Part 1: Week 0

This is the title screen. The checklist shows the different things you have done, and "bonus" has some art in it. For now, let's just hit "start game."







...



I know it's hard to leave your school and all your friends, but I've arranged the best possible tutors for every subject. 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.

This is not what Mother would have wanted!

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

No. She wouldn't. But sometimes bad things happen. We have to pick up and carry on. All of Nova depends on us. On you.

*sigh*

I will be here to guide you until your coronation, but the decisions you make are ultimately up to you. Come. Your maids are waiting.





I'll let the tutorial explain the basic mechanics.

You will be controlling Elodie, the almost-Queen of Nova, as she tries to prepare for her coronation. To do that, she needs to take classes every week in order to raise her Skills. The skills she learns will provide different choices in the ongoing plot. Learning the right skills can mean the difference between life and death! You also need to keep an eye on Elodie's Mood. With her mother's tragic death, Elodie is not very happy right now. The Mood button will take you to the emotions screen for more details.



Elodie's current mood affects her ability to learn. It will give her a bonus to some skills and a penalty to others. Let's take a look at the Skills screen now.



Every week, Elodie can study two skills. Normally, she earns 2 points in a skill for every weekday that she studies. So if she studies History, she will earn 2 points x 5 days = 10 points. Because Elodie is depressed, she has a -2 penalty to the Social skillset Conversation. She doesn't feel like talking to people right now. If she studies Conversation, she will earn 2 - 2 points per day: that is, 0 points! However, she has a +1 bonus to the Expression skillset. If she studies one of the Expression skills, she will earn 2 + 1 points per day. Which means 3 points a day, 15 points for the week. If you study a skill you have a penalty for, you could be wasting your time and not learning anything. If you study a skill you have bonuses for, you will learn much faster than normal. All of these bonuses and penalties will change when Elodie's mood changes. She can also gain bonuses to skills by studying related skills. Check the skills screen every week to see your current bonuses! Once you know your mood, skills, bonuses, and penalties, you are ready to choose your classes for the week.



Choose a class option for both Morning and Evening classes, then click the 'Done' button which will appear in the lower-right corner. As you play through the story, you will sometimes see feedback bubbles appearing over the text. These tell you what's happening behind the scenes.





This feedback is very helpful in figuring out different options to try! But if you don't want to see it, you can turn
the bubbles off in the Preferences menu. Now, get ready to become a Queen!

Thanks tutorial! The tutorial didn't mention everything, so I'll cover the gaps.



This is the screen you will see when preparing for the next week. It is the only place where we can check Elodie's skills, assign her classes, and change her outfits.



This is the full list of skills Elodie can learn.



This is the full class selection system. You first select a set of skills (such as royal demeanor), and then select the specific skill (such as composure). Elodie can choose one AM class, and one PM class. Whether a class is AM or PM does sometimes matter, because a skill can't be raised above 50 until all of the other skills in the set are at 25 or higher. So, if you wish to raise a skill that is at 50 (or very close to it), you should raise your other skills in the set to 25. If you raise the last skill to 25 in the AM class, you can then raise the skill at 50 in the PM one.



Here we can change Elodie's outfit. Right now all we have is her boarding school uniform, but that will change. These outfits increase all stats in a skill set by 10. You unlock outfits in the same way you unlock the skill cap of 50; by getting 25 or more points of each skill in a set.

There is also a Log option. This allows you to see all dialogue that has been said and what choices you made. Neat! This is has been especially useful for creating this screenshot let's play.

Vote for what skills (or skill sets) you want to increase! Choose 2, and explicitly state which is for the AM Class, and which is for the PM Class. In this game, doubling up is often a good strategy, so it needs to be set up this way. You can find the in game description of each class in the second post.