The Day After Ever After: A Cinderella Story (First draft entirely complete as of 7/10/22, latest update 8/7/22! Word count is 207,342 including commands. Releasing 11/3/22!)

[hustlertwo]

Once again I lament not turning on the thing that shows voters in a poll, so I can who it is that persists in tormenting me with this Pie option. Show yourselves, you cowards!

As requested…Pie. The most appropriate thing seemed like making it a character that was completely randomized, so I used a die roller for the trait and perk (a curious combo, since it means some stats could get trained two over the max. The morale penalty for Dingus Savant could be dangerous, though) and just closed my eyes and mashed the button a lot for every clothing and physical characteristic.

[hustlertwo]

The beginning: Wherein Cinderella, The Prince, Fiji and a random idiot attempt to reach Canada in 15 days.

How this will work: I will not replace any of our Four Jerks with other recruits that pop up on the road, UNLESS one of them dies. Then their spot on the roster is free to anyone from Garfield to Link. I will make easy or obvious decisions to keep this from taking forever, but will put certain calls to y’all to make.

Day 1: Building Something from Nothing

Our motley crew starts out with a goodly amount of extra medical supplies thanks to Cinderella’s Nurturing nature. However, most modes in this game only have two characters at start, so one issue in Four Jerks is keeping this crew fed. They will eat 8 food each day, and if they don’t get it morale will drop fast.

First looting event is a rest stop.

It goes well, more food than usual for this early in the game. Plus we get some weapons, which is vital since only the Prince started with anything worthwhile (his hatchet does decent damage and is unbreakable). Cinderella began with an umbrella, which broke immediately, and both Fiji and Pie began emptyhanded. Pie’s choice of weapon is a…bit unorthodox, and both that spine and the knife are still breakable, but it’s better than nothing.

Chopping wood builds strength and makes everyone else happier with the fire, so we let our favorite fae do it. He has a higher ceiling for Strength due to Hidden Potential and his morale can take the hit for staying up. Being tired will make him useless in a fight tomorrow, but there’s still strength in numbers. Good first day.

Day 2: Throwing a Supplies Party

Easy choice for where to loot: our party is full so we don’t need to rescue a pet to join. Camp supplies stores usually have a small bit of food, gas, and maybe a decent weapon or two. Nothing awesome like a chainsaw, but a second hatchet gives us our third unbreakable weapon, and a rusty machete does great damage until it eventually shatters. Loot is unremarkable, but our royals are not too proud to find items in toilets and at least that’s a little more gas to keep the car moving. Death comes swiftly in this game when you have to walk.

Normally this guy hurts your morale with his sizzling rants, but the Prince is charming enough to talk him down. All goes well, until…

This was a surprising reveal. Most stats are randomized unless influenced by nature or perks, and it appears this version of Cinderella is an inveterate thief! She pilfers the poor old guy’s stuff, enriching the group but clearly bumming them out with her bad behavior. Going to have to see if she gets us into trouble down the line.

As punishment, she gets to be the one siphoning gas tonight for this event. She’ll be tired, but that’s what you get for robbing the elderly.

Day 3: Under Siege

A doom-stricken sort of day. First we are asked who we can trust not to sell the group out to bandits. Who indeed? Clearly not Cinderella, with her loyalty score of 0.

The Prince gets us through, and we move on in decent shape. Next we come to a trader camp. As much as I would like to put what we do at these to a vote, I cannot; if the app closes down in a trader camp, when you reload the save it just continues on as if you already left the trader. With 21 food and nothing great to buy, all we do is try to charm some free shooting training for The Prince.

It works! He is now a tolerable shot. We only have one pistol and no shotguns or rifles. Hopefully we can find some guns later, especially if we can find a gamechanging weapon like the Uzi or assault rifle.

Cinderella’s dog charm works wonders, but we are full so we send the pup away.

We get our first Siege, an unavoidable event that happens a couple times during each run. We must survive for an hour against a large horde of undead, with more popping in periodically.

We make it out unscathed, and as with all sieges get to pick a reward. Group morale is low after Cinderella’s larceny, so we pick the random skill bump and morale uptick.

As is appropriate for such a hard luck day, our nighttime event is a bad one. We have to run out fast to avoid fire, and if we pick the wrong person to oversee escape we will have to leave some supplies behind.

