Long Live Long Live the Queen

[Mogri]

A friend recently mentioned playing Long Live the Queen, and I thought, "Hey, that game was awesome. I should replay it." So I did, and it still is.

In case you haven't played it, LLTQ is "Princess Maker meets Game of Thrones," and while your first playthrough will probably be fairly mundane, ending in an early death by assassins or brigands, the game can go wild places when you meet the right conditions. Here's a small sampling of the things you can potentially do:

Spoiler: They're in the in-game checklist, but maybe you'd rather not know

• Become a magical girl (you will probably do this on your first run, even going in blind)
• Make your cousin become a magical girl
• Cause a civil war
• Be challenged to a duel
• Challenge someone else to a duel
• Order an assassination on a relative
• Become the villain's sidekick
• Win the game by singing really well
• Forget about the whole "queen" thing and go on an adventure
• Poison a chicken
• Die many different ways

The game is short enough that you can finish it in an hour, and it's entirely deterministic but also extremely replayable. That's a tough balancing act, but LLTQ pulls it off and then some.

Here are some general, spoiler-free tips:

• Decide on a handful of skill groups to focus on at the start of the game. You have enough time to max out something like five skill groups (should you survive so long).
• Skills are capped at 50 until you have the entire skill group to at least 25. Getting a skill group to 25 also unlocks a new outfit, which boosts that skill group by like 15 or 20.
• Your mood gives bonuses and penalties to the learn rate of various skill groups. Don't be afraid to study skills that don't have a bonus, but the penalties are severe and should be avoided.
• The greater your total skill in a skill group or category, the faster you will learn other skills in that group or category. This doesn't usually make a big difference, but it's nice to know, especially if you really want to go ham on all physical skills or something.
• Pay attention to the skill checks you fail, and try focusing those skills in future runs.
• Save your game regularly unless you don't mind replaying large portions of the game. (Replaying tends to go very fast, but it can be a hassle.)

Has there ever been another game like LLTQ? I would love to play another game that is exactly LLTQ.

 

[Violentvixen]

I had to uninstall this game because I was investing so much time into it. I have all 45 achievements. It's so awesome and I really appreciate that it's so quick, I didn't feel like my first totally unplanned playthrough was a waste because I learned things and so much changes so subtly every time, and the Fast Forward works well.

 

[Syless]

I remember the first time I made a serious attempt at this game. I tried to flowchart it, but things didn't seem to be occurring the same way in different playthroughs, and it wasn't until I read a Let's Play of it that I saw just how complex the game is, under the hood. Not to be mistaken for an ordinary VN, or even a VN with stats like Magical Diary. I wish I could think of something comparable in complexity.

 

[Mogri]

The systems of the game aren't that complex, but the possibility space certainly is. As far as skill training is concerned, there are no surprises, and the game is very up front about how much your skills will increase with each training. More opaque is the difficulty of each skill check, although if you pay attention to the details of each skill up, you can glean hints as to which skill checks they'll allow you to pass.

More opaque still are the various variables that the game near-invisibly tracks. Your current funds can be checked by visiting the treasury, although you can finish the game without realizing that's an option. You don't have a good way to check on your approval rating among the nobles or commoners except to note things as they happen. I think this is a feature, not a bug, because you learn how to impress them by replaying the game. (Also, you learn that Bannion is secretly insulting you with his toast most of the time. Well played.)

There are a few things that are still mysteries to me: in particular, why does Kevan always insist that his family's blood is on your hands, even when you go out of the way to avoid it?

I admit that I was starting up this thread partly in the hopes of finding another LLTQ-like, but it wouldn't entirely surprise me to learn that no such game exists.

 

[Mogri]

Hey by the way, this game is dirt cheap on Steam right now.

 

[spines]

i bought this when it first released on steam, i think. played for a while, but a combination of "too proud to just look up a guide" with "too lazy to take notes on what happened to me when i did this" meant i eventually gave up on it for a long time. in a metagame sense of seeing more branches through, since i did finish a handful of playthroughs.

it's pretty cool though. the song that plays when you're about to have some life-or-death check is really great. i definitely don't know anything else like it. (i played the first magical diary by her as well. it's a pretty nice vn that feels like it's trialing a few of the concepts, but it's much easier to figure out almost everything and the main "build"-based portions of the game are the magic tests with multiple solutions, so you can always not fail them if you're trying at all. i did really like that

Spoiler: thing about this game that i can't remember seeing in other vns

some of the events that don't make sense on your first playthrough become clear on later playthroughs because you learn that other characters did things you chose not to (and then don't do those things when you choose to). it's really funny because the game suggests "mary sue" as your character's default name, but the entire concept makes it feel much less like you're playing an arbitrarily special main character.

