Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem

[lea_hazel]

Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem is a combination diplomatic sim/dating sim, where you get to balance ambition and emotion while angling for a good match. As the title implies, you play a princess from one of seven kingdoms. The backstory explains extensively why you, a young woman, are sent alone to negotiate a marriage for yourself as part of an improbably elaborate peace conference/meat market.

I was so excited when I started this game, I could hardly focus on playing. I haven't even finished the demo and I have so much to say.

First: the game is fiendishly difficult. It has a "story mode" that makes things easier (and less fatal) which I haven't tried yet. It resembles Long Live the Queen in more than one way, in this case, in the fact that you must resign yourself to failing some things. You cannot master all skills, you cannot befriend or seduce all characters. Some people (in the game) are just smarter than you. One way this shows up very clearly is in the matchmaker scene.

I want to talk a little about the matchmaker mechanic, because I think it's brilliant. After delineating her personal history, her virtues and her weaknesses, your princess is assessed by a professional matchmaker. The game makes several skill and personality checks. No matter what choices you make (...I'm almost certain) the matchmaker will dismiss you as a disaster. This can be a little disheartening, but it serves a valuable function. On the face of it, it sets up the gameplay -- where you build up skills, knowledge and connections in an effort of impressing and making a good marriage. More subtly, this scene is here to remind the player that there are no correct choices.

"No correct choices" means that the game, in theory, isn't meant to have a single, successful path that counts as 100% victory. Success is subjective, to some extent. Death, obviously, is not a desirable outcome, but otherwise you forge your princess's goals and skills likewise, and it's up to you, the player, to make them compatible. Once again it resembles LLTQ in that it has a whole set of "princess" type skills and a whole set of "game protagonist" skills. The matchmaker is here to remind you that every choice you make has an upside and a downside.

Are you hoping to fall in love? You are a foolish romantic with your head in the clouds. Are you here to amass power? You have a grasping air about you, dear, and no one likes a cynic. Leadership skills come at the expense of charm and manners. Academic prowess comes at expense of finesse. Everything that makes you desirable to one prospect will also make you repulsive to another. No matter which nation you come from, some of the delegates (and marriage prospects) are your country's sworn enemies, and these rivalries are based on deep philosophical gulfs.

I... still have so many secrets to unlock. But this game makes me so, so happy. I could (and will!) write a critical post about the weaknesses of the writing and the worldbuilding, and I want to note in advance that the game is unfinished and the temporary UI is simply appalling. Despite its shining potential, the poor choices in layout and fonts may well make the demo unplayable for some players.

The full demo for Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem can be downloaded from their official site, here. Read alias_sqbr's non-spoilery review (which drew me into the game) here.

Crossposted to hazelgold.net.

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

So glad you're enjoying it! And yeah that Matchmaker scene was a useful moment of
"Ok, I am going to fail things sometimes and that's ok". And I like that some characters won't like you if you have the wrong stats when they're the kind of person who would care about someone being smart/likeable etc. It makes relationships feel more natural instead of "pick the right dialogue options, have everyone love you even if you are 100% incompatible".

There's a spreadsheet with all the checks etc if you're interested. I found it challenging to get everything I wanted even with the spreadsheet AND on Story Mode, but I am not actually very good at games.

EDIT: Oooh there's a wiki!

[lea_hazel]

All of those resources are so useful, I struggle with the temptation. I want to use them lightly but it's hard to resist. This is why when I make tips posts I try to keep them to principles. Except, in this case, I really needed the numbers game.

[alias_sqbr]

I'm happy to look things up for you if you want!

[lynnoconnacht]

Ooooooooooh. This sounds fun!

[lea_hazel]

Definitely highly recommended for quality, but anti-recommended as being a massive productivity killer. I haven't written anything since Sunday morning (and I installed the game Sunday afternoon).

