Made for NaNoRenO 2025


On the night before her wedding, Princess Amaia of Steinna whispers a wish she thinks will be unheard. The moment she pronounces thse words, "I don't want to marry him", a dragon appears and, in a pure fairy tale fashion, kidnaps the Princess, trapping her in a tower. Surprisingly enough, the dragon, named Happho, is rather sympathetic and claims she wants to set Amaia free from her tyrannic fiancé, Azaiah, of whom the Princess of Steinna seems frightened... Can Amaia really trust her jailor? And in the end, who will save the Princess?

This game deals with triggering content and shouldn't be played by audiences under the age of 15. Please find under more detailed information about the sensitive content of the game (these are spoilery, but better be safe than sorry).

Content warning
  • Toxic relationship with power dynamics, in particular, depiction of a violent and possessive partner
  • Representation of murder
  • Mentions of rape (however, no rape actually happens in the story)
  • Characters being burnt alive (one illustration depicts a character's raw flesh after being set on fire)
  • Explicit representation of blood
  • A character attempts suicide



  • Around 12k words of story (~1 hour)
  • A kinetic novel (no choices) with ✨fairy tale vibes
  • Partial voice acting by a team of talented voice actors and actresses!
  • OpenDyslexic font option
  • 14 CGs (not counting , 6 character sprites with different outfits, original backgrounds... a lot of art long story short lol
  • A pet dragon simulator




Direction, writing, art, coding, GUI - Chimériquement (itch, carrd)
Lab Dragons (Beta-testers) - Chattercap, Butter Blanc (itch, Bluesky), Elduator (itch, Bluesky)
Audio engineering, script editing - Chattercap
Music and SFX - Dova-Syndrome, Pixabay

Voice Talents

EmiSprout as Amaia
Maria Corcobado (website, Bluesky) as Happho
Trey Smith as Azaiah
Taxxy as Caleb
Marshall Oldroyd (website, twitter) as Horacio
Ben Spencer as Vasserelli


Also, I'd like to use this page to shout out my good friend Chattercap, who really helped me so much with this game: editing, beta-testing, audio engineering even! So, if you enjoyed The Dragon Princess, you'll probably like her game The Perfect Woman even more! Please check it out and rate if five stars!!

Of course, you can also rate this game five stars if you enjoy it, it helps me as a creator! And if you want similar narrative experiences, perhaps consider these other games of mine:



And feel free to check my NaNoRenO collection featuring all the games I've released for previous editions of the jam! Thank you!

Published 1 day ago
StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5, Windows, macOS, Linux, Android
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(5 total ratings)
AuthorChimériquement
Made withRen'Py
TagsAmare, Anime, Atmospheric, Dark, Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Female Protagonist, josei, Narrative, Story Rich
Average sessionAbout an hour

Download

Download
The Dragon Princess - PC build 161 MB
Download
The Dragon Princess - Android build 169 MB
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The Dragon Princess - Mac build 156 MB
Download
The Dragon Princess - Linux build 142 MB

Install instructions

Download the appropriate build for your OS, and if needed, extract the files. Thanks for giving the game a shot!

Comments

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(+1)

I clapped when he died. 😔🔥🔥🔥

For a fun fact, he didn't even die in the original outline, but I got back to my senses 🙏

(+1)

Aaaaa beautiful game!! 

Great writing as always. I always admire people who make frame-like GUI. I think it's very cool. Also... I love Happho so much. Best dragon friend. 

(+1)

Thanks Altila, I'm glad you enjoyed this one too! I had a lot of fun with the GUI, and especially with the tweaks with it! And yes, may we all have a Happho in our lives!!

(+1)

From the very start, the game’s atmosphere pulls you in. The music and sound are really well done, they fit the experience perfectly. What surprised me the most were the voices. Seriously, they’re so well performed.

Overall, I felt really comfortable and immersed in the story, especially thanks to the visual style, color palette and character design. Everything feels really polished.

I haven’t finished it yet (there are just too many great games and not enough hours in the day), but I didn’t want to miss the chance to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen so far.

It’s been a really pleasant surprise. And it has a good, heartfelt story too.

Congrats on the project. I’ve loved what I’ve played so far!

Hey! Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback! I'm glad you appreciated what you played of the game so far; I hope you appreciate the ending!

And I have to agree with you, the voice actors all performed amazingly, and I couldn't have been luckier!

(+1)

As always, everything fits together perfectly! The art, writing, UI, voice acting... it blends together seamlessly. Many people undermine the value of having a VN like that, and once again, Chim has done it perfectly.

Hey Kaye, thank you so much for your feedback! I'm glad you thought it was well-crafted, and this couldn't have been a possibility without all the people who worked with me on this!! Thanks a lot!!

(+1)

With men like this, girl deserves to choose the bea- I mean, dragon... (Thank you for giving me the opportunity to beta read/test this fantastic game!) Overall, it was beautifully made and very polished, and I really loved this take on the "princess trapped in a tower."

