One thing I can assure you of is that ending a game when you diverge from a particular path is one of the worst things that you can do. You may not have meant it in a strictly literal sense, but one of the key points of fairytales is that they always have a happy ending, whereas more often then no, life does not. It would take up more time, but tailoring an ending to almost every potential outcome is extremely beneficial, but another thing is don’t be afraid of the bad endings. I’m not saying include game-over screens or anything but again life doesn’t have good endings sometimes. It’s perfectly okay to have good endings in the storyline, but a happily ever after isn’t always on the cards. I love less than perfect endings; resolving the conflict is a must, but it doesn’t have to be happy and sweet. Sometimes it can be utterly realistic.
But thank you for the consideration.
Okay, I expected the fairy godparent as a potential RO, but I’m sorry…the King/Queen? That would go over tremendously, wouldn’t it?
Cinderella: “I’m afraid I’m leaving you for someone else”.
Prince Charming: “What?! Why?! Who is it that’s taken your heart away from me?!”
Cinderella:“…Your mom. Surprise?”
That would probably be clever if done right though; by all means give it a shot.
Correction: that’s all the tales have given us. This is your story. She can be powerful, intelligent, alluring, convivial; take your pick. Or she could be a kind heart with a pretty face and a thick skull as you suggested. Again, your choice.
Which is something any mc of mine would likely never even consider, mostly they reap what they sow and in the best case they’d be dead to him, without any further retaliation because he chose not to dwell on the past, and they’d better stay out his way and not make him think of them ever again.
I disagree diverging from the obvious path is a greater challenge as my kind of revenge ending would likely involve figuring out a way to claw up from abused servant boy into the confidence of the king/queen as an adviser, not a lover (no way someone who’s been abused like it is described in some of the darker versions is going to let strangers use his/her body in a way that would be expected of a lover willingly) or getting the fairy to teach us some magic, perhaps even tricking/killing them and stealing their powers, much like Rumpstiltskin does in “Once upon a time”.
Perhaps if the level of abuse by the (step)family is more like the darker rather than the Disney version I’d consider it a perfectly valid response to a strange magical creature who basically suggests you go to some ball, pretend to be happy and “sell your body” (cause you obviously have nothing else to offer anybody, you know) to an abused and traumatised young person.
In fact after becoming the “Dark Fairy” I could see the former Cinder(f)ella deliberately biding their time, honing their magic skills and waiting till the worst of their step-siblings has married the prince(ss) in order to curse their firstborn (and the kingdom) on their child’s birthday, essentially kicking off the events of sleeping beauty.
Then again this comes from someone who did like and even symphatised with Cora in “Once Upon a Time” to a degree, particularly in how she used magic to basically rescue herself, rather than rely on the prince to fix everything for her.
Of course she later went way overboard in assuring her own child would never be as poor and powerless as she once was, but like they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I would expect any deal with the King Queen, whether or not they’re formally going to call you “consort” to be very clear in that the relationship is not going to be physical, if they agree to that they may in fact be a far more preferable option compared to the Prince(ss) and it would be nice if Cinder(f)ella could get one relationship where their greatest selling point isn’t their looks (but their clever insights and devious mind).
The idea of hopping from fairy tale to fairy tale is quite interesting! I was a little disappointed that one of my favourite English fairy tales (Peter Pan) wasn’t there, but Alice in Wonderland more than makes up for that.
Additionally, I felt somewhat concerned when I saw you mention “Hua Mulan.” Are you planning to base that off of the Disney movie? I know that the original ballad isn’t nearly as popular as the film, but in Classic Disney fashion, I’m afraid the film is pretty inaccurate, especially in regards to historical accuracy. I’d advise staying away from the Disney adaptations, since they’re usually romanticized to high heaven, especially the princess ones (which I always found to be complete rubbish). If I were to offer up any Chinese alternatives to Mulan, I’d say Journey to the West (of course), and the Ten Brothers, which was my favourite Cantonese drama/fairy tale as a child. I think they’re both fairly well known, but being Chinese myself, it might just be because they’re popular in my culture.
Moving on to the discussion about Cinderella: I always thought Cinderella’s original name was Ella? Didn’t the stepsisters just throw “cinder” in there because she was always covered in cinders from sweeping the chimney? So that would make Cinderfella’s name… Fella, lmao. As for the actual tale itself, I never really cared for it. Cinderella and the prince were too Gary Stu/Mary Sue-ish for my preferences, and the fairy godmother deus ex machina didn’t help things in the slightest. The same goes for Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
Looking at your list of ROs, I’m surprised at how many there are ！(◎_◎; ) If you’re planning on having other ROs outside of Cinderella, I’m afraid our MC might just have a harem/reverse harem following them around~ I think everyone has already stated their opinions on the King/Queen romance, and I’m just going to add the animal turned to a human in there because it’s essentially bestiality when it turns back into an animal… but for my two pence, I’m just going to say I’m not going to get all lovey-dovey with some married old coot who already has a son/daughter in their twenties/thirties. Like… nope, not doing it. You gotta draw the line somewhere. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Anyways, I’m just going to throw a few questions out there for you.
