Seven Kingdoms, The Princess Problem

Off-Topic Other Interactive Fiction
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@idonotlikeusernames

Yeah, I know what you were saying.

What was the biggest? (I’ve a goldfish memory.) I would absolutely love a male playthrough, especially if you’re not forced to play a straight character.

@Aly I beg to differ about spoilers :slight_smile: There’s some very big clues as to who doesn’t end up dead on the kickstarter page. Unless we’re getting epilogues with ghosts? Are we?

Congratulations on the amount of money you’ve raised so far.

I was wondering, have you looked into the character creator that Magical Diary used? I’m not sure exactly how Papillon did it, but she lets you create characters with customised appearances, and they somehow also appear that way in the cgs. I’m not saying that you should implement that, well unless you plan to have it as a 30K/50K stretch goal. (Whatever sum that could cover the cost of the artwork, as well as the coding.) Only that allowing for a vast customised appearance of the main character, and CGs is actually possible. I’ll admit to marvelling at that when I played, and also now googling for cgs I’m genuinely surprised at some of the artistic shortcuts she took which I didn’t notice while playing. Of course I’ve admittedly not played much visual novels so I’ve no idea if that’s actually a common thing.

Edit: Aha! I see from the tumblr you’re planning everything to just be from first person perspective so looking through the protagonist eyes so no need to do this.

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Male MC is not yet a stretch goal, but the way this thing is going maybe it could be the 30/50k stretch goal?
It would definitely need to be released as an expansion pack some months after the rest of the game though, if @Aly wants to meet the April deadline. But yes I, for one would, LOVE to attempt to pursue Lisle, or one of the cute purple-eyed male (such as Jasper) natives with a male MC.

It’s more likely that the male MC will be an option in the prequel game, Kingmaker. Unfortunately if I have to speculate, it seems likely that in Kingmaker we’re servants (or very minor nobles in name only) instead of being nobles of any status ourselves.

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@idonotlikeusernames I’d love to see that in a prequel/sequel. I think this game has just not been designed with a male character in mind. It’d take too much alterations, far, far too much work to stick one in. And I suspect a deadline beyond April. It wouldn’t be as simple as sticking in an additional background.

Also, I don’t think Lisle would be up for being pursued. There’s a lot spoken about him on the tumblr, about his preferences. He never puts himself first, he’s very self-sacrificing. His Kingdom and Penelope, are his top priorities. He needs an alliance marriage for the stability of his Kingdom, and he can only marry a woman. Even if he was to fall madly in love with someone, I suspect he’d just go nope. Yeah here and here and here look like the most relevant posts, although you could look through the whole tag. I suspect if he did end up having a crush on someone, he’d just end up doing everything he could to avoid contact with them.

Still, if I was doing fanfiction, (and ignoring the tumblr posts that say he never would) to set Lisle up with a male character, I’d do it before the summit, while he’s still working out who he is, a childhood friend, an awkward crush, and a friendship that would end up with said friend being pushed away, because I just can’t see him doing anything else. Although I do wonder, he’s gossiped about enough, that he’s not interested in women, in a way that the other characters who’ve not been with women aren’t. So I do wonder, did something happen? Or is it just because he’s actually told people, since he tells you, the matchmaker, his parents, and Woodley also knows.

If I was writing fanfiction, (which I don’t, I just write really bad fan-poetry sometimes) I’d more likely do it after he’s married and once he’s a lot older, and had plenty of time to watch his wife be discrete about her own affairs and for them not to destroy the kingdom. I think either way, it’d be friendship first and one with a really solid foundation.

But at the summit itself, I just can’t see him doing anything but being painfully polite, and doing everything he can to avoid a character he was attracted to.

Of course I may be wrong! So very wrong!

There’s other characters who’re bi though, apparently. WHO besides the women???

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Which would, ironically, make him more of a challenge for certain types of potential male MC’s.
Nobody said such a “romance” would need to have a happy ending…but I could see a potential male MC with a very high manipulation stat and very high likeability wear him down enough for, perhaps one romantic encounter. It would likely not have a classical happy ending afterwards, on that much I agree with you.

Duke Lyon might be…or more accurately Duke Lyon might be open for a romance with anyone both intelligent enough and persistent enough to break through the barriers he puts up. Gender might be a secondary concern to him, when it comes to potential romance.

The only other one of the delegates we currently know, who I could see potentially going for a man would be Jarrod. But since Jarrod is the kind of jerk who is entitled enough to believe he has the right take what he wants when he wants I couldn’t see any potential male MC of mine putting up with him anymore than a female one.

Other possibilities could be Jasper and/or Jasper’s male rival. Vail Isle natives apparently live quite long lives and as such also have more time for any bi-curiosity to manifest (assuming this world goes with a Kinsey was right interpretation of human sexuality).

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Well, it was bound to happen… It was love at first sight and I’ve finally lost my Kickstarter virginity.

Backed and quietly cheering from the sidelines. :smile:

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@SwanMaiden Thank you so much :two_hearts:

@idonotlikeusernames Yes it is!

