
Villainess Menage
This demo has 30 minutes of gameplay. It's goal is to show a small slice of what a full game could be and get your feedback (feedback form). Thank you for the support! 💕
After a dramatic downfall and execution, Elara is mysteriously resurrected. She must navigate the treacherous waters of royal politics and personal desires. Will you help her survive and rewrite her story? Her fate is in your hands – choose wisely.
♦ Play as Lady Elara with a chance to change her destiny
♦ Choose your path in a world of deceit and romance
♦ Multiple romance and alliance options, including reverse harem
♦ Fully voiced in English! Playing with headphones 🎧 is recommended.
♦ Intricate personality and decision-making system
Note: Web version might lag on mobile or older devices. For the best experience, download the game below.
Main Character & Player: Lady Elara Valtor. As the only daughter of Lord Aric Valtor, she is known in the high circles of Eridell’s aristocracy not for her nobility or grace, but for her notoriously self-centered and hedonistic lifestyle. Having grown up in the lap of luxury, Elara developed a taste for extravagance and a penchant for manipulation.
Love Interest: Lord Caius Marlowe. Caius is the eldest son of the influential Marlowe family, known for their long-standing lineage as one of Eridell’s oldest noble houses. The Marlowes have a history of being staunch supporters of the Carvers' Council.
Love Interest: Sir Tristan Bellamy: He is charismatic, theatrical, and frequently a magnet for attention. His face has soft, approachable features with an often-mischievous glint in his eyes. He has a friendly smile that quickly disarms those around him.
As you navigate the world of Villainess Menage remember that Elara's personality is influenced by your choices. Her personality does only only reflect your gameplay style but also open or lock certain choices based on her skills or what other characters think of her.
Personality Traits
Title & Physical & Mental State
These reflect your current standing and condition. Keep an eye on them for clues about your progress and well-being.
Infamy
High Infamy can unlock intimidating options but may hinder alliances. If Elara's infamy reaches its maximum, she might perish.
Wealth
Wealth allows for more opportunities and influences your lifestyle choices.
Ruthlessness vs Finesse
Ruthlessness increases with decisions showing power and control. High Ruthlessness opens options for direct and forceful actions but might close off subtler paths. Finesse is the opposite of Ruthlessness. It grows when you choose diplomacy and elegance. High Finesse enables graceful solutions and persuasive conversations, essential for delicate situations.
Cunning vs Honor
Cunning develops with choices that display skepticism and manipulation. A high Cunning opens deceitful and strategic paths but may affect trust and relationships. Honor is the opposite of cunning. Honor builds with decisions reflecting integrity and fairness. High Honor earns respect and trust but may conflict with more ruthless or cunning choices.
Charm
Key for social interactions. Increase it through etiquette and public speaking choices. High Charm aids in persuading others and smooths social encounters.
Physicality
Influenced by choices involving bodily strength or agility. High Physicality aids in situations requiring physical prowess or endurance.
Booksmart
Grows through learning and intellectual choices. Being Booksmart helps in understanding complex situations and uncovering secrets.
Carving
Central to the game's magic system. Enhanced through choices showing magical aptitude or knowledge. High Carving skill is crucial for magical confrontations and unique solutions.
Essense Manipulation
This form of Carving altering person’s Essence, which is the fundamental energy that makes up their thoughts, feelings, and memories.
In plan for future development based on your feedback(feedback form):
♦ Every choice leads to a unique outcome
♦ More diverse love interests and other characters
♦ ...and numerous ways to survive or perish
This project is a labor of love for me. However, as a solo developer, I am balancing its creation alongside my main work and other responsibilities.
As a result, to bring my vision to life, I have initially employed generated art and voice as placeholders. This decision was made to rapidly establish the game's atmosphere, aid in prototyping, and help to test various artistic directions. I believe in being transparent about this use is important piece for promoting ethical practices in the industry at this stage.
