While I'm still at work on the first post-intro content release of Guardian Frontier (still a ways to go, the update is much longer than the intro, but I'm putting in hours a day, so I hope it shouldn't be too long,) today marks another milestone in the game's development: the implementation of the first game events which involve relationship values. In order to commemorate the occasion, I decided to write something about what I'm trying to do with relationships in this game.

I've thought for a long time that video games are a really good medium for writing romance. It's an interactive medium, which helps the audience become more personally invested via their participation. It allows elements of choice, meaning the player can navigate towards the characters or relationship styles they find most appealing. It's usually a long-form medium, expressing narratives which can't be taken in over the course of a single sitting, which allows for deep character development and rapports which establish real compatibility, not just grand gestures and expressions of limerence. But most games don't really try to build compelling romantic relationships, and those that do rarely take advantage of these medium-specific qualities. With Guardian Frontier, I wanted to introduce romantic elements which utilize all of these features.

Here are some of the points I want the game's relationship system to hit:

• Relationship development between characters should both rely on and display compatibility. Rather than being driven simply by player choices of "who should I be nice to?" and demonstrated via vague signs of affection, I want to depict the hows and whys of characters' interests in each other, and reward understanding of the characters' feelings and motives.

• Relationships should feel non-mechanistic. If you can farm affection with characters by piling gifts on them or repeating the same actions over and over, it doesn't feel like you're building a relationship.

• Game relationships should be their own reward. The player shouldn't feel forced to develop relationships in some particular way based on outside incentives. If character relationships aren't interesting enough for the player to follow without material reward, they're not pulling their weight in the story.

• Relationship values should have frequent points of feedback into the game. Alternate endings are a nice bonus, but if the player can determine whether two characters fall in love or barely tolerate each other, the difference between those options should be visible throughout the story, not just at the end.

These are all general features which I'd like to see in any game which features a relationship system, but there's another specific element of Guardian Frontier which I want to highlight. While in many respects the main character of this game is written with a distinct, preexisting personality, their romantic and sexual interests are up to the player's discretion. The protagonist does not have a canonical sexuality, and there will be choices available to support a variety of different interpretations. That said, other characters in this game do have canonical sexualities, and not everyone you can express an interest in will necessarily reciprocate. But I want to provide a variety of relationships which are fun for me to write, and my hope is that a blind playthrough of the game will consistently lead players to scenarios they find interesting.