FE Fates, Birthright: Finished. More thoughts later.
Fallen London: Do Sudden Insights max out at 20? I seem to be stuck on that despite playing lots of chess... is there anything I should turn them into if not using them for rerolls?
The Royal Trap: This is currently on sale on Steam this week (Celestian Tales is also on sale), but I've had it forever but not played it anyway. It's another Hanako Games production, aka the people who did Long Live the Queen. Finished one runthrough of it.
Anyway, it's recommended. It's a straight-up branching decision tree game, there's no moods to manage or activities or investigations or anything. (Which is in some ways too bad, a little more interactivity in parts would be nice.) But... the writing is good, which is what matters! Basically you are Madeline, the... uh... companion? tutor? of a prince, and are a completely unimportant penniless noble who thus can actually hang out with princes, but are nice & controllable. You are also totally in love with him, and him with you, but this can never be because Big Political Problems or something, basically his parents want him to marry up to some foreign princess. (Similar to LLTQ, this is a somewhat inverted world where royal descent comes via the *female* line, not the male line, and thus princes are shipped around to be married and don't usually inherit. For all that actual rulership seems to have the couple - if the princess marries - be fairly equal, in the one instance we see of it.) Okay, so we got some kind of relationship-drama-by-proxy thing, where we're gonna manage affection meters and try and hook him up with the best princess we can find? ...and maybe see if Madeline can dare sneak him for herself with some proper excuse? Or settle for some hot prince instead, maybe?
No.
This is a good thing, as I'd be less interested in the above game! Instead shit gets set on fire fairly quickly. And did I mention that you are also the prince's bodyguard? And the art design actually has a non-ridiculous getup that looks properly courtly-yet-dangerous? Okay sure it's combat-via-text, but still. Obviously can't go into this too deeply, but there's adventure, assassination, plots, & intrigue. Interesting reading. Similar to LLTQ, the author realizes that things just plain go wrong, people get lucky & unlucky, and rulers make mistakes based on bad information or assumptions. It also takes a shot across the bow at one particular plot point that gets used in approximately a billion other stories, but is used a little differently here. (the princess is totally an imposter! Clearly a lowly peasant girl must be the real princess!)
Anyway, there apparently ARE a variety of alternate hot princes to romance if that's your thing, but perhaps in other playthroughs. I stood by my man for my first playthrough and managed to marry him, but will be interesting seeing some of the other possibilities.