Guenevere (WIP)

[sirgalahad]

Just have a bug report- I got the love confession scene twice! I had just wanted to see if I could get him to mention the dreams with a celibate romance and found it. This was how I got it:

This is going to stop at kissing. I put my arms around him and just hold him, in a way that ought to suggest that things aren’t going any further.
“It’s all right. I’m glad you did.”
“Then be honest. Tell me.”
"I love you, too. It feels so good to say that after so long!"
I kiss him.
After the kiss has run its course, I say, “We should talk about this physical reaction we have to each other. It’s not exactly normal.”
“Do you think it’s some kind of magic?”
“She told me the same thing,” I say. “She said it didn’t seem like something that would be mind-affecting.”
“I think it’s just physical.”
“Nothing that seemed especially strange.”
“I haven’t had any dreams like that.”
“We have to figure out what’s going on.”
“What if… What if we don’t deny that we have feelings for each other, but agree it will never be physical?”
“I mean no sex. Other things would be okay.”
“Did you just say you love me?”
"I love you, too. It feels so good to say that after so long!"
I kiss him.

I’m also pretty sure I got Lancelot putting his clothes on without sleeping with him while I was checking this, but I dunno how I got it.

EDIT: also, I think I figured out how Arthur beat Meligaunt, hee.
EDIT 2: Also, I think I figured out what causes the weird reaction.
EDIT 3: Yep, got Lancelot putting his clothes back on even though I didn’t sleep with him. I did the above, and when I picked an option I got this: Lancelot nods. “I’ll keep thinking about it.” He starts to put his clothes back on. “And now I’m going to ask… What exactly is this? Us, I mean?”

[Player]

Well in my play though both Lancelot and morgana know what goes down by that I mean me having sex with Arthur and morgana and having a sex free relationship with Lancelot.

[Ponku]

So i finally finished my first playthrough, and half of the second one, and i love the game. I haven’t red the comments yet (there sre so many so fast! ) so probably a lot of what i write was said already but i think it’s amazing piece of work. The story and world you create is one of the most immersive things i ever red.
My first playthrough was as leadership/light magic Guen in love with Arthur and friends with Morgana and Lancelot. The second one is Guen with the same skills but romancing Morgana and refusing sex with Arthur so far.
So as for some loose thought about the game i have:
I loved the sex scenes they were exactly right balance between explicit and non-explicit, with a subbtle innuendos here and there (Morgana’s nails ). It was nice to have more choices during them and activelly guiding Arthur what to do in his scene, it was both cute and sexy Or the moments with Morgana in her romance… the cuddling first night in the castle was so cute, and their ship scene was so kinky with the ropes and all All of it was really amazing. Just: Wow

The plot and new characters is engaging too. They are so different, A “just another girl swooning over Lance” that comes up to be a superspy for the good queen of another country, A nice and cortesous guy who acts considerate but have a more dark and villainous side to him, or Hrothulf who looks like typicall dark/villainous character at the fist sight, but i think there is more to him and it wouldn’t be imposssible to even convince him somehow to maybe join our side (or maybe i’m too hopefull of people like Arthur ). I think you did really good job with Grimald. Nothing exactly gives up anything about his true agendas, but you can get a feeling that something is wrong with him. At first look he seems genuine, he want peace, he opposed this plan and want to help you escape, but still you get a feeling you shouldn’t trust him. For example you overhear his conversation with Hrothulf on the ship hearing him say all those things that would make you think he is good, but then you get a feeling, why is he talking in a language you can understand, while it’s not his native language and Hrothulf can speak other ones too, why are they talking close to your holding place, and then you get a feeling that maybe he want you to hear that. Anyway it’s a very well written part if you can get your readers to feel about some characters a certain way with only few sentences, But at the same time you can surprise the readers, i had no idea about who Tilda really is till the scene at the end and everything she said makes sense. Also i feel more inlined to outright believe her without any evidence than i was to believe Grimald.
I’m also curious what decission to make there. it’s a very hard decission, i want ro run and rescue Arthur, but i also don’t want to leave Morgana in foreign country and helping defend the country or discirminating Grimald for longer peace with Frankmarch is the “responsible” choice i should make. So i decide to come to it strategicaly, Given my Guen is a leadership Guen i thought that the best use of possible assets would be to find Morgana first (with Lancelot’s help because it will be faster) and then ask her to go and help Arthur, given that she is skilled in dark magic and traps and she could really help him fight Hrothulf and the i would knew they are safe. Then send Lancelot to help find the decoding device in Grimald castle ( he seems the best choice for that kind of tasks) and i myself go rally the army and defend the shore from enemies. I wonder if that will be possible? Im afraid that if i go first help Morgana i may loose to much time with the rest tasks, but how can i just decide to leave my friend here even if i know how resourcefull she is, and also without her i wouldn’t be able to defend the shore, because then i would need to go save Arthur… ohh so many hard choices! I love it

