Queen's Crown [Romance/Fantasy/Drama/GxB] DEMO UP!

[Agashi]

UPDATE!

So this is a fairly substantial change: keeping story flow in mind, I've decided to make the game's demo consist of the first 5 weeks of the game instead of the first 7. This is mainly because something major happens during week 6 that breaks up the narrative, and week 7 was only going to be included in the first place to add more romance... I apologize if anyone feels cheated out of extra content, but you'll still be getting a good 1/4 of it, I think. If you feel strongly about this, leave me a comment here. If a significant number of people oppose the change, I might reconsider, but HEY! Look at it this way: at least the demo will be out that much sooner.

Writing: Stat-raising events are FINISHED. Week 5 is about halfway done and I anticipate getting it done by tomorrow night. Therefore, writing for the demo is nearly complete!

Art: LadyofGatsby has helpfully supplied the rest of the GUI art assets, and sprites are finally complete! Therefore, art for the demo is DONE!

Programming: Bonesy is all caught up, with the exception of a few bugs that may need squishing. As soon as I get him the completed Week 5, he should be able to get the first version of the alpha ready for play-testing! Alpha-testers are all currently on standby for 1-2 weeks of playthroughs, before I put out the call for beta-testers...

In short, get ready for things to start poppin' around here, my dears.

[Amberbaum]

Woohoooo!!!! Thanks for all your hard work. A quarter of the game as demo sounds great.

[Harliqueen]

Yay! You're back

Great news on the update, I am seriously excited for the demo. I think 5 weeks is gonna be a major amount, so no worries about cutting it down, especially if it works better for the story.

Looking forward to seeing more!

[Agashi]

Double yay! It's good to hear from you, Harliqueen! I'll be sending you a PM soon. And thanks also to Amberbaum for sticking around so long! We're almost there, I promise!

UPDATE:

ALPHA-TESTING IS OFFICIALLY UNDERWAY! Sorry for the all caps, but I don't think I've ever been more excited about a creative project. We've recently welcomed Barzini to our team, and he's going to be helping out with a lot of the game's marketing, so hopefully that pesky Kickstarter will reach its funding goal. *Crossing fingers...* He's already taught me lot about what is or isn't possible when it comes to crowd-funding.

The next several days are going to be full of bug-hunting and fine-tuning. After that, though, it'll be Beta Time!

So if anyone would like to volunteer to beta, send me a PM with your email address! Please ensure you have the time set aside to help, just in case you need to send me bug reports! I'll send more details to those interested.

[Zelan]

Man, I'm so tempted to volunteer to beta, but I'm already signed up for another project and on top of that of got schoolwork so I don't think I have the time to put into testing Queen's Crown. This is really exciting to hear, though! Congratulations on all of your team's hard work taking shape. c:

[Agashi]

@ Zelan - Haha... No worries. We should have enough people to beta-test now, and I totally sympathize with having a full plate. Thanks for the encouragement! Hope you have time to catch the demo once its officially released!

UPDATE!

Alpha-testing stage complete, you guys! I've made a few - actually a lot of - corrections and changes to hopefully make the game more streamlined. Bonesy is hard at work building the first beta version of the demo, which should hopefully be ready for testing Tuesday or Wednesday-ish.

Thank you to everyone who sent me a PM about beta-testing! I'll be emailing you all shortly. We should have enough people now, but if you sent me a PM before and I somehow missed it, please let me know!

Getting REALLY close now!

[Agashi]

UPDATE:

After so many months of falling behind on production, we've actually managed to take a step forward more quickly than we expected, largely thanks to Bonesy's tireless efforts!

Beta-testing is underway! We're in the home stretch~!

[Windchimes]

I was lucky enough to be one of the beta testers so I got to play the demo early. I must say, it exceeded my expectations, and my expectations were pretty high after months of quietly stalking this thread! The game was really fun! The story is engaging, the art is gorgeous, and the stat-building system doesn't get tedious like most stat-raising sims do for me. The amount of and variety of choices is pretty great as well! Much more than I expected. The whole demo was just really enjoyable, and I was really hoping for more when the demo ended!

