God Save the Queen, Indeed: Let's Play Long Live the Queen!

[Deme]

Hi there, and welcome to another LP by Deme. Now, this isn't going to be one of my normal story-driven LPs, because then I'd have more than my already 'way too much' to deal with. This is just going to be a for-the-lols little LP primarily run by your votes. Think of it as being like an Oregon Trail LP.

...Actually, it's a lot like that.

But let me back up. What is Long Live the Queen? It's a game produced by Hanako Games available for PC and Mac and...
Well, this is what the game's site says it is:

Being a Princess is not an easy job. Being a Queen is even harder. Especially when you're only fourteen years old, and the reason you've inherited the throne is that your royal mother has just met an untimely end.
Now power is up for grabs. You may be the official heir, but much of the country's nobility would love to steal the throne for themselves. Aggressive neighbors will take advantage of any weakness to enlarge their borders at your expense. And that's not even mentioning the magical dangers which are lying in wait...

Can you survive long enough to reach your coronation?

And this is a pretty apt description. Here's my best effort.
You know life sims, where you take a cute character and raise up stats and skills to help get them through a set period of time, interspersed with events both scripted and random? Well, it's a lot like that. But you know Roguelikes, where you're expected to die and have to try it again *a lot* because of all the BS the game throws at you? Well, while it's not oriented around combat (there is combat, but in decision and skillcheck forms) or treasure, it's a lot like that. Or, even better, a point-and-click adventure game of the Sierra fashion, where because you didn't get the stick to throw at the cat to save the mouse who can gnaw your ropes off, you're going to die in the back of a dirty old inn? Because while you don't have an inventory and don't really get to move around on your own...It's really very much like that.

Long Live the Queen is a game about building up your princess's skills in such a way that you can make it to your coronation alive, in spite of the fact that after a relatively brief period, everyone and everything is out to get you. It's frustrating and addictively fun, with so many paths and choices that I've completed the game 3-4 times, but still haven't seen even half of what there is to see.
Which is why I'm enlisting you guys to make all my choices this time! Join me, won't you, for Let's Play... Long Live the Queen!

Chapter 1, Week 1: Mood: Depressed
or
The Batman Option's Still on the Table, though, Right?

Spoiler

Why, yes, that *is* our lead character in a magical girl outfit. It's also our title screen. "Checklist" is actually a checklist of some of the accomplishments you can do in this game; if you'd like to see mine, just ask.


Meet our dad. It seems that Nova, our country, doesn't really allow much special power to the spouse of the inhereting monarch, so with our mother sadly passed, he's stepping back once we become legally of age in about a year. We technically rule but we're not actually queen. Or maybe we are. The game's sense of his is slightly wonky, maybe because all writing instinct says that a princess shouldn't become a queen; queens just sort of pop up.

Meet our dad's profile! I do find it a little funny that his portrait's crown is so tall that, since you can only bring this box up while he's speaking, you can't not see his crown intruding into his own profile.
Dad's actually pretty young, for having a 14-year old daughter. I think this must be a country where royalty does its marrying and heir-having young. Which makes sense, what with death lurking around every corner.


Our main character, everybody! What sort of girl Elodie is is largely detemined by our choices...But right now, she's just a sad little girl whose mom just died.
And now everyone's out to murder her, just as soon as they determine their plan of attack. Someone's going to do the rest of her growing up very quickly, or not at all.

In a bit more detail. I'm not sure why it lists her uncles, but it's handy.


And by tutors, I guess he means you guys! Deciding what she learns and stuff.
"You'll have to work hard this year to prepare yourself before your fifteenth birthday, but I know you can do it. You'll learn quickly and you'll make a wonderful queen. It's what your mother would have wanted."

Yeah, but we could also become some sort of avenger. Or a previously friendly neighbor could suddenly attack us, and we could become the main character of a Fire Emblem game. Think of the possibilities!
...By the way, explain to me again why a videogame can almost never allow a princess to become a queen? I mean, we're sort of, like, half-queen now, which is at least a step in the right direction...


See, Elodie's behind me on this! Go forth and avenge your momma, sweetie!

"She wouldn't have wanted to die and leave me."
...
...
Awww...


"All of Nova depends on us. On you."
Just so we know. No pressure, or anything.

"*sigh*"


What this means is that when we screw up, Dad's just gonna go "Very well" and let the consequences land, often fatally, on our own head.

"Come, your maids are waiting."


Welcome to the meat of Long Live the Queen! Raising up our nervous-looking princess right up in there.
Let's start the big explanation by explaining this screen. You won't have to ever see it again, but let's just talk our options, since most of the week-to-week voting is about stuff on this screen.

Skills is a big list of our skills. It keeps track of the skills, the skill groups, their levels, and any modifiers to learning skills we may have. We'll be getting back to this.

Mood is, of course, the mood of our fair princess. Mood is divided into several continuums, divided in half to make several "moods." Each mood gives bonuses and penalties to the rate at which we learn skills. Mood can be modified by weekend activities and in-game events.
*mood planning can be essential.*
Since it's less complicated than skills, let's take a look-see right now.


As you can see, our mood is depressed, since "depressed" is the most extreme point on the chart. We're a little bit afraid, but it's less extreme, so it's not the dominant mood. In general, you want to keep your mood close to -- but not at -- equilibrium, so you can change moods very quickly to snag your preffered bonuses.
Now, a note about moods. The priority of equal levels of a mood (IE, let's say... We have Afraid two away from center, like it is, and Depressed two away from center. Afraid is to the left of depressed, so it takes our priority, and Elodie's mood would be Afraid. Moods to the left take priority over equal moods to the right. You could say the same even if the moods are equally extreme, but on the opposite ends of their respective spectrum: my example works equally well if I had used Afraid and Cheerful, or Angry and Yielding, or what have you.

In my playthroughs, working the Willful-Yielding spectrum has been most important. But this is just me.

Outfit Is what outfit we're wearing. If you get 25 or more points in all three skills in a Skill Group (I promise that will make sense later), you get an outfit for that Skill Group that offers a bonus to all three skills. These outfits can be very handy, and have saved Elodie's life in my playthroughs more than once.
Right now, we just have the Boarding School Uniform Elodie's got on here. Did they burn her clothes when she went, or something?

Classes Is our big voting opportunity during the week. Basically, we have two classes in a skill, morning and evening, that we take all week. While the screenshot I'm about to show you doesn't show it, there is a class for each individual skill, and not just the skill groups you see here, so please vote by Skill Name.

Now, taking a class for a week, without any learning modifiers from our mood, earns us about 10 points in that skill: 2 per class, with 5 morning and 5 evening classes per week. When you reach 50 in one skill in a group, that skill can't be advanced until the other 2 skills in a group are at least 25. So that's a thing. We can also, if I didn't mention it earlier (I forget what I'm typing the moment it goes offscreen), double up on a skill, making it both our morning and our evening class, for twice the points. Yaaaay, numbers going up!

The rest of the basic menu is not yours to worry about, it's saving and datalogs and junk. I'll be saving once a week, so when the time comes that we die, we can pick exactly when we want to go back to to try and avoid it.


...And now for the meat of the game. Skills. *deep breath*

This is our skills screen. And you are probably about to panic. I'm about to panic trying to explain all this, so feel free to ask questions. I am not confident in my ability to explain this.

Let me start with this: You do not need to worry about every skill to have a successful playthrough. You can go a playthrough without ever being asked to use every single skill, and definately not needing to use all of them to survive. This doesn't make some of the skills useless: they're just not all used at once, or on one path, or you might find that having one skill means you won't need another in certain situations -- or the other way around.

As you can see, all skills are divided up -- first into big catagories I never really worry about (IE, "Social," "Intellectual,") but the big catagories do get small learning bonuses as you learn different skills in that catagory, so that's a thing. They're really too small for me to worry about.