Prince continues to be our MVP, and we go into day 4.

Day 4: Books or Bandages?

The day begins with some luck. This event can lead to morale loss or even injuries if you end the group in together and someone spooks, but the Prince has high Composure and keeps his cool long enough to get some food. Starvation is pushed a little further down the road.

Now, the first reader choice: should we loot a medical clinic for more medicine and possibly a First Aid Spray (allows for healing during combat instead of just between events), or go to a Bookstore? Loot at a Bookstore is very poor, but you get at least one and possibly two books, which will increase the skill level for all party members by one in whatever skill you get the book for. If it is Medical or Mechanical, not that helpful (only one party member really needs to be high in those), but Strength, Fitness or (to a lesser extent) Shooting often benefit from everyone getting a bump there.

Please check Day 4 for the first decision to be made by y’all, the readers. Post your preference between looting a Medical Clinic or a Bookstore below.

Okay, that was not a popular segment, so we’ll just do the super short version:

There were some tight scrapes, especially for poor Pie, but thanks to some awesome swords and an Uzi they made it to Canada.

[hustlertwo]

As I write the ninth chapter, which is the last major one before the wrap up and epilogue that will be chapter ten, I am also going back and tightening things up a bit so it won’t take as long to do my edits before submission. One thing I have meant to do for some time was get more preset first names for the Prince and Cinderella. If you have any suggestions you would like to see included, now’s the time.

Also, a poll. Because that’s how we roll. If you I want to elaborate on the choice in a post below, feel free, but mainly I just want to see who needs the most work. A few things I am considering is being a bit more specific as to how everyone looks; I like the blank slate approach, leaves the imagination more leeway. But I am getting the feeling that is not as popular for the general readership so it might need to change. I have already done it with Ilya and Savith when you first meet them, and am considering it for everyone else too.

Also pondering if Savith should pop up briefly before the meeting in town, maybe as a part-time guard for Cinderella in previous segments. It wouldn’t change when he could be romanced but would at least flesh him out a bit.

Without further ado, here is the poll:

Who is your favorite romantic interest?

• The Prince!
• Cinderella!
• Lady Emmalyn Spire!
• Ingmar Rostrum!
• Ilya Norudkov!
• Corporal Savith Aronius!
• Pie!

[expectedoperator]

@hustlertwo

Also pondering if Savith should pop up briefly before the meeting in town, maybe as a part-time guard for Cinderella in previous segments.

I think both Savith and Ilya could use more appearances before and after the meeting in town but before chapter eight – while Ilya is more connected to the plot right now, both of them only get that one introduction before the player can decide if they are the “main love interest” and actually have another scene with them (and that’s if the player doesn’t have the banquet and chooses that option to stop affairs of state for the day). This is even more sudden when you then compare the pacing of Lady Emmalyn and Ingmar’s interactions, who have their introduction, the second meeting during the stepmother’s visit, the third meeting during the MC’s day off, and then the “main love interest” scene.

[versanius]

Will there be a battle scene when the MC trying to take the throne ?

[hustlertwo]

I’ll hopefully be working on that very thing in a few days. Many paths lead to a big battle, though I will try to introduce a couple options to avoid it for those who can manage it.

[hustlertwo]

Since I will likely not have my beloved Steam achievement data on this one based on its intended release plan, I’ll have to get some data from y’all now. One big one as I start writing the endgame is to know who the primary MC is here. Which one do you play as more/prefer to play as: the prince, the princess, both about the same? I put Pie in there even though there really isn’t an Other option here, because I am bound by the old laws.

• Cinderella/The Princess!
• The Prince!
• Both of them equally!
• Pie!

[HappyPotato]

I just picked this up again, and it is soooo brilliant.

Firstly, it is so well written! I’m very critical and keep noticing typos but I found none. Okay, I found maybe two coding errors but I was having so much fun and laughing my butt off that I forgot to take screenshots. But both involved the scene in the bedchamber with the prince and the Fey at the end of our day off. It seems we mostly refer to the Fey creature as an it, but there were a couple "he"s thrown in there. And when I ask to be made more honest as a boon, instead of the prince and the Fey becoming disappointed, it’s Cinderella and the Fey who look disappointed. Sorry if this was no help!

