Greentext Does: Princess & Conquest

So recently I found out about Tower Girls due to someone posting an image of one of the lists in one thread or another. For those of you who don’t know Tower Girls is one of those choose your own adventure games you see posted on 4chan a lot but the difference being this one has had a lot of effort put into it. You know how in Adventure Time you have a bunch of different princesses for different stuff? It’s that. Ya got your basics like Dog Princess and Cat Princess but then you have more creative ones like Mimic Princess and Dullahan Princess. Also there’s you, the knight who has to save them all.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Alright Green you inchoate roustabout, why are you talking about Tower Girls when this game is clearly titled “Princess & Conquest?”. Well strawman I came up with to act as a transition, I’ll tell you. As has happened with the likes of Katawa Shoujo, when 4chan came up with a good idea they decided to start making a game about it. See how on the bottom of the image up there it says the designs were by Nougats? Well Nougats or Gats as he’s called nowadays started work on a Towergirls game with some other project monkeys. One of those project monkeys named Towerfag decided the whole thing should be public use and told someone in a thread that Gats didn’t own the IP. This led to Gats kicking him out and after some legal battles (Which must have been hilarious to watch) Towerfag created Princess & Conquest, the “Benton’s Creme Filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies” to Gats’ “Oreos”. Anyway if you want to read up more about the history of Towergirls check the 8chan article I stole most of the previous paragraph from. So how does this LEGALLY DISTINCT princess rescuing game stack up to the Towergirls game? I mean they’re completely different genres so comparing them is dumb but I’ll tell you about it anyways.

P&C has 2 main phases (not including the short periods you spend inside buildings not stabbing things or getting quests). The first of which is the overworld. You walk around, visiting towns, dungeons, and the tavern to get more quests. You can also stop and camp at night to speak to and dick your companions. The world is actually impressively big. I thought I had explored most of the map but then I realized the little cave at the southern end of the map actually leads to the other half of the world. Each princess has their own little kingdom and while unfortunately you can’t walk around most of them it’s still nice that they all feel different. The game has a day-night cycle who’s speed you can change customize at the beginning of the game. While the default is 8 minutes I prefer to set it to 5. You can only camp and interact with your party members and enter certain areas at night and while you can pay to wait them out in an inn that can get pricey.

The second phase is combat. Surprisingly it isn’t turn based but is actually a real time top down brawl. You and each of your followers, provided their level is high enough, have different attacks, magic, and special abilities. Attacks are just swinging your weapon in front of your character and will damage enemies if they connect. There’s no real variation between weapon types aside from damage and the fact that blunt weapons can break rocks. Magic attacks are usually just a projectile. Some character’s magic consumes mana, some don’t. Lastly you have your special ability which varies between character. Your Knight for example can use a shield that can block 4 attacks before needing to recharge which makes melee combat much more viable. Usung, the kobold princess you start with, can jump which is useful for hopping over guards in Human Princess’s castle and…that’s pretty much it. You use candies you get to burn them in a campfire to level up the stats of you and your party members different stats. Enough of that IGN-ass game guide bullshit though. How’s the smut?

Well it comes in 2 flavors. The most common are short animated pixel art scenes you can get from random strangers in taverns, companions, and princesses. You also have the occasional set of CGs with dialogue. Apparently your princess companions can also be fucked by monsters if you do certain things but I wouldn’t know seeing as mama didn’t raise no cuck. There is kind of a gallery but it involves going to a specific character on the map and even then it’s just for the little animated bits. On top of that there’s no way to hide text during CGs so I have to say that regardless of whatever limitations RPGMaker imposes while the actual content is pretty varied and good it’s presentation leaves a bit to be desired.

Honestly the most enjoyable part of the game comes from exploring the world and interacting with the various characters. Princess and Conquest is a very happy game. The currency is candies, your knight is chivalrous and friendly to everyone you meet, even viscous battles between kingdoms on the overmap are boiled down to cute sprites bumping into each other. All of the characters are cute and have that vibe where you can’t look at them and not crack a smile. The entire world just kind of exudes friendliness like the way Dark Souls’ world exudes depression.

Oh, and one thing I don’t get to complement often? The game has an amazing website. Sure, a lot of adult games have a wiki, usually hosted on Fandom.com, and a Patreon to acquire them shekels and sure, P&C has a fandom wiki and a Patreon but it also has a very well put together website. Not only does it have its own wiki full of cool art and tips from the developer but it’s also set up to allow you to listen to the game’s soundtrack while you browse. Considering it’s all original work and pretty good that’s definitely welcome.

Instead of taking his toys and going home, when Towerfag split from Gats he got together a bunch of talented people and decided to make his own game. It’s easy to think of P&C as name brand Towergirls and I even called it that. Because it’s funny. Don’t let that fool you though. This game has become its own thing and is being worked on by a bunch of talented people. I’d definitely suggest giving it a shot and seeing for yourself. You can get the latest version along with updates and art from their Patreon here for 5$ a month. Alternatively if you’re like me and only have $30 in your bank account you can get the latest public build for free here. Alternatively alternatively you can just pirate the latest beta build here. But remember, if Towerfag starves to death we probably won’t be getting anymore updates.