Is there a reason that we need to gender flip the characters? Is that to match the MC’s sexuality? Because I honestly dislike gender flipping and if there were less ROs for my MC as a result, then so be it.
2A. If the MC solves the conflict of one fairy tale and decides to go to another one (like I’m assuming most people would do, since it would be a rather short adventure otherwise), do the characters get to follow them?
2B. I mean, if so, then you’ve got a lot of branches to write. It would be easier if you just had a set order of fairy tales for the reader to go through, wouldn’t it? Although that would limit the time the MC could spend with the last story’s characters, creating a problem in and of itself. Frankly speaking, the least complicated thing to do is just write about one fairy tale, but it’s your story, and I’m not going to rain on your parade (any more than I have anyway).
I feel like I’m overanalysing and complicating half of the things in this post, but I really am anticipating this~ I’m afraid I didn’t have much of a childhood so I can’t offer much feedback on some of the fairy tales you plan on incorporating in the story (like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves… I’ve only heard of Ali Baba from Magi e.e), but good luck nonetheless ^^
Ooh, it’s been a while since a game idea got me this intrigued. It’s certainly a big difference from the usual fantasy/superhero/zombie stuff. Super excited for this.
Just another vote for not doing this. For one thing, you’ve listed “Swan Lake” as one of the fairy tales you’ll be basing the story on, and that has literally a dozen canon endings, from “Princess + Prince live happily ever after” to “they both die and the bad guy wins,” and everything in between.
@joyous.ariella On this note- wasn’t the original Cinderella story Chinese? I remember reading that somewhere, but I’m unsure if it’s accurate… Basically what I’m trying to say is that even if some of the popularized versions of fairy tales are European, there actual origins might be different, so it’s something to look into (and something I’d find extremely awesome).
Resolving the conflict in a way that fits the character is a good idea… But some of these fairy tale princesses were INFURIATINGLY naive- like Snow White got tricked by the witch THREE times- first with a comb, then a belt, THEN the apple. And each time the dwarves told her “DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS, NO ONE KNOWS WHERE WE LIVE SO OUR ONLY VISITOR WOULD BE THE EVIL QUEEN!” smh…And I hate the idea of Cinderella just FORGIVING her awful family like she did in the stories, I would want them to understand why they were horrible people, and even after all that, still would not want them living with me because there is no excuse for abusing someone. Your game sounds amazing and awesome and unique, but basically I would love the option to make our MCs strong and independent people, even if that’s not what the original fairy tale character was like (part of the reason I LOOOOVE your title is that’s what it implies).
ALSO- it would be great if- instead of marrying someone we just met, or even have known for a month or two, if the MC could just agree to date them to get to know them better with the intention of marriage later on if everything works out, and that THAT could be considered a happy ending. Also, not sure if this would fit in with your vision, but since we are from the modern age, if our MC could change people’s minds about certain things, particularly respecting the intelligence and independence of women, that would be great. And also that not all women are in competition with each other all the time, the idea that women can be supportive of each other’s goals, etc. Also that outside appearance is not always a reflection of inner beauty, or lack of it (I know that’s not the case with Snow White’s evil step-mother and Quasimodo, but those are generally considered the exceptions to the rules)
Random note- if you established people’s various feelings about being in the world, one of which includes- wow all this magic and stuff is awesome, but WOW I can’t stand the sexism/racism/classism etc, that would be pretty great.
And having the MC with an internal monologue getting irritated about certain things would also be funny, as would having the MC curse and everyone around her being very confused as to what it means since 1. a lot of curse words weren’t around during the time period of the original fairy tale, and 2. They’re fairy tale characters! They probably haven’t been exposed to too much cursing. Also could be the same with modern slang words and stuff- it’d be extra hilarious if some of the characters tried to start using the words too
I was planning to use the original folk tale, not the Disney version. I completely forgot about Journey to the West I will definitely have to use that! I haven’t heard of the Ten Brothers but I’ll look into it
Actually, in the Grimm (German) version her name is Aschenputtel which literally means “ash fool.” It never mentions her actual name. In the Perrault (French) version, we can assume her name was originally Ella but it doesn’t explicitly say it; some literary scholars think that Ella was simply a common name, so saying “Cinderella” would be like saying “Cinder-Jane” lol
Yeah I wanted to do it so that the MC had more RO options, with story line consequences related to which RO is chosen.
