#royalty sim

The Kingdom of Thestria is ruled by one of the most tyrannical leaders in its recorded history, a man known to his people as The Iron King. You just know him as Father. Rebels grow in number daily, destabilizing the kingdom and tempting foreign invasion, while disgruntled nobles threaten civil war. With your coming-of-age ceremony just around the corner, everyone wants something from you, the only heir to the throne. Will you help your father crush the uprisings for good, band with the rebels, usurp the throne for yourself, or abandon it all for your own dreams?

Features

Play as a prince or a princess

Crush the rebels, join them, usurp the throne, or abandon it all to pursue your own path

Command your own attendants and personal guard

Romance a prince, a princess, a maidservant, a guardsman, or a noble, or keep your heart to yourself

Uncover secret plots in the Thestrian court (or start a few of your own)

Bribe, threaten, charm, reason, or fight your way to your goals

Be careful who you ally with: your choices determine not just your fate, but that of an entire kingdom

This is a 60k+ WIP which updates monthly

Romance options

Prince Connor/Princess Nora: your betrothed, a noble royal with a fierce heart

Garrett: your childhood friend and loyal guardsman

Mirabel: a feisty handmaiden with a secret

Lady Evangeline: the spymaster's daughter, ambitious and cunning with unknown motivations

Lord Justin: the playful flirt who doesn't believe in rules

Or keep everything strictly friendly (or professional, or utilitarian…who says you have to have a heart?)

All romance paths are low spice and heterosexual

Demos

Itch (shorter, more polished)

CoGDemos (longer, contains rough draft content)

Patreon (most up to date)

This game is still in a very early form, please feel free to report bugs/typos/continuity errors/other gripes.

More game info on the CoG forum page and author info here. Feel free to join our chill little Discord.

Tags

Romance: #ikh romance #ikh betrothed #ikh nora #ikh connor #ikh garrett #ikh evangeline #ikh justin #ikh mirabel

Other characters: #ikh marcurios #ikh osdric

Happy Thursday! Now that all of Chapter 2 is out in the wild, updates are now all about refining and adding to Chapter 2 rather than continuing the story.

This week for the public CoG Demo I've added:

Chapter headers

New "spit on the rabble" option in Ch 1 intro

More character customisation in Ch 2 intro

Generally better prose and a more immersive experience in Ch 2 intro

For the Patreon demo I have:

Reworked conversations with Evangeline and Willem

Added an opportunity to determine the fate of Raedin's special substance

Added a treasury stat...you will soon have to think about how your actions affect the kingdom's coffers

Happy playing!

Chapter 3 has officially begun!

The first little bit of Chapter 3 (~7k words) is now available for subscribers while all of the newly revised Chapter 2 is now up on the public demo.

For the public CoG Demo I:

redid the purple smoke scene so it's a bit more grounded

finished revising speeches

updated the stats screen with dynamic flavour text

removed personality barriers for throwing your ax across the room and asking someone else to dance

added a couple little scenes where Justin, Connor, or Nora might comment on your outfit

made some small changes to the Ch 2 beginning to address player feedback and improve clarity

added new lore and character details to Ch 1 & 2 including on option to decide your stance towards Thestria's main religion

added almost 2k words of flavour text options depending on what name you choose for your MC

made the code a little less spoilerish and now publicly available for code divers

Play the Patreon demo to:

nurse a hangover or enjoy a calm, cozy morning after a hard day

choose the style of your chambers (opulent, natural, cheerful, dark, or exotic)

learn what kind of impression you made on your first day

find out what Garrett or Mirabel discovered during the banquet

and possibly start facing some repercussions for your actions

This update should be available on the public demo August 7, and the next Patreon update is scheduled for August 14.

@interact-if

For the public CoGDemo I have:

Finished revising the banquet conversation with your betrothed (some of the choices should be a little longer now)

Started revising the lead up to the dance scene

Fixed a bug where a dutiful princess could reject Connor at the dance

Fixed a bug where a self-serving princess couldn't always choose Justin as a dance partner

Please note there will be no public update next Thursday on account of technical issues I had when updating the Patreon demo a month ago. We should be back in the groove the following week.

For the Patreon demo I have:

Started revising Osdric's speech

Added a restore checkpoint option which should bring you to the start of Chapter 2

Added a neutral reaction to Mirabel getting blood on your betrothed's gift in Chapter 1

@interact-if

For the public CoGDemo I have:

Finished revising dance scenes with Evangeline, Mirabel, and Garrett (this includes expanded romantic versions and better flow)

Fixed a bug where you couldn't get injured in Chapter 1

And with that, the public demo now contains the full, new and improved version of the dance! There are a lot of moving parts in this scene now so please let me know if anything feels clunky, out of character, or otherwise off-putting.

Sorry, yet another week with no Patreon update.

I'm raring to get back into the code but boy is this short story taking a while (I've had some life matters slowing me down too sadly). It has a deadline mid-May though so I won't be stuck on it forever.

Thank you for your patience. It's frustrating being away from the code this long but the work I'm doing now will make the ending that much cooler and help with some foreshadowing elements in Chapter 3.

Happy Thursday! Play the public CoG Demo for:

Expanded and improved character introductions for Evangeline, Kirill, Raedin, Anaxis, Willem, and Marcurios

Partially revised and improved conversations with aforementioned characters

Play the Patreon demo to:

Discover a secret Hero Mode and gain +10 to all skills

Discover a secret Romance Mode and start the game with maxed out (platonic) relationship stats

Toggle Story Mode for romance and skill hints

Patrons also have a partially revised conversation with your betrothed.

For June's Patreon update I:

redid the purple smoke scene so it's a bit more grounded

finished revising speeches

updated the stats screen with dynamic flavour text

removed personality barriers for throwing your ax across the room and asking someone else to dance

added a couple little scenes where Justin, Connor, or Nora might comment on your outfit

made some small changes to the Ch 2 beginning to address player feedback and improve clarity

added new lore and character details to Ch 1 & 2 including on option to decide your stance towards Thestria's main religion

added almost 2k words of flavour text options depending on what name you choose for your MC

These changes should be available on the public demo on July 10, which is also when I might update the Patreon demo next. I may wait another month though on this one depending on how long it takes to finish drafting out the skeleton code for Chapter 3.

As always, I'll keep you all posted in the newsletter.

For the chapter finale, give your first speech!

bolster allies, make enemies

establish what kind of leader you will be

or maybe just get drunk and say weird stuff idk up to you

Moving forward, updates will refine and add to Chapter 2 until I'm happy enough with it to move on to Chapter 3.

For the Patreon demo I have:

heavily revised Marcurios' conversation at the mingle scene

partially revised Evangeline's

done a whole lot of background work that I talk about in the newsletter

I also started a chill little Discord if anyone wants to join us there.