During the scene with sheeps at the castle at the first i thought that Arthur is getting even more silly than in the first book, but actually the idea was not that bad. Some more aggresive marketing, reminding your potential client about advantages of the deal you want to make, although overall not very well executed but that’s also because of sabotage from Hrothulf. And that Arthur was so sorry about it to my Guen led to some interesting possibilities But then there were also his dissmissing of my suspicions about Hrothulf which reminded again of his overtrusting nature. I’m very curious about his feelings and attitude when we are reunited, i think he must feel very guilty and hearthbroken about the whole situation and it may lead for him to “harden” more and be less trusting to others, or at least for him to be more easier to shape by Guen the way the player want him to be once reunited with her (although it would be hard to write to many different version of his personality in later books)

Ok, that’s it for now. I’ll probably spend every free time i have next few days reading all the posts here and replaying the game and remembering more things i want to write about
The game is really great and i enjoyed it tremendously. Keep up your Great work!

[Wonderboy]

The more I think about it the more the knottier the cliffhanger dilemma becomes. I initially thought solving the big picture problems and trusting the other characters to get themselves out of danger was the best route, but even after I set the game aside, I still keep seeing things from different angles.

Start with Camelot: The Frankish invasion is still the most urgent problem, the problem my high leadership Gwen is best equipped to personally solve, and the one who’s successful resolution would leave her best positioned for the future. She needs to end up their, at least eventually.

Moving on the Frankenmarch: Honestly, if there’s a self-evidently weak choice of the four, personally going to Frankenmarch is it. There are two fluent Frankish speakers right in front if Gwen, both with more experience at stealth, one of whom is going to be attempting to solve the problem no matter what else you do. I feel like Gwen’s just as likely to be in the way as help on that path.

The question is whether or not this is the best use of Lance’s time. If Lance found the evidence, cutting the count off at the knees and earning a marker with the Frankish queen would both be to the good, but right now this is a problem that’s going to solve itself for the short term. If the Duchess succeeds on her own, the invasion gets called off and at least we told her where to look for the evidence. If the duchess fails, then calling off the invasion is still part of the count’s plan and we haven’t yet given him any compelling reason to consider us an immediate threat.

That leaves Michaelsmount: The more I think about it the more this seems like the smarter place to deploy Lancelot. Regardless of any personal affection she might have for him, Arthur is both the linchpin holding Britain together as a unified nation, and the foundation of Gwen’s power as queen. Fresh off a heroic defense of Camelot and with the backing of her father and maybe even King Lot via Morgana’s influence, Gwen might be able to keep everything together. But a civil war is probably the only possibility more disastrous than letting the Franks invade an unprepardd Camelot.

Still wouldn’t go there myself. Overcoming evil through heroic displays of martial valor is very much Arthur and Lance’s wheelhouse.

That leaves rescuing Morgana as the wildcard option. Of all the stuff going on, her situation is the least perilous. Had Gwen left her behind in enemy hands it might be different, but in my playthrough she not only got away before Gwen, but did so in a way that’s going to complicate any attempt to recapture her.

On the other hand, those very same factors mean that it might not cost too much time to bring her back into the fold, and her assistance might be more valuable then the couple hours spent securing it. I don’t know that she’d be tremendous help at Camelot, especially since my Gwen’s a pretty solid dark mage in her own right, but if there was anyone I thought was ideally equipped to help Arthur deal with Michaelsmount, it’s her.

The question is if that’s even an option. I doubt Lance would be able to find her in time to also rescue Arthur, so Gwen would have to be able to whip up some sort of locator magic, then hope Morgana could catch up to Lance on her own.