Good luck to your continued development and to your funding! I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for updates <3 Thank you again for the opportunity to play the demo early!

[SweetChiel]

I'm super excited when demo is finally out!! xD *YAY!* this VN practically screams ROYALTY from inside out and I was not disappointed QuQ

for the questions~
1. What kind of princess will you be? Kind and compassionate? Wise and politically savvy? Tempestuous and powerful? Something in-between?
I'm a little torn between playful+kind or wise+cunning x'D
Sometimes you have to be cunning and read between the lines -but gosh, I'm so impressed with the amount of choices you have in here! I had to think hard between choices and all of them makes sense, so it's hard to choose for me lol.

2. The masses have spoken! An additional character route has been widely requested! Voting time: Should the extra love interest be another guy, or shall we add a romance-able lady for those so inclined? (To be clear: this will only be added if we reach the stretch goal on KS! Don't want to get anyone's hopes up too high...)
Oooohhh, new character? O_O definitely!
I'm definitely interested <3 if I can request, please not a younger man x'D

3. Any suggestions for Kickstarter rewards? Please keep them digital if possible! So far, I'm thinking: game download, step-by-step walkthrough guide, backer-designed character insert (the degree of customization depending on story elements and possible backer amount), and downloadable OST. Other suggestions are welcome!
how about digital artbook + your research when making this VN? OuO it will be interesting to see your earlier design until it's final design and how much has changed. For the bachelors fans, you can add the bachelor's more detailed history, psychology, and sociology -Everything! Even those minor informations you don't release in the VN xD

4. Finally, what are your overall thoughts on the game, so far?
So far so good <3
Add a few sound effects here and there and maybe more BGMs for variations and you're good to go! ...maybe try to have less text i the textbox sometimes so the info dump didn't overwhelm me too? x'D

Now let's talk about the yummy boys, shall we? :"3

I'm in team Noah and Teiran for the moment! xD
I'm weak against crude and a bit of an asshole guys... OTL They're usually the ones who have the sad stories(whatamI?asadist?OTL and in return; has a soft side of them which they usually hide -and that's what makes me wanna chase their route

Noah's mirth and wolfish grin fits so good -though I'm used with 'reading between the lines' so I'm not sure if he's good or bad. Whether he's truly loyal to the MC can still be questionable.
Playful, check, hot, check, and whoa -when he kissed the MC's wrist I, he's oozing passion :'D I.Can't.
I'm really curious about his culture tho :'D
Do you use existing cultures or you use your fabulous imagination for it?

Teiran... Teiran... I can't figure that man no matter how much I re-played it x'D you've succeed making him the mysterious bachelor -with playful*slash*cunning*slash*scary personality
I'm really interested discovering his story :")

Emry is a very serious and intelligent person and I think the MC can put her trust in him. The main story revolves with Emry nicely too -I can't wait to read more!
But sweet Emry~ You have to try harder :p you have a competition against 2 hot guys after all lol

Oh and I'm interested to see a scene about Noah and Teiran meeting and maybe have a fight x'D (Not physically, but with words. I'm sure it will be very colorful lol)

Ah, and I'm very happy to see so many choices I can choose in this VN heart emoticon definitely re-playable and enjoyable :'3

[Agashi]

Thank you so much to SweetChiel and Windchimes and all the other lovely beta testers for helping me out with this! It was a pleasure to work with them. Their thoughtful insights helped me out a ton.

UPDATE! (Does this format bother anyone? I feel like I need to continue doing it since I've established the pattern )

Beta-testing is as complete as it's going to get, I believe! I'm compiling all the fixes/tweaks and Bonesy estimates it'll take less than a week to get them implemented. Demo will be out in about a week, you guys!!

Also, if anyone is interested in a little sneak peak, Bonesy is taking part in a charity livestream event on game development, and he has kindly offered to showcase Queen's Crown as part of it! If you are interested, it'll be tonight at 5:00 PM (PDT) on twitch.TV/keeperandthesoldier

Aaaaaand, it turns out I'm going to be joining him on the livestream, and we'll be talking more in-depth about the game...

