Posted August 23, 2021 by PeanutParade
I'm so excited to finally share what I've been working on for the last eight months!
Promise & Prophecy is my first attempt at a truly branching storyline. This game will have more choices than either of my other games, and those choices will impact the story in the future - sometimes in unexpected ways.
My main goal for this project is replayability. In my previous games, the only factor that could impact the story was which of the romance options you chose, making the game only as replayable as the number of love interests. For P&P, I want the romantic storylines to have as many variations as the main story, to the point that you might have to romance the same person multiple times to get all of the potential endings with them. However, I don't plan to label each ending as "Good Ends" and "Bad Ends." Certainly, there will be some endings that are objectively worse than others, but ultimately, I want to leave it up to the player whether they are satisfied with the ending they got or not.
As for this demo, there are three "states" that the story can leave off: Escape, Capture, or Surrender - and there's more than one path to each, which will also have some influence on what happens in the future.
While this demo only features one of the potential love interests (plus a cameo from a young XiYun in the prologue), there is the option to begin one of the variants of Alfons' romance. If you don't choose to begin Alfons' romance in the first chapter, you can engage in a slower friends-to-lovers relationship with him. Or you can choose not to romance him at all, either by staying friends with him, or being mean to him. (Note that beginning the romance with Alfons won't lock you out of romances with other characters, but it will complicate things later on.)
In the full game, you will have the option to romance more than one character, but not all of them will be okay with this. Alternatively, there are two characters who will happily engage in a three-way polyamorous relationship with the princess and each other, if the correct steps are taken.
For now, Demo 2 will be available to my patrons in early September, and will have 20,000-30,000 words of content more than Demo 1. Patrons will get to play the game episodically every month* until it's finished, with the full game releasing on itch a month after the final chapter is posted on Patreon.
The full game will be available on itch sometime in spring 2022*.
*Release schedule subject to change. I make my games entirely by myself, and while I'm dedicated to finishing this project in a timely manner, unforeseen circumstances could impact my ability to work.