Does that game also have minotaurs and orcs invading the human territories? Kidnapping the protagonist parents. And is the protagonist also a virgin daughter of a duke? If that's true then it is very weird. Maybe you think it's redesigned because of the maps, if it's made in the same environment. AND uses a lot of standard maps from the RPG maker MV library and maybe clares quest does the same. However interesting information.
Some of the maps do look very similar, and the initial refugee camp is almost identical, except that the map transfer on the top left is a way in from the forest and the toll is on a bridge leading into the refugee camp.
Claire's Quest is Orcs and Goblins, and everyone is trying to get to the coast to take boats to the island countries nearby.
The guards at the camp are the slavers and you have to sneak into the town to avoid the slave route, which has an escape or sold off options to continue the story. The town has either an above board option to ship out, or one that results in a different potential slave start.
Claire is the only daughter of the minor noble family in the starting area. And yeah, if I remember correctly, her dad gets killed, defending the king I think, and mom gets hauled off to be a breeder.
I'd recommend you check it out, but it's a paid game and I wouldn't want you to be influenced by it, as you are going in a little bit different direction. I'll say that it starts to really be it's own game in the starting town. Leading up to that, you both have very similar imaginations. The dystopian medieval vibe is strong with you both.
I can understand that the maps looks similar to other games since I'm using the standard maps that's already finished from RPG maker MV only editing them slightly.
There's no boat or island in A New Dawn. The slaver mention a boat to get false safety if you read the slave route. It mentions that there was never a boat or any safe place. Then we're thinking similar but not quite I guess. A boat is what I think of when I want to escape quickly without technology.
The guards in the camp isn't slavers in A New Dawn. They are just greedy and not letting anyone pass without paying way too much silver. So not similar here either. None has to sneak into the town which isn't a town it's a safe heaven, built after the invasion. Although that could maybe be a different route, gives me an idea to continue the getting lost in the woods start that has a bad ending.
Victoria and Claire seems to come from the same high standard family tho she doesn't know if her dad is killed or not. Her mother has to entertain the minotaur king and not become a simple breeder. The girls have ranks in the monster city which I'm trying to put a lot of focus on right now. Victoria starting out in the goblin part of the orc city and has to earn her status since they don't know she's from a noble family.
Do you know when Claire's quest was initially released? It definitely sound like it have some similarities with A New Dawn and at the same time not really? I have never played the game so I don't have any reference. Interesting how two minds think almost the same when trying to define a new dawn breaking out in the human era.
It looks like the first time they released it on Patreon was mid 2016, and it's still far from completion of the obviously planned content, but it's came a long way. I'm sure there's more planned than the obvious stuff, but who knows. They also released it on Steam eventually, but apparently the Steam version is missing a little bit of content (probably stuff that violates Steam ToS).
I believe that prior to releasing on Steam, they also had a public release, but had to stop updating that once they went onboard with Steam.
The initial Patreon release was still before they got any CG into the game. They published it via Tinyhat Studios and their Patreon is The DystopianProject.
In their game, it was possible to use the woods to bypass the toll bridge and enter the refugee camp from the north, climbing down the vine into the camp. It could also easily lead to a bad end by getting caught by the orcs or goblins in the woods. And they also have a witch/researcher, but near the end of the initial woods, if you keep going past the toll bridge and through the rest of the woods. She has an orc leader caged in her hidden basement.
I probably shouldn't describe the whole game, lol.
So, yeah, there's a lot of similarities and differences. At worst, the games look like they could have inspired each other or both been inspired by the same source. I was quick to jump on the similarities at first, but they're definitely different games. Especially considering the standard map library.