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I think it's an understatement to say that I love this game, but there's no other way I can think of to describe how much I've enjoyed playing it so far. The artwork is beautiful and the characters so real, and I love the balance of humor and drama. You guys have executed the premise so well, and in ways that I definitely didn't expect!

Spoilers Below (?):
Honestly, I walked into this thinking that Snow was going to be the problematic fave, so I was so surprised that it was Mer. I guess it really is true what they say: Beware the Quiet Ones! (You'd think that as someone who is the Quiet type, I would've seen that coming, and yet...XD) As wrong as it was for him to pull what he tried to pull, I felt so sorry for him that I was glad that he got a happy ending with Charming, even if its execution seemed iffy (I'm sure the execution will be better in the expansion!). He's suffered so much. T.T (As a side note, I was impressed with Mer's expressiveness during his route. Not gonna lie though, his faces during the climax freaked me out. I really shouldn't have played his route during the night. DX)

And Snow. Oh my God, Snow. He's suffered so much, too, poor man. At first, he comes off so smooth and confident, but then it turns out that he's full of self-loathing due to his curse and his past. I just really wanted to give him a hug so many times during his route. And I liked how you showed the psychological consequences of having an abusive parent. Fairy tales always gloss over it, like "Hurray, the evil stepmom is dead! Everyone's married! It's all good!", when really no, no it's not. Our hero/heroine still suffered at the hands of said stepmom and it's bound to have some impact. So kudos for showing that, and double kudos for making Snow such a sweetie.

I agree with everyone else that Zel is a cinnamon roll too pure for this world. He was just so precious that I couldn't choose the options where you had to make him sad/scared (although, I'm going to be doing it now for my second run.). He was surprisingly smooth for a guy who's been trapped in a tower for 9 years, too. XD Although, I was really surprised--and a little disappointed--that the witch never showed up in the story. I was really looking forward to kicking witch butt! Other than that, I didn't have any issue with Zel's route (well, maybe except for the part where you kinda leave Lunar Kingdom to burn, but that's a small nitpick).

I can't wait for the expansion, especially for Nicholl's route. God, I felt so deprived of him during the game. It's clear that there's more to him than what we've seen so far, so I'm really looking forward to learning about his past as much as the full pasts of the princes.

Hi! Thank you for playing and for writing a long comment!

Haha, glad to hear you liked his happy ending with Charming! Yes, his route has been heavily edited in the expansion and many issues have been hopefully fixed, so we hope the execution of the ending will be better!

Ahhh thank you for your compliments on Snow! Actually, yes. I've always gotten annoyed at fairy tale happy endings — not that I don't love a happy ending, but everything just fades to black implying a "happily ever after" too quickly. It doesn't work like that irl. Emotional trauma from a toxic/abusive family is a topic I care about because I've seen first-handed the lasting damage it can do, so I'm so, so glad that you picked up on my portrayal of Snow's lingering issues.

As for Zel... be careful what you wish for ;) But yeah, we are aware of the issue of lackluster plot and backstory in Zel's route — it was a somewhat conscious choice, because we had to make a difficult choice of cutting his backstory to save time (by not requiring more scenes, more sprites, more BGs etc) or keep them in but risk not making the 30 day deadline for NaNo. In the end, we chose to keep only the important romance parts, so we can promise that in the expansion, you'll see a lot more of Zel's backstory and history with the witch! :) And as for the 2nd ending, that will be tweaked as well to make it hopefully easier to accept due to the majority of responses we've gotten regarding the ending.

Hehe, Nicholl's route... Mm, I can't say much more, but I had a lot of fun writing him :D Hope y'all would have as much fun reading his route in the future too!

Again, thank you for playing Lads in Distress and for taking the time to let us know your thoughts!