Return to Zemia (WIP - updated 25 March)

Okay I think I have a new Sammy ask. A male mc asking Sammy to teach him how drive/handle one of those cool hovercars (as well as the Seyvian rules of the road/sky), which I guess may or may not lead to a more thorough exploration of the backseat too.

It’s not that hard. And I think the cool hovercars would be one thing my mc would like to get to toy with. So he’d probably bug Arvin and Sammy, maybe even Kaya until one of them agrees to teach him. But he’d prefer Sammy for obvious reasons. :wink:

Hmm, I’ll have to think about this one. I have never learned to drive! Maybe I’ll watch Top Gear for inspiration haha

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I hadn’t intended to release another update today, but I thought it would be best to make sure the kinks have been worked out of this section before moving on. The addition is about 2000 words–the entire council scene. I’ve also hopefully worked out a few bugs.

There are now interactive options in this section of the game, and the plan now is to move on to the new content. The next update should finish off chapter two and will include a new branch!

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I like the new interactive council scene. Besides the fact there’s more choices, it helps expand my MC’s views and attitude toward the whole situation. Right now they’re going to play along… although we’ll see what happens in the chapters to come.

Also, I really like the idea of the arranged marriage plot, although I don’t think I’ll be romancing them first. :relaxed:

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Thank you!

I’m curious who’s most popular! Perhaps a poll?

  • Arvin
  • Hasan
  • Jin
  • Samir
  • V even tho I don’t know them
0 voters
  • Carina
  • Kaya
  • Lia
  • Yusra
  • V even tho I don’t know them
0 voters

Why Sammy of course. Sammy is cute, fashionable and funny. I mean Arvin is cute and all, but my mc can get the hint that he’s not going to get anywhere with our notoriously fastidious colonel.
Although he has his reservations about Sammy as well. Since he knows cute, young billionaire diplomats don’t, as a rule, date gay elementary school teachers even young, fit and good-looking ones and should ordinarily be out of his league. Yes, my mc can figure out they probably do date (crown) princes, but the thing is the mc is obviously just a clumsy imposter and pretender and not a real prince. So, therefore, the question remains what Sammy might want with him? Does he want to use the mc to become the de-facto emperor eventually or are we just going to be another notch on his belt for bragging rights?

Or you simply have a far larger straight female fanbase. As Arvin is one of the restricted ro’s. I mean I still like Sammy better, but if he weren’t exclusively straight I’d probably have done a playthrough for Arvin too. At the moment, for both Arvin and Carina I am curious about their more platonic friendship paths tho.

Edit, I do think my prince mc would be highly likely to turn into a big fan of a Zemian Top Gear or Grand Tour equivalent. :grin:

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Apparently not! I have to admit I am surprised. But I suppose we all love the dark and broody types.

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Unless this real life. :blush:

:fox_face:

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I’ve really enjoyed this demo so far, great job! :heart_eyes:

Thank you so much :blush:

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I am not a real fan that we have to be a teacher god that is a terrible job.

Well, think of it this way, the prince gig just became a lot more potentially attractive to your mc then, eh?
With our new Earth job, it is also certainly a potentially more attractive career option to my mc than what he left behind, assuming of course he can learn how to a decent job and integrate well enough without needing to rely on that chip or over-rely on advisers.

Anyway highschool teacher is not so bad, at least in this country. Of course I may be slightly biased as one of my real-life best friends transitioned into that but then he became a highschool physical education teacher. Which, given how much of a health and fitness nut I envision my mc in this game as being might have been his own aspiration when he thought to become a teacher too.
But elementary school, those kids are vicious monsters who cannot be reasoned with. Teenagers can be moody and have their quirks, but at least they can often times be reasoned with.

As for an ask, any chance of a short of male mc, Sammy and Arvin watching Zemia’s equivalent of the Grand Tour/Top Gear together with hilarious comments?

Edit, some guys on Youtube have apparently already made a parody of a space-age Clarkson equivalent.

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Some of us enjoy it! But that’s why I included an opportunity for the MC to decide how they feel about their job. And in any case, this isn’t what the game’s really about :slight_smile:

That would definitely be easier than researching how to drive for the other request lol. Let me chew on it a while

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Yep, Arvin and Sammy’s reaction at prince mc finding a Zemian show he really likes and seeing what that show is and is about.
Of course my mc still very much wants to learn how to drive himself, but maybe that is something that can go on in the background. As long as my poor mc gets to actually pilot/drive one of those sweet, sweet hovercars sometime. :grin:

Hmm…if we choose it for our mc might love of hovercars/vehicles actually be an affection our eldest, deceased brother, Yegor shared? As he did die in a highly suspicious “(hover)car accident”?