[Samuel_H_Young]

“Fancy words aren’t going to do you much good when I tear out your intestines and feed them to Valentine.”

Shiiiit xD

And if half the readers already know it’s gonna happen in some way or other, wouldn’t they not need the hint at the beginning :P? And then the rest of us can be really surprised by it!

[Elfwine]

Yeah, it just struck me as “Okay, this is about as idiotic as he can act before I’m going to assume you really are doing Idiot Arthur.” It’s understandable as an incident, though - if it wasn’t for Meligaunt it would just be silly. And anticipating him being quite this wicked was not something one would ordinarily expect - though things had better work out in regards to the responses to this or this will get very bad very quickly.

I want to say from the “things that really worked well” side (because as others have said the story is awesome): I really like that we got to see more of Morgana. Morgana really resonates as a good friend to us (both a Guen befriending her and to Arthur).

This doesn’t relate to part 2, but: I was “moderately kind” as of part 1, is that the best (nonromantic) result? Apologies if someone asked this early in the thread, it just came up since “my Guen wants to treat her as her most reliable friend (Arthur being a step beyond friendship)” stuff happens in this part.

[jeantown]

@thesunfloweramazon ARGH I thought that part was probably still buggy, but I was hoping I was wrong. I made the dialogue too winding and double-back-able. Did you ever get the full “I loved you since the first time I saw you…” twice? Because that happened to me on one test and I thought I fixed it… but obviously there’s a lot of other stuff that still needs fixing. The clothes-back-on line is supposed to show up if they took some clothes off but stopped short of sex, but of course it shouldn’t be there if things stopped at the kiss. Sigh. Well, anyway, sitting here and typing about it has just given me an idea for how to fix it; I just need to make a bunch of temp variables for everything and then check against them each time anyone says anything. As for your theories, I’m going to send you a PM to ask about them (if you’re willing to share) because I don’t want anything I say to spoil anything, or cause erroneous guessing, for everyone else.

@Player I think it’s safe to say that Lancelot and Morgana both know whether or not Guen is having sex with Arthur, because he would tell them even if Guen didn’t – they’re the people closest to him, after all. Even if the relationship with Lancelot is not physical, Morgana may still have some issues with it, for now, at least. Yes, it will be possible to have romantic/sexual relationships with all three over the course of the whole series, but I’m not going to make it easy for you. What would be the point of that?

@Ponku Every writer in the world should be lucky enough to have someone as kind and appreciative as you to read their work. I know I’m grateful. I tried really hard to make the sex scenes balanced and just give little suggestive details, rather than anything explicit. I want people to imagine whatever they think is appropriate for their Guen’s personality. And I’m glad you like the new characters. Meligaunt is supposed to seem like a two-dimensional villain at first, but there’s some backstory there. Grimald is fun to write because, although I know his endgoal, sometimes even I am not entirely sure how deep his machinations go. His plans get more complicated the more I work on the Frankmarch branch. Same for Tilda, actually! When I first created her, I didn’t realize quite how badass she was going to be. I hope I’ll be able to work her into some of the later books, since she’ll probably survive even if Radagund doesn’t. Well, as for the tough decision… first of all, I’m glad it’s difficult, since that’s the intention. At the risk of spoiling things, I’m going to warn you that if you look for Morgana first, your options will be more limited, so I don’t think your full plan will work (just telling you so you won’t be disappointed). But I think you should try it that way the first time and see what happens. And thank you for recognizing that Arthur’s plan with the sheep, though not handled well, does have some basis in reason. “Aggressive marketing” is a good term for it. And if it hadn’t been for Meligaunt, maybe the sheep would have been just fine and accomplished their intended purpose. But I feel bad for whoever has to clean up after them. Arthur will indeed be feeling guilty: for trusting Meligaunt, for the sheep, and especially for following the wrong Guen. I do plan to write different versions of his personality in later books – we’ll see if I can really pull that off or not! Well, I hope you enjoy the replays, and thank you again for all of your positive comments. I wish this forum had a hug emoji like the old one did. I’m using a yellow friendship heart instead.