[lynnoconnacht]

I may have been up until 2am to finish a playthrough. >> I think "massive productivity killer" is a bit of understatement. O_O

I actually really like the gameplay pacing in the demo, but it's got this knack of throwing a curve ball of some sort just as I've reached a point where I could conceivably put it away for a while. I'm not sure in how far that makes sense. ^_^;;

[lea_hazel]

No, I know what you mean. Whenever I say to myself, 'I'll play until X event' I fail to meet that mark. Same for, 'I'll play for Y minutes'.

[ember_keelty]

Okay so I hear you need help beating the second Matchmaker interview (you're right that the first one is unbeatable).

So: the first thing you need to know is that there's an autofail condition. If more than four of your main skills are below 50 (that is, the ones the page labeled "skills" that aren't the cumulative skills — I don't think "insight" counts but it's hella useful and easy to build so you should definitely have it at LEAST at 50 anyway), you're out.

After you've passed the autofail condition, you just need to impress the Matchmaker, and there are a number of ways you can do that. You can get points with her for having high friendship, respect, and romance and low rivalry with all the other characters totaled together. You get points for having high approval with the different factions. You get points for having high insight (remember how I said you should be building that?). You get points for having your knowledge stats at fifty, and for having your main skills at 75. So do not waste time building your skills over 75 or knowledge stats over 50 - I'm pretty sure it doesn't help at all. When you're training your stats, plan ahead for the ones that will get built up through "freebies" like invitation events and gifts so that you don't over-train them and miss out on time to do other things. The wiki is a good resource for all the freebie stat-raisers - just search the stat you're interested in and it will have a list of the ways to grow it by week.

The biggest and most important thing you can do that will make or break your game is build relationships. In and of themselves they impress the Matchmaker, and they also give you stat boosts through invitation events and gifts. Always, ALWAYS go to the welcome feast early - five or ten points of beauty are never worth the relationships you could be fostering. After that, it's just a matter of learning how to impress the various delegates and doing it consistently. Host your first week event and make sure you get perfect attendance and it's at least moderately successful. Give everyone the perfect gifts for the Matchmaker's breakfast — which, I should mention, aren't necessarily the most expensive gifts, that confused me for a long time. There's a guide for that, if you want it, but for most characters it's not that hard to figure out what they like.

And... that's all I have, unless you have a more specific question. Good luck!

[lea_hazel]

The autofail condition turned out to be what I was missing. I managed to pass a couple of times and then got complacent and tried with one of the more difficult origins. My skills were all right but the lack of social skills meant I failed to impress the external parties much.

Probably I shouldn't have chosen practical skills in character creation. Ironically they are perfectly useless in the game so far.

I am having trouble with the friendship/romance/respect stats, though. In general, would you say it's better to flirt/accept maximum dates, or focus on building up a few? If I turn down dates I get dialogue where the matchmaker says I shouldn't have closed so many doors, or something like that. But I can never seem to befriend anyone. What's the cutoff, 50%? The social bars are so hard to judge.

[ember_keelty]

You definitely shouldn't turn down dates! The only time I ever do is if it's with Zarad or Jarrod and I know I won't get past the first check anyway. Dates are actually pretty good for building respect and friendship as well as romance, and if they're successful they boost your stats twice as much as spending the time block training them would, the only downside being that you can't choose which stat gets the boost.

And haha, yeah, practical doesn't seem to have any uses thus far! I go for either nature, which has a few checks and also is easy to build to fifty in time to impress the Matchmaker, or people, which gives a nice boost to the interpersonal insight cumulative and is necessary for Zarad's date.

[lea_hazel]

I think I will go forward basing my knowledge choices on events, since it seems critical to have an at least semi-successful week 1 event, in order to build up faction respect.

Anyway, I think I might go after the perfect intro speech and/or all the secrets this time. Since I can't figure out why I'm not maxing my relationships, and since I really don't want to go date-by-date according to a strict manual, it kind of takes the punch out of the game.

As I learn things I will jot character notes. I find those more helpful than walkthroughs.