A Broken Ever After
Synopsis
The Princess of Nalaantai was never expected to be born, much less to survive past infancy. Unfortunately, her life is expected to be used as a penance for her family's follies, and that entails being forced to marry a man twice her age, and into the volatile Essenian court.
Every four generations, the ruling clan of the Ximoyan Desert and the Empire of Essenia would engage in a marriage pact. One nation would marry its eldest legitimate daughter to the other's crown prince, and ideally, it would alternate each time. The Princess is, unluckily, the only eligible princess left in Nalaantai, and her marriage determines who the next Emperor of Essenia is.
Game
- Entirely text-based
- Somewhat pre-defined female protagonist
- 4 different educations for the MC
- 3 main ROs, 1 partial RO, and a secret RO
- 9 endings planned for finished game
- Set in a fictional universe based off of 10th-13th century Europe and Asia
- Intended for an 18+ audience; contains mature/sensitive themes, more info in the game's content warning section
Romance
- Launcelin vu Ehteliohrt, Second Prince of Essenia | The Princess' husband, and 18 years her senior. He is the eldest surviving son of the Emperor of Essenia, but entirely unfavoured by his father. He was once engaged to the Princess' late aunt, and is twice widowed. He appears to have little interest in the throne, and even less interest in the Princess as a woman. | Main RO
- Vezian vu Ehteliohrt, Sixth Prince of Essenia | The Princess' brother-in-law, and 4 years her senior. He is the second surviving son of the Emperor of Essenia, and a legitimized bastard. He is blatantly favoured by his father, yet despite his position and influence, is still unmarried. He is completely fixated on marrying the Princess no matter what to claim what he sees as his rightful throne. | Main RO
- Lu'anyu yaza Nu'erzhu, Eighth Master of Gui'ansu | A close friend of the Princess, and 2 years her senior. He served as an emissary in Nalaantai, and specifically served as the Princess' language tutor for when she was engaged to his older brother. The two most important things in his life are his ambitions to become the ruler of his tribe, and the Princess, While he might insist otherwise, he knows he cannot have both. | Main RO
- Ouren vu Ehteliohrt, Prince of Essenia | The Princess' stepson, and the same age as the Princess. He is the son of Launcelin and his first wife, and is rather disliked by the Emperor. He prefers to live quietly, studying art and music instead of engaging in courtly intrigue, and his hobbies are encouraged by his father. He quite unfortunately discovers that he has a bit of an infatuation with the Princess. | Partial RO (his romance will conclude in the story, but he has no 'proper' ending)
- Secret Romance | The less said of him, the better. Has 1 bad ending planned.
About/To Do
- Game image is White Roses by Ma Yuan because I have zero artistic talent/ability whatsoever
- For fun tidbits and general tomfoolery, check here
- Also available on dashingdon.com, both sites will be updated around the same time (also dashingdon has the save feature right now).
- No idea when next update will be because I don't have a consistent writing schedule since this is just a hobby
- Next update will hopefully have the save feature though
- Thanks for reading, and any/all feedback is welcome! Mostly looking for feedback regarding confusion in the writing, suggestions for the codex, and checking if more content warnings are needed (◕ω◕✿)
Comments
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this reminds me of those Chinese harem drama i grew up with. love it so much! >v<
Is this game still on going or dropped? It has been years man :( The story is really interesting, actually
This and all other projects by this dev are on hiatus for the time being. It's there on their tumblr page.
Hiya! This game looks really promising! I came here after playing Absinthian Ballad and I have to say that this game did not disappoint at all. I love the style that this is written in. One small suggestion coming from someone of East Asian culture, maybe language wise try to stick to one to two languages, as you're using english phonetics (or their equivalents), especially for Asian languages, it can get very confusing. I understand the want to draw from multiple cultures, however language wise, the languages developed farily independently and it doesn't exactly make sense why they would be as mixed as they are in this world. Maybe try sticking to one Asian language and one European language to mix into English for each culture? That would make the language differences more distinct and also less confusing for anyone who's bilingual.
Also as a side note: Gege means older brother in Chinese, which is my mother tongue, while I know that you're mostly using Manchurian titles, it also gets very confusing every time I see the MC being addressed as gege (I'm still at the start of this game)
I personally didn't have an issue.
As someone who also speaks Mandarin, I thought there was enough situational context to figure that a princess was being referred to as 格格, and not 哥哥.
probably my favorite game I’ve found on this site. The writing style is so good, the setting is so interesting, and I love the characters. I love the time they spent fleshing out mc’s relationship with her family too.
love game like this so much.
Gods,I love games like this. :)
I think this has much potential! I really loved the little world you've set up, the rules and the manners and court intrigue. It really felt like I was in a period drama lol.
I found this on dashington and lemme tell ya, I may be somewhat confused as to where the plot is headed (I blame my sleep deprived mind 😔✌️) but I’m here for the angst and for a great story! Seriously tho for whoever’s reading this, check it out!!
Hello! I'm really excited for this game! I stumbled across this on the dashingdon website and was really interested in this once I started reading it. I'll cheering you on and be waiting for the completion of this. 🥰