)

 

[Mogri]

Some searching has yielded a LLTQ clone named Maraiyum: The Rise of the Setting Sun. Added it to my wishlist but haven't much looked into aside from confirming that it is heavily inspired by LLTQ. I don't expect it to be to the same level of quality, but it's worth a go when I get a chance.

 

[Violentvixen]

Oops reinstalled this and started playing it again, apparently there are a couple epilogues I missed/got before the stained glass windows were added to the game.

 

[Violentvixen]

This is being ported to Switch this month! Looks like there's a bit of new art, a lot of those backgrounds are new and I don't remember ever seeing a map like at the end of this trailer:

Also even more exciting is that they had notes on the steam page about how they're working on the next game in the series:

The working title for now is
Long Live The Queen: Galaxy Princess Zorana
. You are the pampered daughter of a mighty emperor (think Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless) who unexpectedly comes to power when your father dies in a freak accident. Now you must work to win over your father's underlings and be proclaimed absolute ruler before someone else can take your Empire away from you.

Everything is still so early, it's hard to say much, but a few general plans:

* There will be some tie-ins to the first game, and you will probably get to mention how your Elodie turned out, but Elodie will not actually appear, as we're well into the future.
* You can still have a pet falcon! (But this time it will be made of metal.)
* It will be much easier to marry a female character and have heirs with her if you want. It's the future, we have the technology.
* It is likely that there will be a Kickstarter campaign eventually, but I need to do a LOT of internal development and testing first to ensure that this game design works before making it pretty enough to show anything public, so don't expect that this year. The game and story I have in mind is exciting but complicated and I want to be sure I'm bringing you the best.

 

[muteKi]

Lesbian space queen and her pet Skarmory? Gambler voice I'm in

 

[Mr Bean]

Neat! I'll play intergalactic magical girl space politics!

One of my great regrets is that I never had the time to finish the LLtQ let's play I started on the old board something like a decade ago. One of these days...

 

[Violentvixen]

Sad to say this completely froze my Switch (had to hold down the power button) twice, and then just completely skipped over half the magic duel. So that's a bummer. Hopefully things get patched.

 

[Olli]

Keep us posted? I'm super interested in a Switch version, but I don't really need bugs that bad.

 

[q 3]

Unfortunately I get the impression that Ratalaika Games does a shit job of porting Ren'Py games to Switch. I have Heart of the Woods which was also ported by them and it's barely functional and crashes frequently. I don't think they ever fixed it either.

 

[Violentvixen]

Keep us posted? I'm super interested in a Switch version, but I don't really need bugs that bad.

Yeah, if I see an update I'll note it. I wish the Switch was better about notifying players about updates though, I don't think I'd know about it unless I try to open it again after they've patched it? I don't want to open it that much as two hard resets in a row like that scared me quite a bit.

Unfortunately I get the impression that Ratalaika Games does a shit job of porting Ren'Py games to Switch. I have Heart of the Woods which was also ported by them and it's barely functional and crashes frequently. I don't think they ever fixed it either.

Ugh, that's frustrating to hear. Both crashes happened within my first hour of playing and then I didn't have another one so it's possible it was something just related to my Switch but I kind of doubt it.

Since I've already cleared all the achivements/checklists on Steam I didn't plan to play it much, it was more about supporting them and seeing some new art. But now I'm a little annoyed that my money went to a subpar port/publisher. Oh well, $8 isn't much, it probably helps support the next game in the series and I'll hold out hope for a patch.

 

[Violentvixen]

they're working on the next game in the series

First update on Galaxy Princess Zorana I've seen since then was posted, seems like development is moving along and there will be "more formal announcement next year"! Also a screenshot:

 

[Mogri]

I wondered if I had somehow missed this. Good to know it's still in flight.