Imperial Grace: Love, Lies, and Deadly Secrets
You are the Empress now. The crown is still warm from your father’s death, the court is watching your every move, and behind every bow is a sharpened knife. Your advisors offer counsel—and temptation. Will you rule with grace, with fire, or with a heart already claimed?
For those among you who are really into political intrigue, then that intro surely sold you on Imperial Grace. We’ve had the chance to interview the person behind the game—Ayael, and will be sharing our insights will you all today.
Ayael: “Sure, so you wake up and we told you that your father, the king, the emperor, is dead. And so now you have to rule the kingdom of Calidya. And of course, it’s not an easy task. You will have to overcome many challenges, but fortunately, you are not alone. You have several advisors to help you with these tasks. And it happened that four of them are very hot.”
Ayael: “Well, definitely Game of Thrones was a huge inspiration. I always was a fan of medieval, low-fantasy stuff—the plot, the drama, it really really inspired me.”
“My other inspiration I would say was a Korean drama. And my last main inspiration is Dragon Age. I really, really, really look at how Dragon Age does choices—it makes you feel like you’re part of the world and you have influence on it.”
“Something funny—after I pitched the game to some people, someone told me it’s like Yes, Your Grace! I didn’t know about that game and I played it after. It’s just a huge coincidence.”
Ayael: “Not at all. There is no fantasy in the game. We flirt sometimes with religious stuff, people who believe there is magic existing, and stuff like that, but there is nothing concrete. No dragons, no anything. The reason is to have a strong political plot.”
“Actually during development I asked myself if I wanted things more grounded in our reality, but I wanted some liberty with the context. If I was going full historical, I would be bothered by anachronism.”
Ayael: “Well, I do have a team to help me. I myself do the writing, the programming, the marketing, and the UI design. We have a musician, we have an artist, because that’s two things I absolutely cannot do. We also have a translator, because I write in French.”
Ayael: “I’d say it’s ambition and empowerment. I want people who play the game—mostly women, but men are welcome too—to feel empowered to do all the stuff we cannot do in real life. And if we want to emasculate a man who was very disrespectful, we can do it because it’s a fantasy world and we are the Empress.”
Ayael: “Alexander fall into the childhood trope kind of romance like he knew her when she was younger she helped him during this difficult time of his life because Alexander is a bastard but since his father never had legitimate son he like kinda adopted him.”
“While the main character always was the princess who just managed the court flawlessly. So she took him under her wing and protect him from all the gossips and stuff like that. Now he’s feeling very grateful and is really devoted to the MC.”
Ayael: “The trope I like the most in romance is enemies to lovers. And it’s actually extremely hard to pull off, to do it properly. So it was my own twist to it. They are not exactly enemies, but they have the family backgrounds, so their relationships start in an antagonized way, even if they are not enemies in the strict sense of the term.”
“And yeah, it’s actually one of my favorite routes to write because he’s so grumpy and they are exchanging one-liners all the time to have the last word. That dynamic is really funny to write for me because of all the banter and all the sarcasm, just to see him opening up slightly after some time when you make the right decision. He is one of the characters who have the most evident evolution throughout the game, so it was a very fun romance to write.”
Ayael: “She is an ambassador, she knows how to talk well and navigates all the court intrigue and is an excellent matchmaker.”
“She sees everything, like the MC—she’s very perceptive. Their relationship is probably the most healthy in some ways because Asha is someone who knows what she wants, will tell what she wants, will be very comfortable about it, and will try to respect boundaries.”
Ayael: “Something you need to know is that the Master of Murmurs wasn’t supposed to be a character. Like, it was a function. I needed a spymaster, make like him mysterious so I don’t have to really bother with him. And then the artist made him hot, but like, so hot.”
“The second he entered the room in the demo, every streamer, every player, even myself, was like—god, I want to date that man.”
Ayael: “Absolutely not. The management for me is like having a cherry on the top of the cake. It just adds something to every choice. Suddenly a choice that sounds almost binary. is actually not binary at all.”
“It prevents you from being a people pleaser who just says yes to everything and makes the decisions quite complex as well. I was constantly checking out my resources and if I’m doing the right thing.”
“At first, the game was supposed to be a stat raising game like Tokimeki… and somehow it became resource management.”
Ayael: “I saw art of hers and I just said—okay, I want this artist. I want this style. It just fit perfectly with what I had in mind for the game’s setting and vibe. But the artist is like a rare Pokemon. It’s really hard to actually get in touch with her. So I waited maybe two or three weeks before I got an answer, which was a Yes, fortunately for me.”
“She actually changed the facial features of the MC for each individual skin color in the game. Because she wanted like black people, for example, to feel more represented and not just have a color swap.”
Ayael: “People are super encouraging. Sure, there was a lot of people asking for Master of Murmurs romance, but they were not diminishing the rest of the story and still showed enjoyment. I’m really speaking more globally about what I see. I just wish that everyone had the same community as me.”
“We actually have a prequel planned but for once everything else is done. I have this small game idea, like very, very small. So I might do it in a jam. It will be about the first queen of Calidya. The founder of the empire is a foreign general who came to conquer the land and he fell in love with her.”
Ayael also shared a few exclusive behind-the-scenes images with us, and they’re a treat. One shows an early version of the UI featuring a weekday scheduling system from the game’s original concept as a stat-raiser, which was eventually scrapped. Another is a image of Theodore without his signature beard leaving him almost unrecognizable. And finally, we got a glimpse of the Master of Murmurs in his first design, complete with a full mask that was later removed so players could actually see his smirks.
You can play Imperial Grace from the Game Page here. Also make sure to keep an eye out for future projects by following Ayael’s newsletter, or join her growing community on Discord.
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