Second, they are divided into what I've been calling Skill Groups -- sets of three related things, like how Herbs, Poison (really curing poison, but maaaybe you can poison people? I've never tried) and Battlefield Medicine are all a part of Medicine.
Those yellow or orange -1.00, -2.00, and +1.00 are the bonuses you get to learning these skills. They add whatever they say to the points you earn *per day*, not per week, when you take a class in that skill. So we'd gain 15 points in any of the expression skills if we took one, instead of the normal 10...But we can get no points in a Conversation skill while we're depressed. Now, there are two ways to get these bonuses: The first, and usually more relevant, is our mood.
Each mood has its own sets of bonuses and penalties, though not all skills are boosted by the same number of moods -- Royal Demeanor is penalized by almost every mood (but there are moods that grant a bonus, like yielding), and Economics isn't bonused or penalized by any mood.
The other way to get skill learning bonuses is to learn skills from that group. As you take classes in a skill, a small but permanent and stackable bonus to learning from any skill in that group begins to gather. This eventually can even mean you can get a bonus to learning a skill-group even when your mood says you should have a penalty!


But what are skills good for? Well, this game basically runs off of skill-checks. Don't have a high enough rank in a skill, and you fail. Failure can have consequences from just missing out on things to Elodie's painful death. The right skills literally win you the game.
some skills give you more knowledge about what's going on, often vital clues. Some skills give you new options in a scene, allowing you to take different paths. Some skills make you look better in front of your people and nobles, preventing trouble.
Some skills save your life, simple as that.

So let's talk about what each skill group, generally-speaking, does. Most of them are self-explanatory, and the individual skills especially so.
Royal Demeanor
Generally, how to be Imperious. How to look, move, and CONVINCE like a queen. Composure is holding it together, Royal Presence impressing people that YOU ARE THE QUEEN, GOSHDARNIT, and Elegance looking and moving in a regal way to impress folks.

Conversation
Dealing with people and the atmosphere of court, the non-violent way. Court Manners, in particular, is how to behave in court so as to not make a fool of yourself.

Expression
Arts, basically. Decoration is making things pretty, Instrument and Voice are musical skills. They're not quite as useless as they sound.

Agility
I think these are exactly what they say on the tin.

Weapons
Ditto

Athletics
Yup.

Animal Handling
Horses means horseback-riding. Dogs may help with hunting, but also just being friends with dogs (which isn't as useless as it sounds). Falconry is both a relationship with birds and also the majestic and noble art of falconry, sport of kings.

History
This is a more informational skill, but it'll sometimes help with giving you choices.
Novan is the name of our country, and therefore the history of our country.
When History gives you info, it's about...Well, the past. Though, I should add, this is a fantasy story: the past is closer than you think...

Intrigue
Did anyone call for Skullduggery? Well, you should have. It's a fun word.
Intique is all about plotting, and knowing more about your enemies than they know about you. When an Intrigue-based skill is used to give you information, it's more about the present and near-past: who's related to who, who's next in line for what, how people got into their positions...But that's not the only stuff intrique is good for.

Medicine
Fixing wounds, curing poison (but maybe you can poison people? I've never seen it, but there's a lot I haven't seen), knowing about stuff.

Economics
Running our country into financial stability! Making our 14-year old leader better than the bulk of leaders in the real world!
There's never any bonuses or penalties to economics, making it a stable (and useful) if someone plodding, skill.
Trade and production only occaisonally go out without the other one -- they're like little twins.

Military
You can guess what this is, right? Logistics is the only one you may not know -- it's about moving troops and supplies efficiently and safely.

Faith
These are all skills relating to the spiritual. Lore is about information about legendary, mythic, or magical things. Divination is, in essence, the game offering you an early warning system -- if Elodie is trained well enough at recognizing omens, the omens she understands will always be accurate, so you can get a sense of what's to come.

Lumen
It's magic! Unfortunately, you can't have any yet. There's a sidequest you need to go on to unlock Lumen as a skill (I'll give you guys a hint: Accounting. And/Or Presence).
More on this later.

*pant,pant*
You got all that?

I hope everyone followed that. If you didn't, please ask as many questions as you need, though I may plead the fifth when it comes to strategy questions, if I think they're too much of a spoiler.

Voting Time: What are our first two classes?

