The Bastard of Camelot

I think this could easily become my favorite IF game, if things continue going the way they have so far.  Love the depth and the way the author takes the time to let the story grow and the player to emotionally connect both with their MC and with all the other characters in the story.

I really do want more! But please take all the time you need to make this the story you want to tell.  There's a reason they age wine and whiskey.

Is there new content from the dashingboard version or is this just the same content transitioned to itch?

It had some bugs like this. Also it mentioned me as a woman sometimes. And my dragon was referred as they while he's a male. Otherwise a banger game. 

I  love this game. My heart strings where pulled and i now i have this sadness inside me that i cant wear off, its amazing. Please update, i cant bear the thought of this game being left like this forever. xd

I got this error while hanging out with Gawain.

Error: <<if>>: assignment operator found within <<elseif>> clause (#1) (perhaps you meant to use an equality operator: ==, ===, eq, is), invalid: $gender == "female"> The story tells of how the knight would dedicate all his victories to the princess, and the princess would always offer the knight her favor in tournaments. They'd steal kisses in the garden of the castle, and pledge their love for each other. <</if>> Gawain's gaze finds yours, happy, his face pink as he sings. <div class="choice">[[Hold his gaze, smiling, your heart fluttering.|GawainDuet1][$chapt3_serenade to "1"]]</div> <div class="choice">[[Avert your gaze, flushed.|GawainDuet1][$chapt3_serenade to "2"]]</div> <<if $gender == "male"

*Reads the words "end of chapter 3"* 

.....*rereads the words claiming there's no more pages*.........

You can't just do that to someone! Write that good of a story and leave it open-ended  where they become so immersed that stopping it abruptly like that feels more like....like.....well, like every software update that gets to 99% and just permanently stops. You know that feeling? That awful, horrible, and exasperating feeling? Well it was actually nothing like that feeling, but it was still rather upsetting and I don't do well with anticipation! Q.Q

Lol I really hope to read more of this amazing masterpiece soon, I really enjoyed it so far. Thank you for making it! ^_^

On the part in Morgana pov after the talk with Arthur it repeats everything 3 times .

lover deversity of the characters personalities, and the scope of choices to develope the pc. Hope to see more chances use magic and connect with my favorite ro gawain but orerall the most immersive interactive fiction I've read in a while.

I waited for the Twine demo to come out to say this. Now it's here, I'm here, and my /cough/ love letter /cough/ is here too.

Arthurian Legends are very near and dear to my heart, so I was kinda anxious reading someone else's interpretation of the story. And I'm glad I did. The lore I've seen so far is beautifully crafted and I'm enjoying learning about the world. Also, dragons? Dragon friends? I can have a dragon buddy? A dragon pal? A mighty magical creature, that is also my companion? Do I need to say more?

The writing style is really good, in a way that it manages to be beautiful and descriptive, but simple, in a way that it doesn't make me struggle with English words. It makes you want to read slowly, soaking in the details, and reread stuff. I don't say I spent an hour on the first Arthur-Mordred scene, but I don't say I did not. Oh, this scene. I suspected that the game can satisfy both my hunger for angst AND daddy issues, and it was so amazing, oh my god?

I love the ability to play the role I chose for my Mordred, making them react just the way I imagine they would. It feels very natural, not like trying to fit a character into unfitting choices. Plus, I can make my Mordred a horrible little villian. It's always good to see games where the "hateful person" level is juuuust right.

With the playstyle I chose, my Mordred will probably end up with no parents at all, but I hope I can manage to keep Morgana on my good side. She is amazing, I fell in love with her from the very beginning. It's actually quite hard not to fall in love with characters, because they are so well-written and full of life. Lancelot is pushing the boundary a little, but I can't bring myself to hate him, the man is trying to protect what's important to him. ROs are precious, Gawain is double precious, and I can't wait to meet Agravain!

On a more serious note - I almost lost my goddamn mind when I find out you can play a trans character in this game. In a good way. I don't know what to say, just thank you so much, dear author, for this opportunity.

Anyway. The game is incredible. Llamagirl is incredible. Her other WIP is incredible too, can't wait to see it on Twine. And for everyone reading this - you are incredible too ✨ Now I will finally shut up :D

Just wanted to report that after Morgana takes Mordred to her tower to talk about the prophecy, when the narration changes to Morgana's perpective there are several errors.

First one is:

Error: cannot find a closing tag for macro <<if>>

<<if $say == "effort">>…

I think the ones that follow are because of that first one as well. Example:

Error: child tag <<elseif>> was found outside of a call to its parent macro <<if>>

<<elseif $say == "choice">>

Just thought I'd let you know.

Besides that, great game! It is really immersive and interesting!

Oh my god it's finally out. 

I read this back when it was over on Dashingdon and was head over heels in love with it. I'm so happy it's finally out on itch, and can I just say that it was amazing?!? It was so fun and immersive, and the new choices and scenes really add to the story! 

And the characters were still so-mwah, amazing. Most of the adult cast inspires a mixture of loathing and pity inside of me. They're all so amazingly written and complex- no one character is fully in the right, in my eyes. Or fully in the wrong, for that matter. (Well, except for Merlin, Lancelot, and Uther. They can kiss my boot). Their decisions are motivated by their own complex personal motives and their pasts, and the way you weave these facts into the narrative is amazing. (I keep saying amazing a lot, but it's true! This story is truly incredible!) 

