Long Live the Queen

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Long Live the Queen

MSRP: $9.95 (free demo available)

Platforms: Win, Mac, Linux

Release: 11/8/13

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Long Live the Queen is, at least for me, a really unusual game.  It’s a visual choose your own adventure with a heavy strategic component.

You play Elodie, a young princess whose mother has just passed away.  You’re the heir to the throne, but before that happens, you have a LOT to learn.

A brief tutorial introduces the player to moods, skills, and how skills are affected by moods. Each week you must choose two classes which determine which skills Elodie levels in that week. But you get bonuses and penalties to different skills based on your mood.

Mood is affected in part by things that happen in the story, and in part by the weekend activities you choose to participate.  If you get 25 points in each of the three skills in any given sub-category, you’re granted an outfit that boosts further learning in that sub-category when you’re wearing it.  The skills you have and haven’t learned have as much effect on the story as the dialogue choices that you make.

This game expects you to fail in so many glorious ways, there is even an in-game checklist that can be accessed from the main menu which has achievements as well as different manners of death you might experience.

And when Elodie dies, it’s game over. Nothing carries over to your next play except your memory of what order events occurred in.

This isn’t a game I play often, but when I do, I really get sucked in and push for the finish line.  Which has been poor Elodie’s premature death every time I’ve played.  I might have more success if I were to play back to back instead of waiting weeks or months between sessions.