Should the project gain more momentum, my aim is to collaborate with several artists and actors to bring authentic and original art to the game.
♦ Give feedback anonymously with this form
♦ Join the discussion on Discord
♦ Reach out at bergamotgames.contact@gmail.com for other questions
Status | In development |
Platforms | HTML5, Windows |
Rating | Rated 4.3 out of 5 stars (47 total ratings) |
Author | Bergamot Games |
Genre | Visual Novel, Interactive Fiction |
Made with | Unity |
Tags | drama, Life Simulation, Meaningful Choices, Multiple Endings, Otome, Romance, Story Rich, villainess |
Average session | About an hour |
Languages | English |
Accessibility | Subtitles |
Comments
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Is it still being developed?
I can't find it on Steam, so is it still under creation?
And if you want to know more about my opinion on what makes a good game of this type, feel free to ask me.
It's one of my favorite genra's, aside from yandere games.
And I've consumed an unholy amount of media and info on this topic, and studying manipulation is one of my hobbies. ^_^
(Psychology in general, technically. But I tend to favor Dark Psychology.)
I love that you've taken on such a complex task, and if the full game turns out to be one of the few really good ones in this genra, I am all for helping it to reach perfection.
And then buy it! In my evil, selfish plot to own all court intrigue games worth playing!
Mwahahahahaha!!!
lol
Can you recommend me any of those few good ones?
The artwork and premise of the story is very good.
I also like how many choices you have, and how impactful they may be.
I do wish there was more save-slots tho.
I kinda wish this game was made with the endless number Ren'Py offers, because there's so many choices. lol
The CG's are nice.
I do hope there is a chance to kill a few people later on tho.
As much as I prefer to act charming, especially in this type of games, I absolutely would not have forgiven a slight.
Hopefully the game does not confuse the facade with what the mc really thinks.
(The maid is VERY high on that list. Knowing what you know, anyone with half a brain would either kill or replace her quickly.
And I'm not a forgiving person.
Nor a trusting one.... I suspect there is more to her than it seems to be.)
Exiting the game is a little convoluted, but not too bad.
For the gameplay itself....
The opening was interesting, and raises many questions --including what happened to end up there in the first place.
That is actually a good way to grab the reader's attention and make the want to read more.
However, the naming part has the feel of Isekai or something.
If that wasn't intentional, you may want to move that part to before the game even starts. (Or fix it some other way. Maybe other type hints.)
I love all the choices. But it does make the limited save-sloth a bigger problem because of it.
I have a love-hate relationship with skill-building in these games.
On one side; it IS good to have choices that matters, and when it comes to court intrigues and such games, then building skills is a good thing.
On the other side; it kills the choices as well, because it stops being what you -want- to do, and you become focused on picking the -best- choice.
Which pulls you more out of the story and make you think harder to make a rational choice than a preferred one.
Hiding the result of the choices would not have helped tho, and would make it worse.
(Because you still would want to make the -right- choice, but had to guess at it and gotten frustrated.)
So kudos on leaving the result visible.
The story itself is intriguing. But it's much too early to say if it is good.
It's enough to peak my interest at any rate.
If the game is on Steam, I might even check it out.
But court intrigue games are tricky. It takes serious skills to create the complexities that makes a game like this good.
In a really good game....
Everyone, even side-characters, need to have their own agenda and motives.
Some align with yours, some won't, some will go against them.
You can never trust anyone, not even your lover --depending on who they are.
You need to let the player see a tiny glimmer of their true nature, but cover it up so they can't be sure. It's a tricky balance.
The LI's must be varied, and one LI must be truly selfish and self-serving, likely also power-hungry, allowing for a villain-villaness/Bonny&Clyde happy ending, or him betraying you in a bad ending.
But also an LI that genuinely can be trusted.
And make both just suspicious enough that it's tricky to tell which is which --but leave enough hints in their character profile so the player can pick their favorite type.