However, I did encounter a bug in the last Morgana POV in chapter three, where she's in her tower undoing her hair. My Mordred, who was initially pretty split on whether or not to accept Arthur as their father, begins to hate Arthur. They don't trust him, and they leave. But in the scene with Morgana, I got 4 errors. I forgot to take a screenshot of them (so, my bad) but they basically said that they had a macro error and couldn't find a variable that set Mordred's opinion on Arthur, if I recall correctly. It gave me 4 different passages from a few different choices. 3 were from the choices to fight Morgana about Arthur, and 1 was from the choice to cry because they thought Merlin was an evil man (which I didn't pick).  

Besides that though, this game is really fun and is one of my favorites. I can't wait to explore the dynamics Mordred can have with the RO's and with the cast, as well as giving some of them (*coughs* Morgana and Arthur *coughs*) the verbal smackdowns of their lives. (With Accolon- the fact that he give's Morgana so much leeway with her behavior and doesn't really hold her accountable for it- a disappointed stare, while with Lancelot, I can see my Mordred not even respecting him enough to give him the time of day-they'd be more likely to laugh in his face and mock him. And I mean, tbf, he kinda deserves it-he's picking on a child, for Christ's sake!) 

And speaking about my Mordred, I might as well share how I'm thinking of playing them. (This totally isn't an excuse to fanboy about this game harder, lol.) My Mordred (assigned female at birth, and in chapter three is coming into their identity as nonbinary) so far, resembles their mother a lot, from appearance ( black hair, brown skin, and violet eyes) to their personality. They're charming, deceitful, calm, cautious, and incredibly confident. However, they're also really friendly and kind, and while they love their mother, they also highly disapprove of her methods of vengeance (ahem, murder). Their feelings towards their mother and Accolon (who they view as a father) in particular are starting to become incredibly complicated.  

While they initially just loved them both, their also starting to harbor feelings of distrust towards them, and in Morgana's case, fear. After the prophecy reveal, they're starting to lose trust in the two of them and when their conception get's fully revealed ...phew, it's not going to be pretty. And especially in regards to Morgana, it's going to make them fear her even more. They still do love and adore their mother, but Morgana's breakdowns and bloodlust have started to push them into being wary around her. My Mordred, while when they grow older will act pretty nonchalant about fighting and will show off their skills (to feed their ego), is still, especially now, a pacifist at heart and would only ever attack someone in self-defense, and even then in a way that ensures that the person they're fighting against wouldn't be really hurt, so when Morgana goes on her little murder sprees that's just a recipe for disaster, lol.

For Lot, it' similar to how they view Lancelot, Merlin, and how they're beginning to view Arthur- someone not worthy of their respect, and who they fully hate. They tend to only lie around him though, since they don't want to make Gareth uncomfortable. They love and are close with their older brother, and since they now Gareth yearns Lot's affection and loves him, they keep quiet about their hatred towards him (though Gareth's pretty much aware). Arthur they initially viewed with conflicting emotions, on the one hand wanting his affections and to reach out to him, on the other hand being scared of getting rejected by him and harboring some of Morgana's hatred in their heart. While they did become hopeful and wanted to mend their relationship with him after they first met and he gave them the dragon figurine, those hopes quickly became dashed after he rejected their hug and in the lodge, basically admitted he's ashamed by them. (Not to mention him not stepping when Lancelot was beating the crap out of Accolon.) Now, they want nothing to do with him, and hate his guts. They still, however, yearn for his affection and I can see them, when they arrive in Camelot, at least marginally improving their relationship with him. (Of course, then they go ~villain~ with Aggy, so uh, all that progress also goes down the drain). Finneas, their dragon, is their bestie and they'd do anything to protect him. 

They're pretty squeamish of blood and violence in general, and when they were younger they hated the very idea of being a knight, preferring to have stayed on Avalon and just studied magic or farmed sheep or something. And, frankly, they still kinda wish that was the case. (Not that they'd ever openly mention this). They take to magic and studying- whether it be folklore, history, or anything in between- like a fish in water, especially Lady of the Lake magic. They also have an aspiring interest in politics and philosophy, and may soon be developing their own ideas about governance and democracy. (Again, not that they'd ever openly say anything.) 

They had a small crush on Nimue and Guinevere when they were younger, but they (mostly) grew out of it when they got older. I'm planning on embarking on Galahad's romance route as well as a villain-or, depending on if I can play it, an anti-villain- route, and I'm incredibly interested in seeing where this goes. Just imagining my flirty, sarcastic, argumentative yet kind and (secretly) very soft Mordred butting heads with Galahad makes me cackle in anticipation. And then, the angst of turning over to the dark side with your bestie Aggy, betraying your family, your friends, and your lover...pure, unfiltered pain. (Of course, they'd justify it as being the right thing to do, and that they were saving the kingdom from a future line of incompetent rulers and scheming nobility, and that the political reform they'd establish would more than make up for overthrowing the king and-if we can do this in-game- dismantling the monarchy. ) Ah, the total angst-fest in store for Mordred's future...delicious. 

Wow, this turned into a really long essay that just...divulged into me waxing on and on about my Mordred. TL;DR: Great game, love the characters, Mordred deserves better, I hope Lance and Merlin get nuked, and can't wait to read more! :D

I sure didn't wake up early to play this, and I also didn't create an itch.io account just to comment 👀👀👀