@Wonderboy hee I’m glad the complexity of the problem is growing on you. I think your reasoning is sound all the way through, and you understand the characters’ strengths and weaknesses well. I will say that as things stand right now, looking for Morgana will cost you the same amount of time, and limit subsequent options, no matter what (but it may also make success more likely within the more limited options). I really like the idea of a dark magic Guen casting a divination spell to find her faster – hadn’t thought of that. That could be a nice advantage to give to DM!Guen, though I don’t know if I can pull it off. But it could be an interesting challenge for me to try to work in, so thank you for the idea!

@Samuel_H_Young Yeah, some Guens can be pretty brutal! Okay, I will think some more about the hint at the beginning. I like the idea of giving a little plot-hook at the start of each book – I already have them written for each part – but maybe I can come up with something else? I’ll mull it over.

@Elfwine I’m glad you can see it’s understandable. And no, I wasn’t going to have everyone chase sheep for a whole scene just for fun, and only then get the plot going – that would indeed be silly. Arthur will make one more major mistake in part 3, and then he can become a lot more sensible over time, depending on Guen’s influence and some other circumstances. He really is supposed to be more lacking in experience than stupid, and I hope that will be evident once he has more experience. I’m glad you appreciated having more Morgana; I know that a lot of games with female protagonists don’t have much room for friendships with other women, and it was important to me to include that. Yes, “moderately kind” is a good friendship result, especially if Guen is prioritizing romantic relationships. If Guen is not romantically/sexually interested in Arthur or Lancelot and neglects them a bit, she might get a “very kind” friendship with Morgana. But Morgana is slower to trust people, in general, so her trust stat is just a bit harder to raise… (though now that I think about it, saying how kind Guen has been is a poor way of expressing another character’s trust… hm… I need to think about that more…)

[Samuel_H_Young]

Yeah, but plot hooks don’t have to be spoilers.

[jeantown]

@Samuel_H_Young This is true.

[FoxalypticWorld]

I have a question (maybe it’s been answered already?) will there ever be a point in time that Arthur may find out about infidelity? Or maybe Guen tells him? I’m curious to see if he actually might be angry by something like that? (especially if she IS straight and with Lance, or worse yet, not straight and got with Lance).

[jeantown]

@FoxalypticWorld Oh, yes. If I can make things work in the way I want, there will be many different ways in which Arthur might find out, and his reaction will vary a great deal depending on what he was already aware of. If Guen tells Arthur she’s asexual or gay and he agrees not to have sex, but then finds out after X number of years that she was banging Lancelot all along… oh my. On the other hand, at the end of part 2 Guen will have a chance to tell Arthur about the spell that’s causing the reaction with Lancelot, and if she does, he could be much more understanding. I just hope I can make this as complex and responsive as I dream of making it!

[attolia]

I did a playthrough of a super manipulative Guen who is only kind to Arthur cause she wants to use him. His trust in her is very high but in their love scene in part 2 (the one where Guen ordered him around) it’s mentioned that Guen is almost 100% positive that Arthur doesn’t realize her true intentions. I know that at this point Arthur is pretty naive and has no reason to NOT trust Guen-- at least the way I’m playing her-- but I’m wondering if in future books he will realize this? Or if he has his suspicions at all?

I feel bad asking you this since this thread is blowing up right now so feel free to take your time answering this!

[Elfwine]

So far other than the sheep thing he has seemed more “inexperienced” than “naturally stupid” - I could make the argument (both as myself and as playing as Guen) that Meligaunt was likely bad news, but there was reason to be hopeful. Of course, if he gets himself permanently maimed because he doesn’t listen to Lancelot, my Guen is going to be disappointed in him (and herself, but that’s another story) - but if everyone on team Camelot plays their cards right, Meligaunt is going to be the one looking like an idiot, not Arthur.

As for Morgana, keep up whatever it is inspiring you to write her like this. We need someone like her. Both as in the reader (for the reason you noted) and our Guens. Even (especially) the Guens who dislike Arthur seem to like Morgana.

As for wording:
What is it that makes Guen someone Morgana trusts?

Thoughtfulness maybe?

[Outrageous]

I had so much fun going through what you have up so far. There are so many choices I haven’t even had time to choose them all yet. I do have one suggestion about Guen’s room after the sheep incident… It would be nice if there was an option to tease Arthur about it somehow and/or make him sweat and think you’re mad when you really aren’t. Something along those lines.

I have to say, thanks for sharing it!

