ataleofcrowns - Tumblr blog

[ataleofcrowns]

Matching nail polishes :3

I love them lmao (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

[ataleofcrowns]

Hi!! Is there an official or fanmade map for the story?? Also i'm 100000% hooked and addicted and sooo glad for some brown girl representation

Yep, you unlock it in CH8!! It shows up in the Geography codex, the game will notify you once you've unlocked it.

[ataleofcrowns]

tûjo my bestie

[ataleofcrowns]

I feel as if this is a misconception I've seen more and more as of late, likely because of the role the main character takes on as the Crown, but for new players and others that want to recommend this game to their friends:

AToC is not a power fantasy.

The Crown's title is rooted in very meaningful political dynamics. All their actions and decisions have consequences. There's no such thing as one individual being able to singlehandedly change centuries of power structures embedded into society; that is a fundamental misunderstanding and a naive view of how the world works. Political victories will be hard won, and even when you make the best decisions for every situation, there will still be downsides because your Crown is not a god and cannot control every aspect of every situation.

If you go into it with the mindset that your Crown is the most powerful person who should be able to bulldoze their opponents despite having never set a single toe in any political arena before, you're going to be very sorely disappointed, and this is not the story for you.

What AToC does do is for you to follow and shape the journey of your Crown from the beginning of their reign, and witness their growth over that period of time.

If you don't have the patience to watch your main character learn and progress and gain experience over time, and get upset that they aren't perfect from the start or that their love interests (who are better educated, better trained, and more experienced in every facet) are equally influential and valuable in their own ways, then you're going to have a very bad time with this story 🤷🏽‍♀️

[ataleofcrowns]

Royal Protectors ✧

I cant stop thinking abt them lmao

[ataleofcrowns]

Eid Mubarak 💖

[ataleofcrowns]

Hello! I was wondering if it’s okay to answer people who need help with certain choices in the game – like the high or low variants… I was filling out my answer on Itch.io but got nervous lol so I wanted to see if that was okay 🫡 Thank you for the hard work!

Of course!! In fact I'd encourage it, since I have no inclination to provide all the answers myself haha. If you all can manage to figure it out amongst each other for people who just want to have the best possible outcomes, feel free to share 💖

[ataleofcrowns]

Hi there! I love D so much and their route is just <3<3<3. HOWEVER, My crown is not the type to suck up to the nobles, and they seem to be the ones really "preventing" (for lack of a better word) the relationship between D and the Crown... will being a crown that prioritizes the people over the nobility hinder the relationship between D and the Crown? Especially considering the events in ch 11 💀

If anything, it's the opposite!

Like, the nobles and the court and all the social rules attached to being the Crown is definitely an obstacle, but that doesn't change D's feelings for the Crown at all. Those are external circumstances that neither of them can change - and, if anything, a Crown that prioritizes the people will further win D's admiration and strengthen their bond as a result.

If your Crown starts veering into directions that prioritize or enable the noble class of Arsur at the cost of its citizens, however? Now that's a problem, because that's fully within the Crown's control, and something D disagrees with immensely. Pretty much flying into the core of everything they believe and the principles they hold, pretty much.

Each of the LIs already have had opinions on what the Crown has decided in their official capacity as a ruler (such as the choice you make in CH5 regarding the assassination attempt), but they just haven't been very vocal about it yet because the decisions have been smaller scale, less consequential, or without any overt moral slant. It hasn't impacted the relationship much at all yet.

But the further along the story we get, the greater the consequences of political decisions the Crown will have to make, and the more the LIs will have to say about it.

A romancers, for example, have already gotten a preview of this in CH11 if they made a certain choice that drew A's anger...

So, be prepared for that!!

[ataleofcrowns]

Just wanted to pop in and say like, I found all of the routes to be really romantic, but I was pleasantly surprised by X’s.