Oh, a few other things to note:
Skills range from 0-100, with things like Weekend activities based on them (for a few skills, more on weekend activities next time) opening around 50, when competence starts to kick in.
We do have a few weeks before death rains down on us...But I do plan on saving seperately every single week, so that when we die (let's be honest; it'll happen), we can decide exactly how far back we want to go to try and fix things.
Generally, multiple skill checks will be offered in life-or-death situations, and you will (generally) only need to pass one of them to survive. So bear that in mind.

[Hawkflight]

Originally Posted by Deme

Voting Time: What are our first two classes?

Oh, a few other things to note:
Skills range from 0-100, with things like Weekend activities based on them (for a few skills, more on weekend activities next time) opening around 50, when competence starts to kick in.
We do have a few weeks before death rains down on us...But I do plan on saving seperately every single week, so that when we die (let's be honest; it'll happen), we can decide exactly how far back we want to go to try and fix things.
Generally, multiple skill checks will be offered in life-or-death situations, and you will (generally) only need to pass one of them to survive. So bear that in mind.

PUPPIES! ^_______^

*ahem* I mean, dogs. Also, either swords or strategy.

[Hazzardevil]

Classes I vote for:
Falcon Handling and Royal Demeanor, Composure.

[Deme]

Just so we're clear, I did make it clear enough that we're basically getting half-points on that composure, because Depression saps our ability to learn Royal Demeanor skills, yes?

I'm just asking so you won't be surprised/dissapointed when we only end up with 5 composure for a week's study.

Oh, and since I'm not sure if Lycan'll post here, I may as well add his IM votes:
Weapons - Swords
and
Royal Demeanor - Composure

Which gives us some basic majorities even if no one else votes, I guess.
But come on -- don't we all want to guide some destiny?

[Sanguine]

Lets make our little Princess a math whiz: Accounting and Logistics.

[Aidan305]

Yaaay, another Deme LP!

Royal Demenour - Presence: Our mother is dead, and now we are Queen. We have to make sure that people realise this.

Intrigue - Internal Affairs: For rooting out the people who don't realise it. Or who think they could do the job better.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Intrigue - Internal Affairs, because the first step of not getting assassinated is knowing who is trying to assassinate you, and Agility - reflexes, because the second step to not getting assassinated is being able to dodge the poisoned daggers.

[Hazzardevil]

Originally Posted by Deme

Just so we're clear, I did make it clear enough that we're basically getting half-points on that composure, because Depression saps our ability to learn Royal Demeanor skills, yes?

I'm just asking so you won't be surprised/dissapointed when we only end up with 5 composure for a week's study.

Oh, I didn't notice that, changing my daemenor vote to Polearm use.

[Bodez]

Internal Affairs, and Swords. Let's stick those would-be assassins.

[Terraoblivion]

I'd suggest actually putting those bonuses to use.

Dogs should be useful as hunting is not only a good way to make nobility happy and respect you, but being friends with dogs might help give you early warning and a muscular, toothy guardian should assassins show up.

An expression skill probably wouldn't hurt either as not only can all sorts of whacky situations where it's used crop up in a fantasy setting, but it is again something that can win positive opinion in court.

As such I say:

Animal Handling - Dogs
Expression - Instrument

[Starbuck_II]

Train- Faith and polearms.

[Deme]

Which faith skill specifically?

Anyway, it looks like unless I get another vote for something like Dogs or Polearms (or multiple votes for other things) before, say, the hour's up, we're going with Swords and Internal Affairs.

Originally Posted by Terraoblivion

I'd suggest actually putting those bonuses to use.

I should add that this is, in fact, a good portion of the actual strategy of this game. So Terraoblivion gets a cookie.

Edit: Ok, so I was going to post, and then Photobucket had an attack of dumb. We'll be back shortly.

[Deme]

Imageshack to the rescue!

Chapter 1, Week 1, Mood: Depressed
or
More Tutorial! We're Done Now, Promise

Spoiler

Time for everyone's favorites: spying on people and stabbing them. Hooray!


As you can see, whenever you hit a multiple of 10, you get some nifty info. Including who has most to gain from our deaths :)


After our classes, we'll sometimes get little events. These usually contain choices or skillchecks, but...Not today.

"Oh, it's my cousins! And my aunt and uncle!"