The ‘helpful figure’ (ie fairy godmother/father) follows and helps, but others don’t. So if the MC didn’t choose them as an RO then they would be leaving their LI behind to continue the adventure.
Speaking of ROs…
I am taking creative liberties with the story here; the transformed footman would stay in human form lol. As for the king/queen, well, that would deviate from Cinderella’s character and have storyline consequences for the MC.
Decided to make some changes to my original idea based on feedback:
I want to clarify something that a lot of people seem to be overlooking with regards to my idea: the first fairy tale the MC plays through will be based on the character they are most like. If they are most like Cinderella, then they are kind, naive, dependent, hard working, etc. The way to be successful is to play in a style that matches the character. So let’s say Cinderella ends up marrying the prince… but decides to shun her family. That would NOT be playing to Cinderella’s character, and it wouldn’t solve the conflict in her story, so it would be game over.
However, if the MC is NOT matched to Cinderella, then they would play through the fairytale in an entirely different way. They wouldn’t even be Cinderella. But they would have to try and resolve the conflict in a way that fits their character. And perhaps hook up with someone along the way
Just wanted to thank everyone for the marvelous feedback and suggestions. I definitely needed direction for this project and I am so grateful to have such a wonderful community that answered my thread DAY OF! WOW!
I have already made some changes based on the feedback I have received. If it pleases you, please read the original post, as I have edited it to reflect these changes
Something I’ve been thinking about from reading this thread is character development; not so much on the MC’s part but for the other characters of each individual fairytale. Like with Cinderella’s family and the whole forgiveness thing. Expecting the MC, or Cinderella for that matter, to forgive Cinderella’s family would be wholly unrealistic unless there was significant reasons and here are a few that I thought of:
A) The family had acknowledged what they had been doing to that point was wrong and we’re apologizing/attempting to make amends.
B) There was character development on the family’s part that showed that perhaps there was deeper reasoning behind their abuse (not that it excuses the abuse of course) and then let’s the MC explore this new depth to these characters.
I’ve been focusing a lot on Cinderella but the point of this is that if you were struggling to make certain situations more believable or to make certain options more personal/emotional/difficult/memorable for the player it might be simplified depending on the way you developed the characters.
I hope this helps in some way! (and doesn’t come across as too pushy or condescending!)
This idea of going trough several different fairy tales seems really interesting, a lot of work also. Good luck.
Also calling Journey to the West a fairy tale seems a bit of a stretch to me, like calling three kingdoms one. But hey i’m all for more chinese stuff coming to western audiences.
I am planning to do more character development, so that the actions of the step family are a bit more morally ambiguous. In one of the renditions of Cinderella (I forget which off the top of my head), it’s actually the step father that is forcing Cinderella to work as a kitchen maid, because he can’t afford three dowries and he wants the best possible matches for his birth daughters. I may take a note from that story; I also like the rendition of the “Ever After” Cinderella, where the step mom is similarly trying to get her daughters good marriages because they have no money. I’ll play around with it
New question: should I use the myers-briggs framework for the character archetypes? Might be interesting to do a little quiz that relates the player to a prince/princess/hero/heroine based on that. Of course, it wouldn’t be nearly as long as the actual test. The two reasons I shy away from that are 1) it would take a while to fit in the questions in the context of the story, and do it in an interesting way, and 2) because I have taken it myself and I always get labeled an extrovert - but I’m not. I’m friendly and not afraid to socialize, but I can’t socialize for very long without being utterly exhausted and wishing to be by myself lol. So in short, it somewhat puts people in boxes. But for the sake of simplicity, it might be nice… because things like this exist. Thoughts?
You should take a look at the visual novel Cinders if you can. It does a lot of this playing around with the Cinderella story and you might get some good ideas from it. Also, it’s just really fun.
As for the Myers-Briggs question I think it’s too easy to cheat on those tests. I think a better personality test, so to speak, would be seeing what people actually do in scenarios in a “prologue” section or something, depending on what your stats end up being. But it’s your story/game! You do what works best for it.
I think using the myers-briggs way is a great idea, especially if it helps you simplify things while still allowing for character complexity. However if you wanted you could use the sanguine, melancholic, choleric, and phlegmatic to show how people perceive the MC while using the myers-briggs test to show the MC’s inner-self or vice versa!
