Being the noble of a manor has its perks: you can enjoy feasts, fine entertainment, and even correspondence chess games with the king himself. Of course, there are many responsibilities that come with ruling over a castle and countryside too. You must keep ambitious bandits in check; hold court and consider your subjects’ many requests and problems; and navigate a complex political world where making one group happy often means making another discontent.
Yet no one ever prepared you for being haunted by a mysterious demon, or contending with a group of new radicals called anarchists. The demon seems intent on terrorizing you into adopting her own moral code, and the anarchists will never be content until they’ve toppled feudal society, starting with your own humble manor. Will you defeat your enemies first, or will they send your world crumbling down around you? Or, stranger yet, will you come to sympathize with their goals?
The Cruel Guardians is an epic interactive fantasy novel by Samuel Young, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
Play as Lord, Lady, or Noble; romance whoever you want. You’re the ruler, after all!
Romance a sly spymaster; a witty servant; a clever advisor; a chivalrous general; a passionate fire priest; or even the anarchist who wants to overthrow feudal society, including you.
Rule over your subjects with sympathy, pragmatism, or an iron fist.
Strive to maintain your sanity, and order in your domain as a demon tries to make you see things her way: voluntarily, or forcibly.
Attempt to crush the anarchist revolution that’s simmering just below the surface, or discard your feudal loyalties altogether and join forces with them.
I noticed that our relationship with the demon increases almost every time we’re nice to animals and eat food without animal products, so now I picture her as That Vegan Teacher.
To the less technical part, I adore the characters. Jester is wonderfully cunning yet plays fool way too well sometimes. Priest is decent and pious fellow. Flai is absolutely wonderful to play with and I hope she’s romanceable. Amount of different options and ways to slowly shape the main character via the incremental choices is amazing. And this demon satyr? is quite wonderful even if I only got to speak in the latest chapter before the end.
Around what era of feudalism is the game supposed to take place in? It will probably influence my views of the anarchs quite a lot since a lot of their demands were literally not logistically, economically or physically possible during the early days of feudalism.
Also it’s funny how both your character and Emyla’s debate doesn’t actually touch on what’s actually most important for the people: Which system would be better at not having them starve.