I neglected to get dialogue alone, so here's her dialogue and her portrait. I may do that more often...
Anyway, so she's related to those people we were just reading about: the ones who are immediately behind us in position. But surely our beloved auntie only means us well.
Surely.

"Thank you."


I have no explanation for how someone related to this guy + Joslyn = Elodie. Now, admittably, what we just learned from our Internal Affairs course gets mentioned here, but these things will get more useful.
Also, man but this guy looks spineless.


Charlotte being Elodie's cousin, though, I can see. Maybe technicolor hair is...I dunno. A solid genetic explanation fails me. Recessive, but Joslyn and our aunt and uncle all carry it secretly? A terrible mutation resulting from noble inbreeding? Someone help me out.
Anyway, that is a seriously smile-y girl.

"Hi, Lottie. I haven't seen you in ages! Will you be staying long?"
...Hey. Wait, if they just arrived now, when was the queen's funeral? We just got home, there isn't one planned, and they just arrived.
Did no one attend the funeral of our monarch? Seriously?
Man, I'm glad this isn't a story LP. I'd have to invent an explanation for that.

"Yup! Mummy said we'd be here all month."


As you can see, events can affect our mood, too. We're a bit less depressed now, bringing us closer to equilibrium.

And now that we're done with that...

We come to our weekend activities list! This list will expand as we play: certain events and choices will unlock new options, but so will getting certain skills (or, in one case, skill groups) to 50.
Many activities vary depending on our current mood, and I'll try to note them as possible. Here is a list of our current activities:
Attend Court: +2 Yielding, +1 Depressed, +1 Pressured
Attend Service*: Our first Variable. It generally subtracts one from the current extreme, so it's - 1 Depressed for now.
Explore Castle: +1 Lonely, +1 Afraid
Play with Toys: +1 Yielding, +1 Lonely, +1 Cheeful.
Sneak Out: +1 Lonely, +2 Willfull
Talk to Our Father: ??? (Sometimes weekend activities that involve talking with people are like this. They may advance events and/or affect our mood and/or give us information. They may even include skill checks.
Talk to Charlotte: ???
Visit Dungeons*: Another variable. If you've got a point in Willful or Yielding, it will push you further in that direction and in the same (up-down) direction with Angry/Afraid. But we're nuetral, so it has no affect.
Visit Tomb: +1 Depressed, +1 Afraid
Walk in the Gardens: +1 Lonely, +1 Cheerful.

Now, I'm not going to ask you to make the mood choices blindly. I think it's more fun if you guys can do the best you can on whatever path you want to walk. So I'll tell you what moods boost what skill groups.
Oh, it's worth noticing you you can get Elodie into a totally neutral mood, with no bonuses or penalties. If you like.

These are taken from the wiki, so I can't garuntee accuracy, and they don't say what's a -2 penalty. Sorry.
Afraid Boosts: Agility, Faith
Afraid Penalizes: Royal Demeanor, Intrigue, Military, Weapons.

Angry Boosts: Military, Weapons
Angry Penalizes Royal Demeanor, Expression, Medicine, Animal Handling

Depressed Boosts: Expression, Animal Handling
Depressed Penalizes: Royal Demeanor (you sensing a theme?), Conversation, Athletics

Cheerful Boosts: Conversation, Athletics
Cheerful Penalizes: Intrigue, Military, Weapons

Willful Boosts: Lumen, Intrigue, Military
Willful Penalizes: Royal Demeanor (surprise, right?), History, Economics (huh, apparently something does penalize economics. But nothing bonuses it.)

Yielding Boosts: Royal Demeanor (At last!), Faith, History
Yielding Penalizes: Weapons, Lumen

Lonely Boosts: Conversation, Medicine
Lonely Penalizes: Royal Demeanor (Here we are again. It's always such a pleasure.), Intrigue, Faith

Pressured Boosts: Faith (Wow, is there nothing good about Pressured?)
Pressured Penalizes: Conversation, History, Economics

Got all that? Ask questions if you're not, good if you are.

With that out of the way, what shall we do with our weekend?

And what should we do with the week? If your vote is contigent on the weekend activity vote going a certain way, to get a certain mood or the like, do say so, and please try and provide an alternative for otherwise.