I just ended up taking screenshots of random passages that made me laugh out extra loud, like this one:

Ahahahaaha why is the King so hilarious? In my first playthrough, I played as a straightlaced MC, but now I’m doing another one where I’m a real dick and it’s so much fun! The prince still loves Cinderella but God, the king hates her guts. I’m guessing that’s the playthrough where I’ll be wresting control from his useless hands and take over, provided I don’t die first. In the meantime, I keep hitting replay because all the weird and hilarious scenarios are too wonderful to not read!

And now I will catch up on all the other posts because I have no idea what’s going on, but I still very much wanted to express my appreciation, even if it ended up being vague and rambling!

Also did anyone actually get stuck with their step mom actually becoming their mom in law? Seems like a rough deal. I lost all my honesty points to have her thrown in the dungeon for purloining the dead queen’s jewellery, and I have zero regrets.

[hustlertwo]

Praise, in-depth feedback AND some good bugfix catches? Be still my heart. You have made a rough day better, cheerful tater. I will say I think part of why Rod has such horrible things to say about Cinderella is there’s so many fun ways to run down someone about being poor in olden speech between what actually existed and what novelists have invented. Society really didn’t like them some poor people (still don’t, ha ha) and the language shows it. Get to throw out some quality War of the Lions sorts of barbs.

I’ll try to get those pronoun slips and such resolved soon, and might make an update with the chapter in progress just to back it up as much as anything else. It’s a whopper, 20,000 words deep and no end in sight. Still just ramping up to the big showdown (although I did take a couple days and work on bad endings from when you lose it, which was nice. If I had known how fun it was to kill readers off I would have been doing this from the beginning).

I hope the rest will similarly delight you when it is done, and feel free to share some of your other screenshots! Good to know which lines are hitting home the hardest.

[Q2Arithmetic]

This looks very interesting. By the way, while playing the demo, I noticed Fiji seem to think that Cinderella is the Prince, while I’m playing that role, during the first meeting.

[AkaneTheAssassin]

There was a lot of legitimately funny parts in here I appreciated. My favorite was when my Cinderella stated the particularly-hairy king was looking “especially regal” that morning. I really like the Prince as a love interest too. He really likes my Cinderella and I like that he truly values time spent on the relationship. I also enjoyed how hard he laughs during moments where the King gets made fun of. I’ll keep an eye out for more updates. Looks fun so far!

[backspaceshift]

How do I meet Ilya the second time?

[hustlertwo]

When you are ruling while the king seeks the Contract, take the option to spend time with your love interest.

@AkaneTheAssassin Thanks! I try to keep it light, no matter how dark the story gets. Even drama needs to occasionally be undercut by a good ribbing.

@Q2Arithmetic I will keep an eye out for that, seems like that area is full of bugs.

[HappyPotato]

Wow, so I’m back again after doing a million replays and this post will be long. But first,

@AkaneTheAssassin

I also enjoyed how hard he laughs during moments where the King gets made fun of.

The Prince is just so wholesome and sweet all round that I simply cannot foresee myself ever being able to not romance him. Like, he seems to have absolutely zero flaws? How is this possible? Not since my daughter in The Parenting Simulator and little sister in Light Years Apart have I cared this deeply about a family member.

Anyways, back to my main feedback. I love love LOVE the different reactions of the Prince and Cinderella to things. When Cinderella told the Prince (after the sob story involving him being unable to dress himself) that the problem was him wearing too many clothes and propositioned him, he was a bit bummed but overall receptive to her advances, and yet if the prince says something similar to Cinderella, she gets mighty pissed and stomps her foot and stuff. I also love that while both of them manage to make the egg thing work, only Cinderella actually carried around a boiled egg and the Prince just ate it raw. (And any disgust I may have felt was quickly wiped away by that really cute troutella joke.)

It’s almost impossible to be mean to the Prince! I had to give him the very stupid and immature nickname reserved for my most hated ex to even be able to select the mean options. It’s fascinating how much he changes if you treat him cruelly! I was actually worried he’d have us killed by Fiji when granted that boon so phew, glad he just ended up giving it to us sarcastically instead!

