I've gotten better at sticking to projects outside of VNs lately, so I'm taking a new shot for something that's even less ambitious than I had in mind before.
(If you have any tips on making sure a one man game happens pls throw them my way I need all the help I can get)
ANYWAY here's the important stuff:
- You are the heir to a small kingdom (or at the very least, your daddy is a rich man with a lot of land), and as such you have been appointed your own personal knight-guard. He was just entering training when you were born, and thus he's seen you grow every day. Because of this, he has become rather overbearing, and you're 20 years old, dammit! You don't need him watching over you all the time! His constant over protection is starting to get on your last nerve, but how you react when you finally reach your breaking point ends up being a crossroad in your destiny.
You! [Mariette Van Rosen]
- You've been raised in your daddy's land all your life, but that doesn't mean you've been sitting around learning etiquette all day! While you can wine and dine with the best of them for the sake of appearances, your real passion is in military strategy, and fencing is your favorite past time. You're competent AND confident in your combat skills, which makes it even more annoying that your guard won't get off your back!
- He's seen you grow from crib to crown, and luckily you're too young to remember his acne prone-teen days as a guard-in-training. God knows why your father chose him specifically rather than appoint any of the high profile knights to you, but the old man does have his eccentricities. Regardless, he's practically a second parent to you, though he tries to not lord his age over you, which often leads to an embarrassing 'down-with-the-kids' persona.
Luckily, your fathers odd decision to make him your personal bodyguard ended up proving the correct choice; he's one of the best knights around, and keeps you safe from any trouble. Like tripping over an unexpected step, for example.
- Spoilers: The reason behind the disappearing heirs. The armour he wears is both the source of his power and the cause of his want for more of it. Using the magical abilities granted to him by the mystic armour, he has hypnotised not just most of his kingdom, but almost all of the heirs in neighbouring ones. The reason he hypnotises the children rather than the rulers themselves, he says is for subtlety. The reality is that his powers alone aren't enough to keep a strong control over people older than a certain point, which is also the reason he takes a special interest in you; something in you tells him you can amplify his already growing strength, but he needs you to submit willingly.
Detailed Story (Spoilers Obv):- After you hit your tolerance limit on the overprotection, you'll have the choice to either continue grin and bearing it, or basically tell him to heck off for a while (you don't really have the power to fire him).
Shortly after this, there's a kidnapping attempt on you. Depending on if your guard is still around or not, he could fail or be successful. This would be the main point where the paths split off into Queen routes or Dark Queen routes.
If you kept him around, he will end up mildly wounded and you'll both start the course on solving the mystery of why you were attacked, and eventually going after the King yourself.
If you told him to go away, you end up kidnapped along with a whole chain of other heirs at the Dark Kings castle, and you're on your own to get yourself out of there.
Queen routes basically have you discovering that all the other heirs are missing too, or at least acting up, and going on a sort of solo-team quest with your guard to save them. This is where most of the cute fluffy moments occur.
Dark Queen routes have you potentially overthrowing the Dark King and taking his castle from him. What this means for you and your guard romance, however, is quite the 180.
- - Lost Queen Ending (Fail to defeat the Dark King)
- Mourning Queen Ending (Defeat the King, but you lose Cenric) [2 variations, depending on if you were in an official relationship or not]
- Pure Queen Ending (Defeat the Dark King, keep Cenric)
- Bride Queen Ending (Defeat the Dark King, marry Cenric)
- Dark Queen Ending (Take over the Dark Kings Castle)
- Bitter Queen Ending (Take over the Dark Kings castle, lose Cenric)
- Dark Bride Ending (Take over the Dark Kings castle, marry Cenric) [2 variations, one where it's a forced marriage and one where it's a bittersweet one]
- Evil Queen Ending (Take over the Dark Kings Castle, get rid of Cenric yourself)
- Slaughtered Queen Ending (Cenric gets rid of you[!??!?])
- After you hit your tolerance limit on the overprotection, you'll have the choice to either continue grin and bearing it, or basically tell him to heck off for a while (you don't really have the power to fire him).
Keeping this in the ideas thread until I have the whole script done entirely so that I don't have to feel immense guilt if/when it falls through
Any tips will be appreciated!
Development Progress:
Outline: 70% (Need to soothe out the endings for the Pure Queen routes, and smooth out the Dark Queen route in general)
Script: ?% (5k words)
Sprites: 1/?
BGs: 6/?
CGs: 1/?
It's also important to keep yourself inspired while you work on your game, so if drawing art and having placeholders will do that, you should treat yourself instead of rigidly sticking to one aspect of the game (like just writing, for example).
