developing my skills in that area, and if you’ve got any thoughts I’d love to hear them!

  • Characters having multiple endings something people really like, but it can overcomplicate, and it’s less effective when it’s not clear in the text (eg Max being very difficult to marry monogamously, different characters’ destinations for the future). In future projects I plan to make such things more explicit, either through the words on the page or by having character personality stats visible.

  • Loads of people love mean characters - which I knew already, but the popularity of Blaise still somehow took me by surprise. (They were always meant to leave for most of the game; I’m interested to see how a rival-romance with someone in closer proximity would work.) They were also divisive! One tester said they resented every moment they were onscreen.

  • Sharing progress and little snippets as I went was brilliant, it helped me keep up my excitement about the project and keep momentum going.

  • My initial “monthly extras” plan was wildly overoptimistic, but I really enjoyed making the Blaise and Delacroix stories. It was fun to make something self-contained, with a self-imposed time restriction so I didn’t get in too deep.

  • Having this many befriendable or romanceable characters was a Challenge. Players absolutely loved it. But it was challenging at times like the Festival of the Birds dates: “OK, I’ve done two scenes complete with branches and character development, that’s seven to go…”

  • But! It was a ton of fun to see if I could do it, I love all of the characters, and I feel I did them justice. I wouldn’t do that part differently if I was doing it all over again.

Overall, I’m overjoyed. The game was delightful to make, it’s reached more people than I ever hoped and people have sent absolutely lovely messages about it. (Others have said it’s too SJW, which I see as a personal win.) I couldn’t believe it when forumgoers voted it 19th of every CSG over ten years, after only being out for a month, with more than 1200 votes! It’s done better than I ever expected. THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart.

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@HarrisPS I just played this game over and over again for an entire week…I usually dont care for playing teens, but I just kept hearing awesome things about it and finally gave in…and THANK THE GODS I did, IT IS SO GOOD AND ADDICTING!!! I played every romance, every way that I could think to. I think my fav romance AND ending was with Florin, with Auguste being a close #2 (though his ending killed me, both ways that I played it). I am just truly impressed! So many ro’s and their romances all seem very distinct and layered…this must’ve been a crap ton of work - you should be so proud! :heart:

Looks like BLOOD MONEY will be my next purchase - so you should expect to hear me fangirling out again in another week or so ;p cheers!

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