Speaking of names and nicknames, I adore the fact that all of the suggested names have a few remarks to go with them. My favourite was Aloysius, followed by Edward. But can we really not nickname our own spouse? I love nicknames! I wish we could keep calling the king K-Rod or Hot Rod all the time instead of just once.

In the playthrough where my Cinderella is evil, I named her Cruella and built up a backstory where she was horrible to her step mom and step sisters and then spun these lies to paint them as villains. Also, just like the OG Cinderella, she’s great with clothes, but instead of seeking the assistance of little critters and birds in the stitching process, she murders them in cold blood to get to their fur and feathers.

In keeping with the theme, I actually had the soldiers kill the panda bear and … no, just no. That scene was so depressing. The fact that it put up a fight was even more depressing! Somehow the panda banquet was less horrible? Because it was just so over the top and farcical? But killing him hurt. So much that I abruptly stopped playing and didn’t take on the game again for a few days. :-((

Also speaking of animals, I looove the fact that our dear Cinderella once had a horse named Penelope as a kid and, when given a pony as a boon by Fiji, chooses to name the pony Penelope as well! She may not be ingenious, but she’s so damn sweet and I adore her! (Not as much as I adore the Prince too, for whom I would legit kill or be killed, like the stats page says.)

I had an easier time being a jerk when playing as the Prince, given that he’s largely been a blank slate in most Cinderella stories and we’ve focussed more on how kind and dutiful she is. It was hard to be mean to her - as hard as kicking a dog but not as hard as killing a panda - but being rude to the king was easy peasy. It helped that he said shit like this:

(Fair but don’t be a jerk to your heir, man.)

And also this:

Omg K-Rod is going DOWN for insulting my wife like this and for presuming we do it missionary style like boring mfs.

So far, I’ve loved all the early endings, especially the one where our plan to run off with Mortimer and sell weapons to other kingdoms backfires spectacularly! But I really, really hope that being able to oversee the army of gun toting soldiers will come in handy. And I wonder if having Fiji’s favour might help?

Re: Fiji, I found the place where I found the male pronoun! It’s when it turns into an old man to tell us about the contract and the sentence, I think, is “causing Old Man Fiji to tap his staff on the floor…” Also totally love the fact that it calls us “Humie” in such a derogatory fashion and then has the gall to get offended when we refer to the fae as “you people”.

Also… Did you call the opening lines to Don’t Stop Believing “shoddy rhyming”?

Mr Knightley disapproves.

(Also can anyone tell me what the Prince says instead of those words? Or is Detroit the name of the kingdom’s capital? I would be so pleased if it were! Even more pleased than when Cinderella names the new pony Penelope.)

Errors I Spotted

*they?

I thought it should be “crafty” but am defo not sure.

Should be *prince.

She’s supposed to be addressing the Prince here, not herself.

*complimenting (I think)

Again, Cinderella’s name popped up instead of the Prince’s.

*Prince

Technically, Vomit Face is a dude so it should be *he, but I’m guessing you kept this gender neutral because this spot would be taken by Cinderella for those playing as the Prince?

Anyways, that’s all! Sorry for the lengthy reply. Can’t wait for the next update. :DD

[hustlertwo]

I wanted to give this the lengthy response it deserves. But life happened. Specifically, I am currently celebrating my birthday on the last day of our family quarantine after all of us got Covid. Not the worst thing, of course; we are all together, and none of us are seriously ill. The five-year old is the worst off, probably because the kid vaccine isn’t as potent and she wasn’t as horrifically sick as her older sister and I were the first time around. But even then it was just a couple days of medium fever, and now all of us are coughing and drained but definitely on the mend. Still, it’s a bummer time for it, since both my wife’s birthday last Sunday and mine today have had plans waylaid by malady. I am still writing; short of death, ill health will not allow me to miss my self-inflicted word goals. But I’m not at tip-top engagement right now, and for that I apologize. Hopefully I will do some WIP updating and proper commenting soon.

[Gloomcat]

Please take it easy and wish you a quick recovery! <3

[HappyPotato]

Oof, sounds really tough. Hope you and the family get better really soon and don’t have any residual fatigue. Please take care and belated happy birthday!

[Sakura_Higanbana28]

Sorry to hear that. Wish you and your family a quick recovery.