@FairyGodfeather Oh, gosh, you are right! I didn’t even think about that :blush: (I wouldn’t put ghost epilogues out of the question though mwahaha)

I know that Hanako/Papillion actually uses a custom version of Ren’py to do their stuff, not the straight up normal version. (Plus they have two very capable programmers on the team)

But because the game is in first person perspective, I don’t think I’ll be adding the MC to any CGs. (It was originally put in first person so that the MC didn’t have to have a sprite haha and now it ensures it!)

But there is a stretch goal for semi-customizable MC silhouettes on your profile page :smile:

Yeah, any m/m romance with Lisle would not be the happy ever after kind. I’m not sure people would actually enjoy a route like that.

Hi @Nao Aww thank you so much! I appreciate it :sparkling_heart:

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Some would say in romance, just like the rest of life, it’s the journey that makes it all worthwhile.

Can’t wait to test it!

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I’d like to express this: CONGRATULATIONS on the kickstarter launch!!! :smiley: Now, to go check it out…

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I’ve not posted here before but I got super excited reading through the kickstarter and couldn’t stop myself from backing. :heart_eyes: Congratulations @Aly on the successful launch and I would just like to say how madly in love I am with the game. Truly amazing :heart: Thank you!

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@Aly Backed it as well, and it’s all you’re fault :wink:
I hope you’ll use my $ [ERROR: Data not found] well.

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@Shawn_Patrick_Reed Thank you so much! :grin:

@AJ_ Thank you :two_hearts:

@EmbricCrowspear I’m sorry! (Not sorry?) Thank you so much! I will certainly do my best :blush:

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I don’t know if anyone has inquired about this yet, but are you planning on altering the relationship bars so that they also portray numbers like they do for skills and knowledge? Because it bugs me when I can’t exactly tell if two options make any difference other than dialogue. :neutral_face:

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Backed the Kickstarter for $10. Not a lot, but I hope it helps. I enjoyed the demo. =)

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About the male MC in the prequel, I hope that even if this kickstarter doesn’t quite reach $75000 you’ll at least consider adding as a stretch goal again, if and when you decide to do one for the prequel.

Or hopefully this game sells well enough that you can just afford to do so regardless of kickstarter. While gaming in general has been guilty of being male centric (though not for us gay males) the VN genre, excepting harem games has always been the exception, and we could use more quality VN’s with male protagonists.

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Hi @RagEgnite There are no plans to add numbers to any stat that doesn’t currently have them. That being said I am hoping to make the relationship bars bigger/clearer/easier to read so it’s not so frustrating :smile:

Hi @Jenna_V Every bit helps! Thank you so much :two_hearts:

Hi @idonotlikeusernames Yup, I will definitely consider it regardless of the stretch goal (the stretch goal only guarantees it.) It’s all about having enough resources to make what will essentially be two interconnected games in one.

It’s definitely true that there aren’t nearly enough games that let you play as a gay man, but there was recently a VN/dating game for gay men that did really well. Hopefully it’s success will expand the genre!

(And I’m hoping I won’t have to do any more kickstarters after this one. But if I do end up doing one for the Prequel, having the male route will 100% be one of the main stretch goals.)

To everyone:

We just went up on greenlight http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=497047527

Votes, comments and spreading the word is super appreciated! 7KPP has lots of international fans who have told me steam is the #1 way they can access games, so I’m really hoping it will get greenlit

Thanks guys! :sparkling_heart:

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Yep, I believe you mean “Coming Out on Top”. Very enjoyable game, backed that one too. However it focuses more on all sorts of delicious and explicit naughtiness and doesn’t have your custom worldbuilding/universe. http://obscurasoft.com/

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Yup that’s the one!

I meant that now that that game has proven there’s definitely an audience more developers will make games with gay men as the target audience :slight_smile: (Or at least an included/valued audience!)

A lot of games stay the same because developers are afraid that unless they make it to the known audience it will fail. So hopefully now they are all proven wrong and there’s more content for everyone!

(Kind of like how Otome games are starting to develop a bigger and bigger market as they do well enough to prove worth the risk to some developers.)

But that’s one of the most awesome things about CoG is they (usually) don’t assume what you as the player are and so everyone gets to play :slight_smile:

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Wow, I loved the demo! I am usually not interested in stories about princesses, but the complexity of your stat system blew me away. The moment I failed in challenge mode, I started to carefully build my character just like in classic rpgs. Needless to say, now I am hooked.

Backed the kickstarter and can’t wait to find out how the Prince Jarrod “romance” will continue. Thank you for creating such an engaging story!

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@Aly, congrats on being funded and then some with still so much time to spare! I look forward to when the game comes out(will definitely have a new computer to play it with by then).

Um, also, I forget if this was asked and answered… Do you have any plans to make versions for iPod/Pad/Phone and Android?

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I know of one more possible backer reward or general extra, cute forum avatars/portraits like yours.