Magpie Court

[fool]

MAGPIE COURT

You return home for a relaxing holiday with a friend only to find your father dead, yourself engaged to be married, your mother conspiring with a suspicious member of the clergy, and your house in a state of medley and chaos. Navigate courtly intrigue, a new title, an annoying younger sister, an arranged marriage, home decor, and potential murder.

genre: low fantasy, courtly intrigue, mystery

the protagonist: gender-selectable [m/f]. A freshly-minted viscount(ess) and university student with a customizable name and personality.

romantic options

Relationships are an important part of this story, but they needn’t be romantic. Feel free to make lovers, friends, or foes of the below.

the betrothed

Lishan [m/f – opposite gender to MC] a childhood friend whom you find yourself engaged to. Eloquent, charming, and perversely rich, as well as elusive about their long disappearance. Whether you marry them for love, politics, or not at all is left up to your discretion.

the university friend

Elia [m/f – gender selectable] inquisitive, studious, and excitable. You befriended them at university and invited them to enjoy a holiday in your home country, but you both got rather more than you bargained for.

the priest

Tanager Aquila [m/f – gender selectable] to you, they are Their Eminence. Scheming, shadowy, and well-dressed, they seem to have gained your mother’s favour.

other characters of note

your mother

Lady Latona [surname of your discretion], Dowager Viscountess [fief of your discretion]. A widow who has planned out your future in meticulous detail.

your sister

The Honourable Artemisia [surname of your discretion]. A spirited and rebellious young woman who looks up to you. Perhaps your guiding influence will shape her. Perhaps it won’t.

Feedback I’m looking for

• low-level: all sorts of typos, missing commas or an overabundance of them, dodgy grammar or dialogue tags.

• any coding errors. Pages that won’t load, broken stats, or choices that don’t lead where they ought to.

• style and content. Does anything seem strangely worded? Over on under explained? Does the dialogue feel natural? Are the characters believable? Are the paragraphs a readable length?

• anything you enjoyed or disliked. Predictions, questions, things you’d like clarified, features you’d like to see implemented, what you’re hoping for or dreading in the next chapters.

current progress + length 1 chapter, published 31/07/2022. 5963 words, including code.

demo link https://dashingdon.com/play/fool/magpie-court/mygame/

[Fenrir1]

Up till now it seems pretty good and are you planning to add the choices to choose hair color eye color etc?

[Drakona]

Just noticed that the sister’s name is the same as the general in the memoir if we choose to study warfare. Is this intentional or accidental?
Edit: literally read the next page and realized it was intentional sorry about that

[justme]

This demo was fun and enjoyable to play, if a bit short. I like the fact that the MC has certain predefined personality traits (mostly the snark, so far), but doesn’t feel like a set character. The relationship with the MC’s friend is also well-written; instead of telling the reader what good friends they are, the game lets their dialouge and banter speak for itself (pun intended). All in all, it’s a promising start and I’m looking forward to more.

A few things to note, however:

1. The MC is said to be a noble of Arcadia after the first choice, but is subsequently referred to as coming from Ephesia. Is this a mistake, or is Arcadia a region/continent? If it’s the latter, it should probably be specified in-game.
2. There’s an issue with the formating during the conversation in the coach. I’m guessing it happens because of an *if statement in the code:
   
   
3. There’s a prounoun mistake during the conversation on the ship (the friend was male in this playthrough):
   

[Cingulum_diaboli]

Arranged marriage? Hehe, something I like. I will definitely keep an eye on this wip

[Drakona]

Looks pretty good so far just wanted to let you know about this error

And this one

Okay I’m pretty sure the entire conversation with the driver is bugged but I’ll try the last choice just in case.

Okay yeah it’s all of it

[fool]

@Fenrir1

you planning to add the choices to choose hair color eye color etc?

Yes, they’re coming in chapter 2.

[Drakona]

I think all the choices for the conversation with Elia are bugged to

[JBento]

@Drakona In case you don’t know, you can reduce the size of a screenshot when posting - on the right-hand side of the text input box (the preview box), below each ss, there’ll be a series of percentages, which allow you to adjust the ss size.

[Drakona]

Oh thanks didn’t know about

[The_b]

Thank you

[JBento]

Spoilers

Haha, truly the shrewdest!

“twenty-two uninterrupted years”. I think it should be “scraped together”, not “by”.

I’m… not sure about this choice here. It feels like option 3 is the flirty option, but missing convo opportunities for flirts feels off?

“meeting her eye”.

I suggest adding some indication of how many things we can do during the coach ride.

It’s very short, so it’s too early for me to make comments, but I’ll be keeping an eye on further content.

[Paradox1]

Salutations.

Quite an invigorating read, if I say so myself. I thoroughly enjoyed the candor between E and MC, the ease with which it flowed naturally. The narration is exquisite.

I have encountered the infamous line 669 error a few times, but as Drakona has pointed out earlier, I shall not burden ye so with the screenshots of the same.

If I am to speculate, will this not be ‘meeting’ ?

The relationship improving or ‘flirt’ options not being exclusively demarcated in the options is something I liked. It brought more originality, personally speaking and felt more immersive.

That is all I can offer for now. Good day and best of luck

[Christopher_Bull]

So it there going be a back door out of this marriage in case I don’t want it

[JBento]

You could’ve just… read the OP.

@fool

Whether you marry them for love, politics, or not at all is left up to your discretion

[charger]

@fool

the priest

oooh. i like this already.

[Sweet_Potato]

What a way to end the demo lmao.
I’m interested and I like the prose so far. I hope the romance with the friend has to be explicitly started because I’m thinking I want to keep us as besties without them have a crush on me or for some scenes to have romantic undertones. Really ruins it for me.
But so far, I like the interactions with them.

[Hector_Lopez]

[fool]

Implemented an update which (hopefully!) fixed the most glaring issues. Do keep the feedback coming

first post with demo link: Magpie Court

[Knoez]

Too many bugs and I barely read the entire story