An Extra Glimpse— Collaborative Planning Project: Love Interests! (Patreon)

Results are in, and you guys chose a route-based game going forwards!

Always an interesting type of game to create, and it’s been quite some time since I’ve planned out a route-based story, so it should be fun to dabble in it with this one.

So now we’re starting to get a seriously solid base to our story:

• It’ll be based in the Echo world.
• The setting will be Castles and Estates.
• The story will revolve a player character who has unexpectedly become heir to a rather rich throne and now has the attention of all neighbouring kingdoms looking for marriage.
• And it will be a route-based game.

That really is a great jumping point to go deeper. I hope this process has helped you guys so far get a look into how I got about planning things, and maybe even helped you a little if you’re planning your own projects!

The next thing we need to, well we don’t need to, but I want to lol, is have a look at the love interests, especially as it’s route-based which means the love interests will help determine the stories we’re gonna tell.

First, we need to decide on the size of the game we want to create. Obviously this can depend on a lot of factors, but a good way of estimating is deciding on how many love interest routes there will be. That will give us a good idea of the size of the project.

If you want something small or you’re just starting out, you could stick with just two.

Getting on for more of a still manageable but weighty game, I’d go for the 3-4 love interest size.

Anything over, and you’re really looking at something that’s going to take a long time to create. Not impossible, just something more intense, which might be what you’re looking for, or if you’ve got others helping you or a small team then definitely that’s something that will be easier to tackle.

Seeing as I may actually be turning this into a game now because I’m loving it SO much, I’ll probably stick with something I can actually achieve but still indulge my addiction to variations and branches: so likely 3 or 4 love interests.

For the characters themselves, I tend to begin by looking at the setting once again: Castles, estates, nobles, etc. And the story is going to be about other kingdoms sending their spare heirs in order to tempt the main character into marriage to secure their alliance and riches.

So already we have obvious love interests to choose from: nobles, courtiers not of a level that should be looking to court a royal, princes, princesses, and of course any possible heirs from the previous generation of ruler, just for added angst.

Love it. Definitely characters I always enjoy creating!

But just because we have that as an obvious setting and character types, doesn’t mean we can’t also throw in a couple of unexpected love interests.

Let’s take a think about the other characters within this setting that aren’t so obvious. In a royal court-type setting, people who might interact with our main character often might be: servants, the chamberlain of the court, bodyguards, high attendants (which is the equivalent to a lady or lord in waiting in the Echo World’s nobility), stable-hands, tutors, the list could go on.

Then it’s time to think on what characters you’d actually want to write. Ones you’re drawn to, ones that make your heart flutter or get you a little heated, romances you could easily fall into.

When creating love interests, the most important person who needs to fall in love with the character is you. If you don’t fall for them, then your reader might struggle to do so! It’s also good to have a different reason why you love them, just to help keep them unique.

For example:

Nate/Nat has that suave and charm, which I adore and could easily see sweeping me off my feet.

Farah/Felix has an openness and connection that you don’t tend to find in some real-life relationships, and I just have a need for that.

Adam/Ava is the archetypal pining, brooding romance where it’s wrong but still so good that makes me swoon every single time.

And Mason/Morgan brings a heat I haven’t written in romances before theirs, having that physical connection before the emotional one comes rushing to the surface.

As for this story we’re working on: Me, I always love a good bodyguard falling for their charge romance—draws me in every time, hehe! But then I also adore horses, so choosing a stable-hand would allow me to bring those amazing creatures into the narrative as well as focus a romance around the person who cares for them.

Considering just how many people there could be for this ‘other type of character love interest’, it would probably be best to decide on which non-royal love interest we’d like, then move onto the more royal-type love interests.

So, I’ll leave that decision up to you guys! I’ll take a look over the results of the most popular, and we’ll go from there!