If you want to start multi-step plans to get certain bonuses to help meet certain goals, you can say that, too. Gives people some nice and organized votes. This'll probably become more common later in the game, especially when we die some.

[Sanguine]

Let's talk to Charlotte, we need to stop being Depressed, Depression sucks. Of course, playing with our toys or taking a walk in the gardens could also work. Actually playing with our toys might be better as Yielding is a pretty good mood; it's only real weak point being that it's on the same tack as Willful which is also really good, though since people seem to want Royal Demeanor we probably won't want Willful, at least not until we get the Lumen Crystal. Still, I'll vote for Charlotte, it just seems the right thing to do. As for Classes, it depends. If we stay Depressed we should train Strategy and Logistics. I want to have the option to go to war later. If we shift over to Afraid go for Accounting and Courtly Manners. I want that Lumen Crystal, and Courtly Manners is just nice to have. Though Courtly Manners could be replaced with Reflexes to make use of the afraid bonus.

Does it show that I downloaded the demo and have played through it several times?

[Terraoblivion]

Hmmm, if we play with toys, we should become Afraid, I believe. That one extra cheerful would push Depressed and Afraid to be equal and then Afraid takes over since they would both be more extreme than Yielding and Lonely. While getting a slight amount of Yielding going so we can get the Royal Demeanor people seem to want seems useful, ending up Afraid doesn't look terribly useful, so trying to work things out so we end up something else instead would be better. Let's just talk to Charlotte for now. For skills I once again vote for doggies and instruments.

[Aidan305]

Chat with Charlotte and during the week train Medicine: Poison (Charlotte's mother looks evil and perfectly willing to be queen) and Intrigue: Foreign Affairs.

[Bodez]

I vote for increasing Yielding (so, Attending the Court), because Presence is nice to have.
If we stay Depressed, got for Voice and Dogs. Othervise, Accounting and a skill that gets boosted by whatever mood we are into (a no-vote, mainly )

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Originally Posted by Aidan305

Chat with Charlotte and during the week train Medicine: Poison (Charlotte's mother looks evil and perfectly willing to be queen) and Intrigue: Foreign Affairs.

One to keep our eyes on, that Lucille lady. I'll second the Poison vote and add Voice, to take advantage of that Depressed mood bonus.

[Deme]

Originally Posted by Terraoblivion

Hmmm, if we play with toys, we should become Afraid, I believe. That one extra cheerful would push Depressed and Afraid to be equal and then Afraid takes over since they would both be more extreme than Yielding and Lonely. While getting a slight amount of Yielding going so we can get the Royal Demeanor people seem to want seems useful, ending up Afraid doesn't look terribly useful, so trying to work things out so we end up something else instead would be better. Let's just talk to Charlotte for now. For skills I once again vote for doggies and instruments.

Is that skill vote assuming Charlotte doesn't mess with our mood scores, so we stay depressed? Or is it "Doggies and instruments, regardless."
Anyway, I'll probably play in an hour or so, so last effort to get votes in. Charlotte's the clear winner for activity, but the majority for Poison and Accounting (if afraid, but if we stay depressed, it's a split between Poison, Voice, and Dogs) is still small enough to swing by a morning reader.

[Deme]

Man, do I like being able to go from 0 to update in about 30 minutes. So cozy.

Chapter 3, Into Week 2, Mood - Spoilered
Or
Maybe we should compare her weight to a duck!

Spoiler

I'll take your word for it, honey. I'm never allowed to see your room outside of the floorplan.

"...Something like this."
So apparently family reunions are contingent on personal tragedies in this family. I wonder who had to die the last time they met.
"I know your brother and sister are still too young, but why haven't you come to school?"


Silly lady...Doesn't she realize that, at least for us, only home is safe?
By the way, for any of you playing along at home for the 'this lady looks and sounds evil' Bingo, we can add "Smothering mother," I suppose. Or is that good?

"I understand. I'm probably not going to be allowed to leave this castle until my birthday."
The correctness of this statement is up to you, the voting audience!
...Also, it's adorable she thinks that's sufficient to keep her safe.