The sheer social intelligence X has, means that every interaction feels so layered, and they’re so used to people only picking up on the parts of conversation they want to. I love that their autonomy is so fiercely important to them, and that it’ll never change. There’s strength in standing for yourself even if other people don’t realize thats what you’re doing. There’s a beauty in something or someone being strong enough, capable enough, loved enough that they’d never need you and deciding you have meaning in their life, but that you won’t change the meaning of their life.

I didn’t expect to dislike X, but I didn’t expect to like them as much as I do.

It was breathtaking to get a glimpse, if you will, of their nuance, and it felt like a gift to surprise someone who isn’t used to being surprised.

I can truthfully say that your IF is the only one where I’ve found every RO compelling and magnetic and full of depth long before mc gets involved. It’s not their burgeoning feels for mc that make them so, but it’s what makes those feelings and scenes so powerful. It’s also why they don’t loose their appeal as good friends either. I enjoyed all of their routes, enough that I could probably write an essay on all of them, and I’m looking forward to playing all their routes to completion.

Always great to see X getting some love in my askbox, I'm so glad you were able to appreciate all those aspects of their character!! X hides a lot beneath their exterior, and peeling all those layers back is the best part of their route imo 💖🥰

Happy to hear you enjoy the others as well! It was a priority to me to design each potential love interest as someone who was already grounded in the setting with histories and motivations of their own prior to the MC arriving. As great as an impact as MC has on them in each route, they're still their own individual people with their own desires and goals and perspectives.

To me personally, nothing feels as hollow and pointless as reading a romance where there is nothing to the love interest except for being obsessed with the MC. I get bored of that dynamic VERY quickly. So, my personal distaste for that definitely had a hand in informing my development of the characters in my own game haha.

[ataleofcrowns]

Patreon exclusive: D's character snippet from March, featuring a date with them and the Crown at the beach. Released for tier 2 and above!

[ataleofcrowns]

Hi sorry for being dumb but what does high/low route mean? I read the demo a long time ago and I'm about to read it again so I'm a bit clueless now about the new features

It's a feature that starts becoming relevant in CH9; depending on how many points you have with your main LI by that chapter, your romance will split into a "high" variant and a "low" variant.

Which one you have is marked in your Relationships tab as "Your relationship has been progressing well" for high, or "Your relationship has been unsteady" for low under your main LI!

I should also note it's not permanent by that point. You can always lift your relationship status to high with subsequent romance choices (or fall down to low if you mess up haha). There will be multiple checks throughout the story to determine where you're at, it won't be locked in until we're at the tail-end of the story which is still many chapters away!!

[ataleofcrowns]

Chapter 12 Progress [08/APR]

Hey gang, I've started posting updates on my Patreon now that I'm actually making some damn progress on this chapter, so I figured to cross-post the latest update here as well. These are usually for members only but it's been sooo long, the ones I'm posting in April are all going to be for free 🙏🏼

This progress report focuses on a specific section of what I'm working on regarding CH12 and, more specifically, Kham.

About Kham

This one is turning out to be a bigger branching route than I expected. For those not in the know, I described in my dev sneak peek from last month how the opening scene of CH12 will involve the Crown dealing (or not dealing?) with Kham. It will be a bit of a culmination of all the choices you've made regarding Kham so far: did you inform her of the assassins in CH5, did you decide to trust her/were you honest with her in CH6, and did you choose to ask her to mediate for you in CH10?

Particularly that last decision will lead to the biggest difference in scenery: if you asked for Kham's help, you will get a scene at the palace involving her and the peri trader. If you decided not to ask her, however, the story will instead see you investigating the peri trader personally.

Initially, these were both two very clear branching paths with two very clear-cut consequences, but I decided it made more sense to offer additional variation. Choosing not to ask for her help with the peri trader will NOT lock you out of being able to ally with her... but the circumstances of it will be quite different compared to a player who has trusted Kham from the start and asked for her help.

You can, of course, decide not to ally with her on either branch as well, if you don't think she can be trusted. In which case, you should be prepared to make an enemy out of her: there's no fence-sitting on this one, and there won't be any chances to make an ally of her later on in the story. Similarly, if she turns out to be untrustworthy, and you make an ally out of her now, there won't be any takebacksies later... so you might end up stabbed in the back.