[Mashiro-chi]

1. What kind of princess will you be? Kind and compassionate? Wise and politically savvy? Tempestuous and powerful? Something in-between?
-I'll definitely chose wise and politically savvy, though sadist and dominant queen is also nice. shows the guys girl power!

2. The masses have spoken! An additional character route has been widely requested! Voting time: Should the extra love interest be another guy, or shall we add a romance-able lady for those so inclined? (To be clear: this will only be added if we reach the stretch goal on KS! Don't want to get anyone's hopes up too high...)
-Um,if I have to choice it would be new guy since, I'm don't like yuri or yaoi...

3. Any suggestions for Kickstarter rewards? Please keep them digital if possible! So far, I'm thinking: game download, step-by-step walkthrough guide, backer-designed character insert (the degree of customization depending on story elements and possible backer amount), and downloadable OST. Other suggestions are welcome!
-Game walkthrough would be nice. and uh, maybe digital artbook or some short?

4. Finally, what are your overall thoughts on the game, so far?
-the game looks VERY interesting,and the guys are damn hot and delicious looking. Though I'm more pure visual novel type and not very good with stat raising, dating sims and such, I'm still very interested in the game...
And, I kinda wondered how does the heroine looks is she maybe faceless and eyeless(I hope not)?

[Zelan]

I joined in to watch the stream for a little while and it was pretty nice ^_^ Thanks for the sneak peek!

[Agashi]

Thanks for checking out our stream, Zelan! We really enjoyed doing it. If anyone missed the live broadcast and still wants to listen to me ramble about the game for a hour:

https://www.twitch.tv/keeperandthesoldier/v/63817108

We tried to keep things as lively as possible!

Also, @Mashiro-chi:

1. What kind of princess will you be? Kind and compassionate? Wise and politically savvy? Tempestuous and powerful? Something in-between?
-I'll definitely chose wise and politically savvy, though sadist and dominant queen is also nice. shows the guys girl power!

Haha. I tried to include a lot of evil/dominant queen choices for players to enjoy, but if you end up playing the demo, let me know if I should add more... I'm terrible at picking mean options whenever I play games (I just want to be friends with everybody ), so it's sometimes difficult for me to write them!

3. Any suggestions for Kickstarter rewards? Please keep them digital if possible! So far, I'm thinking: game download, step-by-step walkthrough guide, backer-designed character insert (the degree of customization depending on story elements and possible backer amount), and downloadable OST. Other suggestions are welcome!
-Game walkthrough would be nice. and uh, maybe digital artbook or some short?

I think we're going to have both. The walkthrough guide will be in digital form, and the artbook should be in physical form as a higher tier reward.

4. Finally, what are your overall thoughts on the game, so far?
-the game looks VERY interesting,and the guys are damn hot and delicious looking. Though I'm more pure visual novel type and not very good with stat raising, dating sims and such, I'm still very interested in the game...
And, I kinda wondered how does the heroine looks is she maybe faceless and eyeless(I hope not)?

Thank you for your thoughts! Don't worry too much about the stat-raising element... it's really just there to help you keep track of your romance. Like if your Charisma stat is low and you're trying to romance Emry, you'll know that you should start picking dialogue options that sound a little nicer... And yes, we WILL have a heroine in the final version of the game. She has no face yet because if we raise enough money on Kickstarter, she will be customizable by the player. You'll get to choose her hair, eye, and skin colors. If we don't get enough money I'll have to commission a default princess, so either way, she'll definitely be in the finished game!

Thanks everyone! Bug fixing is still ongoing. Shouldn't be long now!

[theshrimplord]

Commenting because I see you are close to releasing a demo and I am super excited! Can't wait to see the game in action

[Agashi]

IT'S DONE.

Download link is HERE, and also the first post has been updated with new questions, if any players are interested in providing this unworthy one with feedback.

YAY! I'm exhausted and I love you all!