#ckegame

[rema-toro]

The portrait position is not ideal, but i cant fit it anywhere else

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Introduction to the game's world

I did not go wild with wordbuilding since you really wont be able to see much of it in a normal playthrough,

but I did make maps!

There are seven countries/empires/nations/whatevers in CKE, each one defined by a diferent climate/ecosistem.

The idea is that Owen can romance (aside from other npcs) a princess/duchess/queen of every country.

Atm we have 4 out of 6 princesses. These characters are among the few that have an in-game portrait.

Ararat (Mediterranean)

The protagonist's country, known for it's ink industry. The island in the north is used as a high security prision with inmates from all over the continent. The Tree of life is the blazon of the kingdom.

Himavata (Polar, or just cold)

West from Ararat and known for its impregnable fortifications. The oldest kingdom in the continent. Native artisans have been specialising in treating various kinds of wool and bones.

Princess: Ruslana.

Aria Aidros (Dry)

In the heart of the continent, four cultures form the Aria Aidros republic. These cultures are ancient but the union of the four is relatively recent. It's a closed nation but not necessarily unfriendly to foreigners

Adspanja (Forest, jungle)

An empire led by a madman. Gladly, his sister the Kandake holds enough power to avoid disaster.

Kandake's daughter: Hibo.

Wyrmminnie (Forest, rocky)

Fourty percent of it's territory consists of the most advanced metroplises. However, the remaining percent remains unexplored due to the perilous native beasts.

Mesotalasa (Tropical, volcanic)

Since the island's volcano became inactive four decades ago, the small nation which dwelled in the south west coast of the continent, expanded its territory, rapidly becoming a relevant country as the main obsidian source of the continent.

King's niece: Sonam.

Herikstán (Hot)

Known for its spices and leather industry. The fish from its largest river are considered extremely rare and highly valued in foreign territories.

King's cousin: Amita

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Owen's design's evolution

I had a lot of trouble figuring out how the characters should look like in the game during the first year of development.

In the beginning I wanted characters to simply appear in a little window inside the textbox, like they do in Princess Maker 2 (The main inspiration for this game), but I only started drawing after my colleague and I had decided we wanted character sprites in the game.

Owen's design hasn't changed much (except when he had a totally different design somewhere between the 4th and 5th sprites... But that design was reused for Anhelo's character).

He started looking more prince-like..., then leaned more towards his jester-y side... Finding a balance between Prince-blank-protagonist and Jester-charismatic-protagonist has been (and still is) a hard task.

Some of my acquaintances feel sad I discarded having sprites in the game and instead decided on making it a text-based game with few portraits. I understand it can be disappointing for us who are so used to Visual Novel Games, but I'm more than happy with the style I've chosen, for I don't think I would have known how to make a sprite pop over a background without having them feel foreign to the other.

I know my reach is limited but I still would like to ask what anyone who sees this thinks about my resolution or about any of the earlier sprites. I've grown to love each version, so I'm happy I found a good excuse to share them.

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Sundial Evolution

From left to right.

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Menus

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Some resources from CKE

Even if text based the game does show a peek of the location you're at and little icons representing the characters on scene.

Some characters (Like Owen and the foreign princesses do have an in-game portrait.)

I'd like to share some of the location resources with you:

These are just a few among the 18 (if I counted well) I have at the moment. More than half are already implemented in the game.

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Made an itch.io page and have finally decided on The Game's name.

A Sow's ear Prince by ReMa

A simple life-sim where you play as a king-to-be.

I'd say I managed to make it look cute 👍

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