[Wonderboy]

Brief wish list:

The opportunity to grab more than one item when leaving your bedroom during the attack. I need the carrot for stabbing purposes, but it seems silly that Gwen wouldn’t take thirty seconds to also grab her spell bag (or her sword if that’s her build) especially when it predictably leads to every choice other than “stand around being useless” being grayed out for two branches in a row.

If you send Lancelot off to Michaelsmount, I wouldn’t mind a third option somewhere between “I don’t care about and will not mention Melingaunt’s sword at all” and “Whatever else happens with Arthur, make sure you get that sword!”. I wouldn’t mind getting the sword, but it’s not my primary motivation for sending Lancelot to Mmount and, even if it was, I wouldn’t want to telegraph it quite so obviously. Some softer option in the vein of “Hey, if you get the chance while you’re there…” Might be appropriate.

On the same subject not so much a wish as a wonder: Exactly how practical is carting around some half-giant’s sword going to be, especially for a Gwen with no martial skill to speak of? I presume it will be something she just keeps locked away until she’s casting some big, draining spell but, if she was somehow using it to control Melingaunt, I can’t imagine it would be too smart to ever let it out of her sight. Would there be some way to refashion it into something less cumbersome without destroying its magic?

[Iello]

Thanks for editing the thread title to reflect the update! This thread moves so quickly that I never had any chance of keeping up. I’ll have to check out the new WIP tomorrow!

[Princess]

I wonder how many other people have fallen in love with Arthur - besides (my) Guen and Cornelia’s daughter (which is debatable.) He’s really sweet and adorable so I’m sure there’s probably a fanclub for him in Camelot somewhere

[Player]

@jeantown You monster why must you make my love life miserable!

[jeantown]

@attolia Good question… I think that Arthur knows subconsciously if Guen doesn’t really love him. Maybe he’s not admitting it to himself yet, because he so desperately wants them to have a happy marriage, but there’s probably an inkling in there somewhere. Will he become more aware of it? Hm, maybe… that might depend on whether or not his personality changes over time. And please don’t feel bad about asking anything; I need those questions to help me think about how the story will develop!

@Elfwine In that case, I sincerely hope that everyone on Team Camelot will play their cards right! Very glad that you appreciate Morgana. She’s fun to write, maybe because I’m an excessively responsible oldest child with a free-spirited younger sibling. What makes Morgana trust Guen? Mainly it’s Guen acting sensibly without being mean, and Guen simply being nice/sympathetic to Morgana. Morgana is used to people keeping her at arm’s length because of her dark magic, so if Guen treats her as a friend, she’s grateful.

@Outrageous Thank you! I had some similar thoughts about teasing Arthur, so I’m going to put that on the list of things to try out when I get a chance. Not sure if I can make it work with what’s already there, but there’s no harm in trying.

@Wonderboy Agreed 100% that only being able to grab one thing seems weird. I had that exact thought when I was playtesting. That choice is there mostly to make it less likely that someone playing for the first time would keep the carrot, but also to add to a sense of urgency. I should probably just take it out, but I feel like there needs to be a little interactivity at that point instead of just saying “I grab my sword and bag and the carrot” (if she has all of those things). I’ll keep thinking about it. As for instructions to Lancelot, I think I may need to expand on those no matter where you send him. In fact, I may have to add another layer of choices for each destination, so Guen can be more specific about her intentions for both herself and Lancelot. Good point re: the sword; I imagined dark magic non-fighter Guen just keeping it securely somewhere and using it when she needs it, but you’re right that if she manages to use it to control Meligaunt, that had better be a pretty secure location. Hadn’t thought of refashioning it, but that’s not a bad idea at all… something else for me to think about. Thanks for all of these suggestions! They’re perceptive and helpful.

@lello I’m not a huge fan of the new forum, but I do like that it allows us to edit thread titles! (I just wish it would let me edit the first post, but I’ve PMd a mod to see if they can do it.) Hope you enjoy the update!

@Princess Good question! That may be something that gets layered in later on, once I add more court politics.

@Player Every story needs some adversity!

[Mirabella]

@jeantown and @Princess I think running into an Arthur fangirl club would be a pretty funny side gag. Could you work that in somewhere? I wonder how he’d react… and how the fangirls would react to Guen…