It must also allow a non-love ending, a good and a bad version.
(It may be less popular to choose it, but people like to have a choice.)
In a bad game...
Only the big characters have an agenda, and it's often obvious and in-your-face.
(A rival that clearly hates you, an open enemy, and so on.)
The LI's are pretty much variations over the same theme, and usually includes a prince charming / white knight type, and a charming rogue with a heart of gold.
The plot can be as well written as it wants to be, and the art amazing, but it will fall flat if it lacks subtilety and hidden motives.
And the worst games in all categories lack hidden undertones in conversations and everyone says what they think straight out.
Which hurts this type of games more than any other type.
This game...
It's too little gameplay to say for sure.
The LI's are promising, with one closed off and greedy, and one charming rogue so far.
(Neither a favorite, but I don't know them well enough to be sure.)
The added attack is an interesting feature, but a little blunt for the setting.
It doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing tho, it depends on the reason behind it and what happens after it.
But the premise of the game was a court intrigue setting.
So if it has too much adventure game in it, people will be disappointed.
It ultimately comes down to balance. And a focus on the intrigue.
(Say you escape the attack, and now have to deal with increasing security, while figuring out who they were and why they wanted you, in a court intrigue setting --that's be a good game.
But if instead you get captured and have to fight your way back from foreign lands or more adventure style setting --that'd be a bad game.
Simply because of the Promise of the Premise for this game.)
The introduction scene set up the premise of the game.
So if your full game lives up to that premise, this game could be a really good one.
But if you fail to meet the premise, or write it badly (*points up to what I wrote on that*) then the game will fall flat no matter how well-made it is.
This game has promise. That's as much as I can say with certainty based on the demo alone.
Good demo! I especially enjoyed the beginning part. As far as the interactions with two male LIs, perhaps making them longer would make bigger impact. The way the CGs appear (blurriness and zooming in an out slowly), could be improved, especially without the blurring effect. I think UI is fine. There is one grammatical error ( when Tristan helps in a fight, "assaulants" mistake). Also, perhaps include less choices but make the remaining ones more impactful? That would also lessen the burden on you. Good luck!
this is really good, I hope you update soon!
Hello there! I saw a post on another website saying you were looking for a narrative writer to help with your visual novel. I don't mind helping out if you are still looking for one, I wish to know more details of the work and payment. I am a novel writer: I have written the narrative situations for my comic "The Curse of Gringerfiel" and I am writing a web novel "The Branded Hero"! We can continue this conversation on Discord or Twitter if you wish. That is all and thank you!
https://tapas.io/series/The-Branded-Hero-Volume-1-Baxter-the-Failure/info
https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/the-curse-of-gringerfield/list?title_no=97066...
Twitter Name: @Jaytia85976
Discord: novamaster73
Btw I really am excited to see the full thing and wish you luck in developing it :)
Thank you! Working on it! 💕
Awesome Demo! I'm sure this is a hit! Looking forward to the full game soon.
Thank you! More to come soon! 💕
Can somebody help me with this? I would love to play the demo...but I don't know how to fix this...
Thank you for finding this! I think I know where this is coming from. I will make a new build with a fix and let you know! 💕
I have changed some settings. Please give it a try. 💕
Yes!!! Its working, thank you so much💕
Hey so far it's good, i can't wait for the story to unfold 😆. Good job!!! 👏👏
Thank you for playing! Working bard on the next update! 💪
Your art is very beautiful.
And I love the MC who gives a f**k and is sassy as hell. :D
I will definitely follow along and grab this one once it is finished. ^^
Thank you for playing and sharing your playthrough! 💕 Subscribed!
You are welcome.
It deserves a lot more attention.
It looks so good and the dialogue is pretty fun too. 😊
That maid is sus But the story is really good I'm waiting for more. Hopefully we'll get to expand more on elara's powers
Thank you for playing! There is definitely a plan to expand on characters and their backstories more! 💕