And now we're officially terrified for our life. Yay?


Her fear face.

Our current skills, with bonuses and penalties. You can already see the bonuses we got from learning some Intrigue and Weapons lowering the penalties on Intrigue and Weapons. Yaaay!

However, this week, our agenda is Accounting and Poison.

Huh, nifty. Well, just be sure to keep some Charcoal with you at all times, honey.

Princess Luna would be so pleased, I'm sure.


And, as usual, there's commotion outside. Let's see what we've got this week.


Lumen is both the word for magic and the word for a person who wields such magic. In other words, she's a witch!
The question is, do we burn her...

Oh my. This sounds pretty serious.

"What?!?"
My thoughts almost exactly, Elodie.

"I am a lumen, as was she, and like every Lumen I am willing to give my life if necessary to protect our domain."
"Your line has been traitors for two hundred years. I won't have you corrupting my daughter."

I wonder if we'd have known about this had we studied Lore, or if that comes later? Well, anyway, the short version is: No one likes Lumen. I think Julia is the only currently 'out' lumen in our whole kingdom...Though not the only one.
But please, let's get back to that whole 'killed our mom' thing.


See what happens when you tell us the choices are ultimately ours, dad? We get allowed branching decision paths.
"Elodie, your mother trusted me, and I have much to teach you."


Well, looks like we have a choice to make. We can hear what she has to say, we can lock her up, we can ask her to please leave.

Since all of these outcomes affect our mood in different ways, we'll hold off voting for weekend activity until next time.

Ok, so, voting!

#1: What do we do with Julia?
#2: Next time, should we do voting like we did last time, with the activity and the classes for the next week in a single vote? Or does that get too chaotic, since you don't know exactly where our mood will be?

[Sanguine]

I'll votes let her stay. Locking her up is also good, but we definitely don't want to send her away.

As for the second bit, I'm not sure.

[Hawkflight]

I vote we let her stay. Because friendship is magic and all.

[Starbuck_II]

Yes, let her stay, we must find out how she caused our mum's death.

[Bodez]

Stay, of course, this is a Magical Princess Game after all.
And as for skills, well, since it depends on the mood so much, I guess it would be best to find some other way of voting. But I don't have anything smart to say about that right now, sadly.

[Terraoblivion]

Yeah, let her stay. It might mean that we can learn magic and become a magical girl like on the title screen!

Also, for skills maybe we could vote on a general set of priorities we want to take Elodie in and then you pick the exact skills learned based on that. Votes would probably be every few weeks for it to have meaning.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Voting for Stay too. Sure, she looks kinda evil, but I'm pretty sure it's a "we wanted you to THINK she was evil but she's actually just grumpy with a good heart" sort of evil look. Friendship, magic, etcetera.

Originally Posted by Bodez

And as for skills, well, since it depends on the mood so much, I guess it would be best to find some other way of voting. But I don't have anything smart to say about that right now, sadly.

We could split up the chapters to vote knowing the mood, but I worry it would slow things down too much... Can't think of a third option right now.

[Lycan 01]

Let her Stay.


Also, I think we can (usually) safely guess what our mood will be based on the weekend activities, so voting for the weekend activity + week's classes shouldn't cause too much disaster. Hopefully.


I mean, I'd be fine with voting for those things separately. But I'd hate for you to be bore waiting for enough votes, and the pace of the game/LP suffer as a result. But if that won't be a problem, then splitting the voting stuff is fine.

[Hazzardevil]

Let her stay so that she can teach us magic and then when she betrays us we can trounce her using what she taught us.

[Tengu_temp]

This reminds me of the (in)famous Princess Maker 2 LP with Gendou. And that's always a good thing.

[Deme]

Ok, so I have an idea about the voting thing; tell me how this sounds:

First, the update happens that calls for the weekend activity and study vote (like the next one will). At this time, everyone only votes for activity.
After some time/votes, I'll close the voting for that and declare a winner.
Unless the activity involves choices (like some of the 'talk to so-and-so ones do), I'll then clear up any mysteries about what it does to our mood if there are some (due to talk to so-and-so)
...And then open voting for our study, and then show these things all at once in an update with the events or whatever.