Star-Stealing Prince

The RPGMaker Crown Jewel

For a while when I was young I had an obsession with RPGMaker games made by one person or small teams, very much enabled by the stellar translation work of VGPerson. There is to me a strong appeal in navigating the unfiltered and unedited artistic vision of one individual. These games often have significant flaws, but they can be so unique, outsider art that is not bound by the exhausting expectaions of an artistic industry and is as such free to be somthing completely different.

My unambiguous favorite is Ronove's gorgeously polished gem Star-Stealing Prince. These one-person RPGMaker projects often end up buggy or unfinished; SSP is a thoroughly, beautifully made game from start to finish, a gorgeous story told through ten or twelve hours of totally finished gameplay. The battle system is perfectly fine; nothing groundbreaking for RPGS, but the story is phenomenal. I replay SSP every few years and I always play it all the way through.

Every time I do, I think I am going to write something about it. I start but never quite follow through. I think SSP is one of those cases where I love the canon material so much that I don't have a strong enough urge to change anything to explore anything further, which is what usually has me writing fic. The game already explores the character and plot beats I would have and it does that well. I don't even feel the urge to make it gay, the gently queer-accepting (though not explicitly queer) atmosphere lulls the creativity to sleep.

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