Yusra does know her tech, but I would have thought that Arvin might actually be the most logical choice to teach mc’s who want to learn it how to drive/pilot in the background as he is more often at the palace and likely has unfettered access to its garage/hangar and vehicle pool. :thinking:
But whoever wants to teach him my mc will take it. Just remember that my mc, like most people, would want to start with learning how to drive/pilot, not how to build a hovercar from scratch himself.

Also will we get to define our mc height somewhere? As I figure this might be important in the ro scenes later on and I kinda want my male mc to be able to at least look Sammy in the eyes.

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I’ve actually been thinking about this since your original request, and I’m not going to make any promises, but it would make sense to add this (somewhere, sometime, not ch1-2) as a scene with Yusra. Again, no promises, but it can’t hurt to think out loud, right?

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I just had a thought – could one of the options for what we think about our job be something like “this is a simply a step toward becoming a professor/working in academia/etc”?

I feel like an option like that would accomplish a few things – it’d give an option where the MC knows what they want even if this particular job isn’t it (as right now choosing the last three options conveys the MC doesn’t really know what they want), that ambition would be another possible reason for why the MC might not want to leave Earth, and while still being a teacher, I think the idea of “professor” has more leeway as to what the MC could be doing in the future.

Just a thought, though, as like you said this isn’t what the game is really about. :relaxed:

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Yefim is the oldest, but he didn’t have any particular love of cars. It was an ordinary accident, though conspiracy theories swirl around it in Seyvia. You will learn a small fact about Yegor that concerns cars in the next update if you make the right choices, but I won’t reveal what

There will be no building of hover cars in the game period, I think I can say. I wouldn’t begin to know how to write a scene like that, and I’m planning to mostly stick to what I know rather than make things more complicated for myself

I’ve thought about including this, and I’m probably not going to, but never say never. In general I dont think I’ll be adding any other physical customization, but I’ve also been careful not to use height cues in conversation. If I write that the MC looks up (or down) at someone, it’s because they’re sitting (or standing if they look down) or because they looked down and then back up. Some authors who are more talented (or at least more ambitious) than myself have customized scenes for height, but I think I’d just rather avoid mentioning it altogether and allow players to head cannon it, and I don’t want to include a choice that will never be brought up again

I definitely don’t mind adding it–it can’t hurt, right? It does add a bit of nuance/an in between for someone who wants to be a teacher but doesn’t want to stay a teacher. Consider it part of the next update

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Just asking, because if it’s Yusra, well she seems like the type to have actually designed and built her own car and she can get a little over-enthusiastic, if the ship scene is anything to go on. By the way could still choose her romance options as male mc yesterday.

Okay, then I’ll headcanon my preference of tall for my mc and let you know should you slip up with the height cues in a scene. :grin:

Okay you’ve aroused my curiosity.

Assuming we’re going to stay in our current palace suite long enough I wonder if either Arvin or Sammy would get my prince mc something like this poster once they find out that he likes the Seyvian Grand Tour equivalent?

Speaking of the bare walls of the mc’s suite and given the fact that the mc’s phone may have the only memories/keepsakes they have of their old life on it. I wonder if we can persuade one of the others, probably Kaya, Sammy or Hasan (as they seem the most sentimental) to help us get some of those pictures (particularly if our Earth parents/family) printed and framed, so we can use some of them to decorate the bare walls in the mc’s suite?

Only if you want to add it of course and only for mc who want it. But I figured making a few tiny alterations to the mc’s living quarters could potentially make it feel a lot more like “home” and allow the mc to finally exert a tiny bit of control over their surroundings.

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When I playtest it, it doesn’t show up as an option for a m!mc, but I’ve changed the code, so it should be fixed???

The MC doesn’t have their phone anymore! Just the locket

Soon, I think it’ll be chapter 4, the MC won’t really be seeing their palace room much anymore, so if something like this gets added, it’llbe toward the end of the game

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So, presumably Yusra has it then, or did they leave it behind on purpose?

Okay, it’s fixed for me now.

Aww…poor mc. So they’ve really got nothing at all to remind them of Earth anymore. :cry: