itch.io

Thanks for playing our game! And thanks for letting us know about the typos, but we won't be fixing them in this version and uploading a new one; we'll likely only be fixing typos in the extended version.

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it :D

If you're on Mac using OS platform, you shouldn't be trying to open the .exe file. That zip folder for download has a file to run for each platform -- Windows, Mac and Linux. Run the Mac version -- double click and run the one that doesn't have any file extension (the one without .exe or .sh).

Thanks for trying our game!

First off, I must apologize for the extremely late response >< I didn't notice an email notifying me of new comment on itch.io -- I must have missed it in the mass of emails in my inbox. I'm really sorry about that.

Thank you so much for giving our game a try and leaving a comment! <3 We really really appreciate the feedback :D

Thanks for all the compliments :"D About Mer's endings, I think many people mentioned it was confusing, so we'll see what we can do about it in the full game.

We've just posted Beau's design on our Tumblr, but in case you haven't seen it, Beau is based on Sleeping Beauty! So sorry about the super super late response ;; We'll have his character profile up soon, so if you're interested, do check that out!

Once again, thank you so much for playing.

Thank you very much! :D Glad to hear you enjoyed the game. Hopefully you'll like the full version of the game too <3 We'll be working hard to bring you guys Nicholl's and the new bachelor's routes as soon as possible!

Thanks a ton for your crits! We'll be taking them into account, and we hope his route will be better in the expansion :) I'm not super sure what you're referring to by text shown in the wrong order, but I'll double check the script to ensure that it's fixed!

Sadly, we didn't get to branch off based on previous choices / tighten the plot due to time & word count constraints, but (hopefully) the most glaring issues should be fixed in the expansion :) The routes will also be somewhat intertwined, so some of the answers to seeming plot holes will be revealed in completely separate routes. Regarding Mer's backstory, well, while all of his stories were at least a little embellished (since he couldn't really tell the truth without revealing the whole story), certainly not all of them were completely fabricated from scratch ;) We'll try to make the details more clear in the expansion!

As for Charming's denial in the endings, that was actually totally intentional & was supposed to tie into the themes LMAO. If it didn't work, though, it didn't work, and we'll try to change the endings' details for the expansion! :) The endings were certainly messed up, and their execution was rushed and weak. Thanks for your suggestions! We'll definitely consider them. Regardless of the changes, we hope the expansion improves on some of the issues 8'D

Hey~ Thanks for playing our game! What do you mean by the brightness? Do you mean the actual brightness of the game, or just the sparkly art? :p If it's the latter, unfortunately, since it's our artists' style to draw bright, sparkly art, we won't be changing that in the expansion. Sorry about that!

Hi! Thank you for playing and for writing a long comment!

Haha, glad to hear you liked his happy ending with Charming! Yes, his route has been heavily edited in the expansion and many issues have been hopefully fixed, so we hope the execution of the ending will be better!

Ahhh thank you for your compliments on Snow! Actually, yes. I've always gotten annoyed at fairy tale happy endings — not that I don't love a happy ending, but everything just fades to black implying a "happily ever after" too quickly. It doesn't work like that irl. Emotional trauma from a toxic/abusive family is a topic I care about because I've seen first-handed the lasting damage it can do, so I'm so, so glad that you picked up on my portrayal of Snow's lingering issues.

As for Zel... be careful what you wish for ;) But yeah, we are aware of the issue of lackluster plot and backstory in Zel's route — it was a somewhat conscious choice, because we had to make a difficult choice of cutting his backstory to save time (by not requiring more scenes, more sprites, more BGs etc) or keep them in but risk not making the 30 day deadline for NaNo. In the end, we chose to keep only the important romance parts, so we can promise that in the expansion, you'll see a lot more of Zel's backstory and history with the witch! :) And as for the 2nd ending, that will be tweaked as well to make it hopefully easier to accept due to the majority of responses we've gotten regarding the ending.

Hehe, Nicholl's route... Mm, I can't say much more, but I had a lot of fun writing him :D Hope y'all would have as much fun reading his route in the future too!

Again, thank you for playing Lads in Distress and for taking the time to let us know your thoughts!

Hello! Thank you for playing our game, and thank you for taking the time to write us such a long review! :)

Haha, Snow is probably the most "normal" person out of the three xD His route is twice as long in the expansion, so you should let us know after playing it if it changed your mind about Snow! :)

Yessss, we had a lot of fun writing Zel. xD We're glad that you find him cute :p As for the part regarding the witch, it'll be explained in the expansion. We just never had the time to include more plot and backstory development for Zel because it'd mean more word count, more sprites, more backgrounds — and with the 30 days time limit for NaNo, we just had to make a difficult choice of what to cut, and in the end we chose to keep the romance. Regarding the 2nd ending where she elopes, that was actually our rationale behind making such an ending! To get that ending, you had to choose all the choices leaning towards adventuring and stuff, so your choices define Charming's personality and her final decision on whether to be a responsible princess and give up her dreams, or run away with the guy he loves xD It's irresponsible, we agree, but understandable for Charming in our opinion. But due to the majority of the responses regarding this ending, we will be changing this ending a bit in the expansion to make Charming seem less irresponsible. We will be somewhat addressing what you said about the 1st ending being a bit wrong to Zel, though we won't be changing the ending — rather, we will be adding new scenes for Zel's route in the expansion of more character development/plot that will hopefully make the first ending easier to swallow.

Haha, super glad to hear you liked Mer! :D His route has undergone rewriting in the expansion, so hopefully the transition and execution of the endings will be better so it'd be less confusing.

Once again, thanks for playing LiD and for writing a comment! :D

Hello! Thanks for your interest in our game.

Yes, we're aware some antivirus programs like BitDefender (and apparently Norton now, too...? Strange, I ran the files through Norton before, and it was fine for me.) flag our game as a virus, even though all the AV softwares we have access to all report our game as clean. If you still want to play and you are comfortable with doing so, the way to make it stop removing the file is to whitelist it in your antivirus, I believe. But if you are concerned and would rather not do that, then we suggest you not to proceed. Sorry for the problems, but thank you for your interest in our game!

Apologies for the late reply; we kinda forgot to check back on this comments page for a while.

I believe we've already included instructions on how to play the game under download instructions. Just unzip the whole folder and then run the Lads in Distress.exe.

Thanks for your interest in our game!

Hmm, I have no idea. This is the first time we've had a report of that error. Did the problem persist for you? If so, what platform and OS are you using? What software are you using to unzip?

Thanks for the interest in our game! Apologies for the late reply; we kinda forgot to check back on this comments page for a while. xD

Thanks for your interest in our game! We hope your download ended up working fine? Apologies for the late reply, btw! We forgot to check back on this page for a while.

Hello! Thanks for taking an interest in our game :)

As for your question about monetizing your gameplay... it depends :p Are you thinking of Youtube ads? Maybe if you link your video here we'll decide if you've offered enough of your own content (e.g. commentary) to the video to justify the monetizing.

Again, thanks for playing our game!

Thank you!! :D Glad you liked the game <3 Thank you for giving our game a try.

Hey! Apologies for the late reply, we forgot to check on this page for a while.

We are aware that some antivirus softwares (particularly BitDefender) would flag our game as a virus. We aren't sure what the problem is, because we've ran the files through multiple antivirus programs (such as McAfee, Avira, Avast...etc.) and it always comes back as clean. Only solution if you want to play is to whitelist the game and play it, but if you are concerned and would rather not do that, then we suggest you not to proceed. Sorry for the problems, but thank you for your interest in our game!

Hey! Thank you so much for taking the time to write a long comment. <3

LOL Omg we're so so sorry for all the trouble the game gave you! ;_; But we're so glad it managed to work for you in the end and you thought our game was worth it. Thank you for the compliments on the art! We are indeed very lucky to have Elzee as our Character Artist.

We're also super pleased to hear that you enjoy the premise of the story. Ahh so glad you liked Snow <3 He definitely is a rogue prince LOL As for Charming going head to head with his step-mom... be careful what you wish for because you just might get it ;)

Btw,just a note, Prince Snow is actually based off Snow Queen, which is mentioned in teensy letters in his char profile on this page, so if you wondered at why some details in his story were so odd/sounded familiar e.g. his specific curse, his ex-gf's name, it's because they're references to the Snow Queen fairy tale, not Snow White :"D)

Nicholl will actually have a route in the full game! He was actually supposed to be a secret 4th route, but we didn't have time for it during the NaNoRenO game jam T_T

And yes, there will be a full version of this game! The full game will be almost 4x as long as this version, with 50k words per route (as compared to 25k atm for each route), and 7 routes in total (compared to 3 right now). The current routes will be almost completely rewritten, with their backstories and a lot of the unanswered questions e.g. Snow's stepmother, the witch, etc. (hopefully fully) explored! If you're curious, we will be posting updates and progress reports on the full game during development on our blog! And don't worry, the full game will be completely free as well. We aren't trying to make money off this; we just want to bring entertainment to people while doing what we love :"D

Thank you once again for all the compliments and kind words, and for (trying so hard to) play our game! LOL Hope you'll enjoy the rest of the game too, and we'll try not to disappoint with the full game in the future!

Hey! Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a long comment and for the compliments! <3 We're glad to hear you enjoyed the game overall. Btw, sorry about the late reply! One of the writers is away on vacation, so we had to wait for her response on how to reply to some of your remarks on the route she wrote.

Firstly, about Zel's second ending, we totally understand why you, like a lot of other players, dislike this ending. It is meant to be irresponsible, actually. But when us writers first came up with this idea, we thought this may be a good option to offer to the players because the way we saw it was we can't blame Charmin for running. She's 18, already has the weight of the world on her shoulders, and if she goes back, she'll either have to make Zel give up his dreams (and her passion for adventuring), or never be with the guy he loves while he goes off exploring the world. So we presented this as an option to the players -- you don't HAVE to accept your duties as your princess. Is it the right thing to do? Probably not. Is it selfish and irresponsible? Yes, definitely. But it's understandable, at least to us writers. However, that said, having taken into account the player responses regarding Zel's second ending, we are considering changing it a bit, at least to make it slightly more responsible. xD It's not firm yet, as it highly depends on how the storyline for Zel's route goes, as well as the endings for the other routes.

As for Zel's backstory, it was deliberately omitted because if we give out all the details and answers now, then why would anyone replay the new Zel route in the full game? ;) Same with Snow's route. A lot of the unanswered questions are left deliberately unanswered so we can explore them in the full game instead. Dragon will indeed have a lot more screen time in the full game, since everyone seems to love him so much! :D

Secondly, about Snow, we're glad to hear you liked his character! :D It's funny because Snow was the least favorite character pre-release xD The playboy type really isn't popular in general, apparently. Especially glad to hear that you liked the first ending! We had hoped it wouldn't come across as a bad ending even though you don't end up married to Snow, and we tried for a bittersweet feel, so it's great to hear that it turned out well.

Next, about Mer. Haha Mer's route was definitely inspired by the darker tone of the original fairy tale. Glad to hear you enjoyed his interactions with Charming (for the most part) though! You aren't the only one who's mentioned the attempted murder coming rather suddenly out of nowhere, as well as the abrupt endings, so we will take that into account and hopefully Mer's route in the final game won't be as jarring! For the second ending, it seems like players either love it, or don't quite like it xD We totally understand why you don't like it! Though, as much as we hate to disappoint, the writer of Mer's route would most likely keep Mer's backstory and the endings the same in the full game, only elaborating more and adding more interaction scenes.

Nicholl will indeed have a route in the full game! Originally, he was planned to be a secret 4th route, but we didn't have enough time to go for it T_T He became so popular among fans that we can't not give him his own route in the full game. xD His route... oh man ;) I think y'all are gonna be surprised.

Super happy that you liked Snow and Charming <3 Thank you so much for all the kind words and for trying our game! Hopefully, we won't disappoint with the final version!

Thanks so much for all your comments! We're super happy to hear that you enjoyed the game overall <3

I'm glad you liked Snow! :D Before the release, Snow was actually the least favorite of the princes and I've heard a lot about how the playboys generally aren't the favorites in otomes, so I'm relieved you liked Snow. xD

As for Zel, it is a common feeling among players that they didn't like how Charming decided not to go back to Lunar Kingdom. It -might- be changed somewhat in the future game, but we'll see. It depends on how the storyline goes so... no promises yet! xD

Sorry to hear Mer's route disappointed you, though ;( Mer definitely ended up being... far from meek and gentle, haha. We sadly didn't get to add to it & branch off based on previous choices as much as necessary/wanted due to constrictions on time and word count. Mer's backstory and decisions will stay mostly the same, but hopefully the changes to the story itself will heed your expectations better ;o

Thanks again for your review! We hope you enjoy the expansion overall once it's released!

Hello! Thanks for all your comments regarding Lads in Distress! We're glad you enjoyed the game, and honored you took the time to write up such a long response @_@

Haha, yes, it seems like it's a common feeling about players that Zel is the cinnamon roll. You aren't the only one who felt guilty for not going back to Lunar Kingdom, so it's -possibly- something that will be changed in the expansion depending on how the storyline goes, but it's not certain yet. xD

I'm glad you liked Snow! I really enjoyed writing him as well. I hope you'll continue liking him in the final game! And I'm thrilled you liked the first ending even though it wasn't a romantic end. I really wanted a purely platonic friendship ending in the game and it fit perfectly with Snow's route so I ended up going for it even though I was nervous of feedback, so I'm glad you liked it!

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy Mer's route as much, though ;o; And yeah, it seems like Mer's route is best to play last (optionally with a repeat of another bachelor's route afterwards), since it does tend to "poison" other routes x'DD Sadly, we didn't get to elaborate as much as we'd liked to have due to time & word count constraints. Hopefully his route will be less jarring for you in the expansion! Haha definitely glad (well, okay, maybe not glad per se) his second ending gave you chills! It's always great to learn that you helped evoke feelings in someone else x') Thanks again for your comments! We hope you enjoy the expansion!

Awww, we're sorry to hear you didn't enjoy Mer's endings ;( We're glad to hear you liked the route, though! As for the CGs, we have two new CG artists on board, so hopefully their styles suit your tastes more! Regardless, thanks so much for the compliments. We hope you enjoy(ed) the other routes, and we hope you enjoy the expansion! It's unlikely Mer's endings will turn any more romantic, but hopefully they'll be executed in such a way that you find them less disappointing~

Our apologies, but there really is nothing wrong with our game files. We've run them through multiple AV softwares e.g. Avast, McAfee, Kaspersky, and the files always come back as clean and no detections at all. We even asked one of our team members who is using Windows Defender to test the game once again just to make sure. She downloaded the latest version of the files again from itch.io, ran it, and had no problems at all. Windows Defender did not flag it as a virus. We can assure you that there are no viruses or trojans in the files. We believe it is a false positive, but since your AV flags it as a trojan and you're worried about it, we won't suggest you to whitelist the game or turn off your AV while playing it. Thank you for your interest in the game anyway!

Thank you for playing our game, and for the nice comment! We are happy to hear you enjoyed it.

Haha, yes, that reaction to Mer's route seems to be common. It's intended -- each route was supposed to have a different feel/theme to it.

Zel's history is deliberately not explained because as we mentioned in developer's notes section of the game, there will be an expansion of the game released some time in the future. Many plot details and sub plotlines are deliberately withheld from this version of the game because we don't want to stuff too much information into a relatively short NaNo game (especially with the time limit of one month) and have the quality suffer. Moreover, we were trying to give players incentive to replay Mer/Snow/Zel's routes in the expansion. Therefore, much of the history/background/plot regarding these three princes are left out of this game on purpose. Zel's route in particular will have so much more increase in plot in the expansion because there was just no way to fully implement the plot planned for him in this short NaNo version without overloading artists/writers if we want to do it any justice.

Charming's parents will have proper character art in the expansion. Currently, they're silhouettes because of time limits for NaNo. Epilogue CGs will be mostly redone/recolored since we aren't restrained by time limits anymore. Our apologies!

Once again, thank you for playing and for taking the time to leave us a comment!

No, thank you for playing our game! We're so happy to hear you enjoyed it :D

Psstt we'll be making an expansion of this game in the future, so if interested, keep an eye out for news on our development blog! Haha

Hi! Thank you so much for playing our game and for the kind words <3 We're really happy to hear that you enjoyed it.

We will actually be making an expansion of this game, with more routes and more scenes for each current route. If interested, do keep an eye out on our development blog! Haha <3

I have no clue why it would be giving you that error. When does the error occur? My apologies for the problems!

Yes, there will be a route for Nicholl in the future expansion.

That... is really strange. We've never had a report of that yet, especially since it apparently worked for you the first time you played it? I have no idea, I'm sorry >< What safety browser is it?

Hey! My apologies for the late reply.

Yeah, we're aware that currently certain AV like BitDefender doesn't like our files. We're not really sure why, but we've run the game files through different AV like McAfee and Avast and Kaspersky a couple times, and they always came back as clean. So my apologies, but there's nothing we can do about it.

Would you by chance by using BitDefender? It's a known issue (from another player) that BitDefender likes to flag our files as a virus. I suspect it's because some AV softwares mark .exe files that haven't been downloaded much and are relatively new as virus automatically. In any case, we've checked the files with a few antivirus software such as Avast McAfee Norton...etc. and they all came back as clean, nothing detected. So if you do want to play the game, you can disable antivirus for a minute as you extract the files, or otherwise I'm afraid there really isn't another solution. Apologies for the difficulties!

Uhm I have no idea what that error is o.O This is the first time someone has reported that problem. Can you tell me more details about the error? When did it occur? Which link did you download from?

Thank you so much! We're really glad you enjoyed the game :D

Yeah, pacing was a known issue because we don't have enough time to write all the scenes we planned, so we had to select a minimum amount of scenes that would make the plot of the route at least make some actual sense while leaving the rest for the final version. xD

Thanks again for playing and for the compliments! <3

Hi! Sorry, we don't speak French ;_; (Had to use Google Translate, haha) So I'm afraid the game is only in English (if that's what you're asking. Google Translate is weird.) Thanks for the comment and for the interest!

Thank you so much for playing and for commenting! :D We are so happy you enjoyed Mer's route <3

Unfortunately, no, we don't have a twitter, but we do have a Tumblr where we post updates and basically use it as a development blog! We linked it at the beginning of the page. If you have a Tumblr, feel free to follow us there :D Thank you again!

Thank you so much for your comment :"D We are so happy that you enjoyed the game <3 Hope you will like the other two routes too!

Thank you so much! We hope you will enjoy the game <3

Haha, it's possible they commented while the download link was still messed up ;_; Itch.io has been giving me many problems with uploading xD Anyway, I have mirror links up on the LSF thread in case someone can't download from itch.io :"D

Thank you! <3 Hope you're enjoying the game ><

Hi! Thank you <3 Your encouragement/support has been important to us :"D Sorry about the mistakes with the download link. Hope you have fun and enjoy the game!

Hey! Sorry about the delay, guys. I went to sleep leaving the file to upload but there was some difficulties uploading to itch.io, so it wasn't ready for download. It should be fixed now. My apologies again! I hope you'll still download it to play :"D