I have a complaint about Kingdom of Shattered Stone – it only has 8 chapters so far ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
I was honored to be given the chance to review Kingdom of Shattered Stone (hereafter referred to as KoSS), along with Dorian Stories, the mobile app platform it’s exclusive to. More on Dorian in my platform review here! [link here]
All in all, I found the story to be steamy and intriguingly dramatic, yet also VERY lighthearted first, funny and self-aware. See the crystal-crowned hottie on the cover photo above? See how his face is pretty shimmery? Yeah, that’s canonically body glitter. He gets it everywhere. It’s super annoying for everyone.
From the moment I checked out their gorgeous preview deck they sent us featuring the art of the three main characters (below), I knew I wanted to read it and review it. And from the time I reached about the third sentence in KoSS, I knew it was going to become the first game I ever streamed, using Dorian as the soft built-in landing point, but more on that in the Dorian platform review I link to above.
Once I got settled in and even somehow convinced Sammi of @otomeaddicted on Twitch & Twitter to stream along with me for my very first stream, I was on my way to an enchanted wonderland of M4M high fantasy goodness – live with a friend, no less!!
The story opens up in our house – we’re Ailbhe, a… human, probably. A gorgeous one. We’re taking a snooze and we feel lips kiss us – what a nice dream! We’re pretty into it, and as proof, we can see our sprite’s cheeks have become VERY rosy with a worked-up blush. Bam, we’re immediately given our very first choice. Do we resist this mysterious and kinda sexy dream attention, or do we lean into it and “Kiss Laisren?” Laisren… that must be some sexy name we made up in our dream. That’s got a great ring to it – we’re pretty good at this.
What happens if we resist? I wouldn’t know, because I didn’t choose that one. I leaned into it. Yum! There was some kissing, some light grinding and thigh touching – and was met with a surprised breath! Laisren is real?! And he’s kissing me?! “Careful now,” Laisren warned, summoning the parts of me that were still halfway sleeping, awake. Awake enough to realize, he wasn’t kissing me after all. He was pressing a VIAL TO MY LIPS?!
Well, now we’re awake. Choking, I, Ailbhe, sit up terrified. The worst part? The guy who WASN’T ACTUALLY KISSING ME, is ACTUALLY even more gorgeous than I was dreaming (pictured below). And he’s… maybe an elf? And he’s maybe poisoning me? But more importantly, I just embarrassed myself slobbering lustily on a dangerous stranger who broke into my house – I’M SO EMBARRASSED AND SCARED. Pictured below: What happened when I asked him if he is an elf.
A lot happens in the next few minutes, but I’ll skip to the good part other than the flirting – you’re FIXING to be abducted by Laisren (oh no… ) but, Love Interest #2 shows up – THE GLITTERING ELVEN KING, Caelum. He stops Laisren from his attack, but you’re not as happy to see him as you might be under normal circumstances, because he’s…
Your ex boyfriend from 15 years ago, who ABANDONED YOU?! Who we HATE?! The COVER BOY FROM THE GAME TITLE PHOTO?! Hearing a few lines of argument between the two of them, it quickly becomes clear Laisren, LI #1: tall, dark, handsome and maybe was about to murder you – was talking about YOU when he mentioned taking collateral. You were about to be kidnapped to use against Caelum, your ex, the king. But why would Caelum want you back that badly if he dumped you over a decade ago? And can we get one more picture of him?!
The answer to the question before the picture one, may not be as simple as you’d think. Soon, for our own good apparently, we and the freshly-arrested Laisren are transported to a glittering crystal castle with hot pink candelabras and sconces all over the shimmering walls, to learn more about why it would be really hard at this moment, to label either love interest as “evil, and a total dick” or “actually so good that it’ll break your heart, everything they’ve ever done is for you probably.”
Which one can we trust? Which one should we kiss or do even more with? And were THEY dating before you came into the picture?! Are THEY ex-boyfriends?! What is this crazy LOVE TRIANGE tension?! And can we get some PRIVACY around here for when things get steamy as we figure it all out? No? Is that supposed to be hot too? I mean, it is.
I had a blast beginning to discover the complicated answers to all of the above, so let’s bring this back to the beginning – my complaint! Sorry, it isn’t a real complaint, because I can’t complain. KoSS is brand new and already has a BUNCH of chapters out – Sammi and I took about two and a half hours to get though just 7 of them. We got to get in on the ground floor of this epic gay fae adventure, and I can’t wait to experience more of it.
To seriously rate this, I don’t have any major complaints at all about the art, story, steaminess level, or much of anything for this one. Some things to note if you’re new to Dorian and the world of mobile dating apps – this particular piece is unvoiced, no music or sound effects, as it’s essentially a playable webcomic with branching choices and the look and controls of a mobile visual novel game.
I think the story does an applaudable job delivering exactly what it promises – a very steamy, but not quite TOTALLY NSFW, fantastic magical time with some added bonuses of good humor and jokes, and some SERIOUSLY INSANELY GORGEOUS ART. I mean, wow. So much variety with the level of variety with all the different characters’ sprites. I found them to be way more expressive and detailed than what I was expecting going in.
If I had to pick something about this game I would improve, I did find a few typos and grammatical and formatting errors throughout playing the first chapters with Sammi. None of this was game or mood-breaking, and sometimes the error was as small as a light misspelling, or even just one set of quotation marks on a particular screen pointed the wrong way. It was clear only small errors made it through. This level of typos/grammatical errors, what have you, are totally normal for indie games written in English and Japanese localized major titles alike.
To be honest, in my heart, I still haven’t decided between Caelum and Laisren, and luckily – I seem to be under no pressure yet to have to truly choose between them.