This is your one and only shot, so choose wisely.

About D and X

I'm currently working on the branch of the Crown dealing with the peri trader without Kham's involvement, and it's a pretty fun variation. There are some undercover detective vibes going on, and it's nice to write a scene set in the city as opposed to the palace for some variety. Though I've also dabbled in the route with Kham's help, and the Crown really flexes their royal authority in that one. Can go no wrong with either option in terms of entertainment, imo!

What's also been fun to explore further is how the main LI's subplot is starting to affect things in the story. I do have to note that for the branching sequence with the Kham choice, there's a bit of a spotlight on D and X since those two were gone for a whole chapter, so they get to spend some special time with the Crown in the first half of CH12. But R and A will be back for the rest of it!

I'll give you some D and X route crumbs this week since I've been chipping away at that one first, and hopefully I'll also have some on R and A next time:

For people who aren't on D's route, they'll get to find out something special about D that D romancers became privy to in CH11. It doesn't change much for the Crown on those routes, just some D lore you may enjoy and an opportunity to grow your friendship further.

As for D romancers, you all may or may not get a potentially devastating sequence depending on how your Crown handled their little court scene in CH11. If you managed to protect D, then all the better, but if you couldn't stamp out the court's protests... well, let's just say your Crown is going to have to be the one to inform D of any bad news.

Plus there's that damned letter to worry about. I'm sure that won't become any kind of problem at all.

For people who aren't on X's route, things are peachy! Honestly, all of the drama that happens for X romancers is not a big deal for everyone else, since X's romance with the Crown is the thing that causes them to act out. X friendship players are coasting in that regard, you just enjoy seeing X get to be their usual menace self.

For people who are romancing X, people on their low route might start noticing something different about them. Their actions in the high and low romances will be the exact same, but the vibes on the low route will be off, to say the least. You can still recover to a high route! But it will require having to pierce through that mask X is so fond of wearing...

High romancers: kick back, relax, and enjoy your upcoming romance content guilt-free LMAO

That was it for this week!! I wish I could give you an estimated release window, but I've been wrestling with this chapter, and I'm frankly deeply afraid I won't be able to finish it before summer rolls in 💀

Please keep your local struggling writer in your thoughts and prayers, and as always thank you for your patience and support 🙏🏼

[ataleofcrowns]

happy day of black sun cherry i am celebrating with a death of the sun crown playthrough and so much screaming much love be safe youre brilliant ✨☀️🌿

Death of the Sun affinity players today is YOUR day 🙏🏼

[ataleofcrowns]

Patreon exclusive: D's character snippet from March, featuring a date with them and the Crown at the beach. Released for tier 2 and above!

[ataleofcrowns]

hi! i’ve been wanting to make my own interactive fantasy game for a while, and AToC’s being a huge inspiration and motivation booster

i’m curious as to what you used to make it? i think twine but i’m not sure, tips would b much appreciated

Yep, it's Twine in Sugarcube format! You can check this list of Twine resources to help you along, it's very extensive. Much success with your own project 🙏🏼

[ataleofcrowns]

Tbh the moment I opened the game's page, scrolled down, and saw Dara's fugly ass haircut I knew I needed to romance that man. Haven't regretted that decision since. In general though I do want to comment on how good the portrait art is? Both versions not only look great, but capture the characters really well (in my opinion). Like, the vibes are immaculate and my day is made every time I look at their beautiful faces. Props to the artist! I'd send them this ask, but they've got anon turned off.

@artbygaia Some more well-deserved compliments for you 💖💖

[ataleofcrowns]

Hi! I just recently subcribed to your patreon, and I'm a little confused, like when I open the link to read the snippets, it asks for a password. My question is where do I find this? I'm so sorry for asking I just really don't know lol (you're the first person I subscribed to on patreon so things are a little new haha)

You need to look at the pinned post with the snippet links!