The VAs all absolutely knocked it out of the park and were perfectly fitting for their roles. I especially loved the breadth of emotion from Amaia's VA, from her more playful lines with Vasserelli to her scared and enraged lines with Azaiah and Caleb, the majesty of Happho's voice, and how Azaiah's VA managed to effortlessly go from sounding heroic to sinister. The background music was also very well chosen, particularly during the intro scene and the climax.

The art assets were gorgeous! I really liked the framing of the GUI, with the borders on each side - it evoked the feeling of reading an illuminated manuscript, with a real medieval flair to it. It was also a very clever way of communicating the change in setting each time. The soft, painterly style and soft pastel colors were really lovely, and I really liked the character designs as well (Amaia was gorgeous, and I especially liked how "dragon-like" Azaiah appeared - as well as the contrast between his black armor and Caleb's white armor). In particular, I thought that Happho's design was very unique and fitting - more like a Chinese dragon, where dragons are associated with wisdom and royalty, than the more typically monstrous/animalistic Western-style dragons. There were an incredible amount of CGs (PARTICULARLY for a Nano game, with the strict time limit), and they all served to make the game feel particularly cinematic.

SPOILERS

I really loved this take on "the princess trapped in a tower" - rather than being trapped there, the tower is a place where Amaia finds freedom to find herself. The entire game evokes the feeling of "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf. It's an essay that I was thinking about particularly recently after reading more about Tolstoy and his horrific marriage. The diary of Sofia Tolstoy is particularly enlightening - in it, she declares that there were very few female writers/artists/composers in her time because their energies are consumed by their families and their husbands - their artistic abilities remain "embryonic and atrophy" and by the time they have finished raising their children to adulthood, it is too late for them to become "anything." These concepts are very well integrated into TDP. While Happho frees Amaia from her marriage, most importantly, she gives Amaia time and a "room" to rediscover her passion for the piano, which was taken from her by her domineering fiance. Her freedom comes not from killing the abuser that cages her - it comes from finding herself.

I also quite liked how, in the end, Amaia does not simply seek to carry on Happho's legacy, freeing brides from unwanted marriages. Instead, she seeks to provide girls with a space to explore their ambitions. It's a touching way to communicate how women's rights have been slowly fought for over time, building on the efforts of women that came before.

I also appreciated the breadth of "masculine" representation. Of course, you have Azaiah - the domineering face of toxic masculinity and oppression. However, he's not "evil" - certainly not at first glance. At most he seems like a "bold, assertive, ambitious" man - the kind of man that you could see running a kingdom - until you learn what he did to Vasserelli. But at the same time you have Amaia's kind, caring father Horacio - who nonetheless perpetuates antiquated beliefs by believing that he needs to quickly arrange for a strong husband who can take care of his kingdom and his daughter, focusing on Azaiah's 'strength" while ignoring his true colors. And while Caleb means well and truly loves Amaia, his belief that he is the "white knight" coming to save the princess is simply another flavor of the toxic masculinity that Azaiah embodies - a masculinity that positions himself as the hero, and Amaia as his damsel and love interest. I think that while Azaiah is the only clearly "vile" one of the three, I appreciated how all three "weighed down" on Amaia's freedoms in various ways. However, at the same time, you have Vasserelli - who respects Amaia's talents and cultivates her ambitions, while encouraging his daughter to do the same - showing that it is not a war of "genders," but of oppressive systems and mindsets.

I'll also touch on Happho's character. She really felt like a surrogate mother to Amaia, which was fitting, as Amaia never grew up with a mother to teach or guide her. The scenes where they were cooking together, and Happho opened up about her own experiences in the past, felt very warm, and it felt like Happho was a parental figure, helping Amaia to "grow up." It was a surprising take on the typically "monstrous dragon," but perfectly fitting for the story that the dev wanted to tell.

Overall this was a fantastic game about female empowerment - I hope that all women can find a "room of one's own"  as Amaia does. Fantastic job to the dev!

(+1)

Hey Chatter, thank you so much for everything you've done for this game!!

I'm glad you enjoyed the VAs performance, they really all nailed their parts in a way that makes me so happy, and which brought so much life to the game! And thank you for the assets, I think I've never put so much original art in a game, it might be my most ambitious in that regard so far, but I'm very happy with the result too as a whole (I guess even the restraints of NaNoRenO can't stop me at this point)!

----- SPOILERS ------

Once again, analysis on point, and you touched on a lot of things! Somehow, I really consider this story as a more "metaphorical" one that most of my work (especially compared with other NaNoRenO entries). Not that the story is written in a way that makes the scenes disconnected or "experimental" (for lack of a better word), but still in a way where I think the meaning is more important than the actual events, although I of course cared about those (the development of Happho and Amaia's friendship, the nuanced takes on the different men surrounding Amaia, Caleb being the hardest one in that regard!). But yes, your analysis of the main thesis of "A Room of One's Own" is very relevant (of course), and the idea of the game was to illustrate that through Amaia! And of course, I had fun playing with fairy tale tropes regarding the "evil" dragon!

Thank you again for your detailed feedback, and for being so supportive during development! You rock!!!!!!!!!