[hustlertwo]

Thank you @Sakura_Higanbana28 , @Gloomcat , @HappyPotato and everyone else for the well wishes. I’ve got a lingering phlegmy cough that’s all too familiar from my first run-in with Covid in early 2020, but otherwise I’m fine. Hopefully it doesn’t stick around five months like last time, but it’s already at one so we’ll see. Being asthmatic sucks (or, more accurately, wheezes).

The new chapter is up; it’s 30,000 words, but so incredibly fragmented you likely won’t see a ton of them. As mentioned in the main post, I can’t tell you the title, because it has five different ones depending on where you are. All feedback is welcome, and I hope y’all enjoy!

Also, @HappyPotato , I did want to point out that I really wanted the princess to have those abilities to communicate with animals like in the animated film. If only because it would have made for an epic death scene if you cheesed off Cinderella as the Prince and she murdered you with the army of birds and rats at her command (admittedly, Shrek 3 probably already did this better than I ever could, if only because they can afford to license Led Zeppelin). Problem is, my research did not show that in any classic versions of the fairy tale. I think Disney either created that idea or at least fleshed it out a lot more, which makes it a non-starter for me to use. I’ve worked hard to make sure this is airtight in not using anything from the story that can’t be directly traced back to the fairy tale itself, or my own warped mind.

Also, I do love me some Don’t Stop Believin’, since my years as a trivia host gave me the chance to learn it is perhaps the most likely song in the world to randomly spur a hundred people into a spontaneous sing-a-long. I mean, some of them were even sober! But girl doesn’t rhyme with world. That’s the facts, Jack.

[expectedoperator]

This was a great chapter! I really liked how different the routes were, although I found the “reboot” versions the most fun due to the in-world confusion and the struggles for power. For my main playthrough I liked “The World is Yours”, but I loved how in “A Dark New Day” the options conveyed Cinderella’s descent into tyranny just through the corrupt choices and Fiji’s disappointment. I had Cinderella remain loyal to the prince, but I did read through the RO outcomes and loved the conflicts and return of characters. I really enjoyed all the betrayals throughout as well, especially Mortimer’s. After all that support Cinderella gave, too!

My biggest complaint is that, in “A Dark New Day”, the prince is opposed to Cinderella’s rule so he can regain power. The problem is that in the previous chapter he was completely supportive of Cinderella’s rise to the throne, so it ruined some of the chapter’s tension due to the break in continuity. If he does continue to support her, though, that makes the “regain RO” choice pointless as him remembering isn’t a problem.

You might want to change Pat’s dialogue a bit depending on whether he’s talking to Cinderella or the Prince – it works when playing as Cinderella, and I do like that you stick to the steward having a reserved and gruff personality, but a lot of the lines read as though Pat doesn’t have any sort of relationship with the Prince. To give an example, if you choose the “join me” option and fail, he says: “I have seen enough to know your character, or rather lack thereof.” The ‘enough’ makes it seem like it hasn’t been long since they’ve know each other.

Typos

Your bleary-eyed princess tosses a pillow from the bed at you and laughs.
This should be “prince” but because it’s using the ‘prince’ variable, it has the MC’s description.

Fiji goggles at you. “In all my innumerable days…”
I’d make this a new paragraph.

“The last option…it’s the Hon-Gri, isn’t it?”
If the player met Velius before, perhaps this line and Fiji’s explanation should change since the MC would already know and that option is no longer available anyway.

He gestures to a dented chamber pot in one corner of the room, which has a stench coming off it that gives away just how dedicated Pat has been to remaining undetected…
Remove the extra period.

""My name is Patrick Ignazio Erwin.
Remove the extra quotation mark.

Instead, you see Name at the head of his own retinue of followers.
I briefly looked, but I don’t think there’s any section where the ‘lovename’ variable is changed from “Name”.

And yet you are also Prince Ella, nothing more than a potential ruler who risked everything to unseat that tightfisted oaf King Roderick.
“Prince” should be “Princess”.

It’s surreal to step out onto the main balcony once again, not as a prince but as the kingdom’s true ruler.
“prince” should be “princess”.

“Savith is my guy, now and forever.”
This option is available even if Cinderella has never met him.

Looking forward to fighting Mortimer with all the soldiers still loyal to Cinderella!