Dual Chroma: Power, Politics, and Princes
You’re a gifted mage in the heart of an old empire teetering on the edge of darkness. The prince needs your guidance, the court watches with suspicion, and visions of a mysterious figure haunt your dreams. Magic hums in every shadow, and every decision could shift the fate of the realm—or your own heart.
If you love high fantasy, amazing worldbuilding, and just the right amount of romantic tension, Dual Chroma is one to watch. We had the opportunity to talk with the mind behind the game—Crysil of Gaelin Games—discussing characters, conflict, and the magic that sets this world apart.
Crysil: “Hi, thank you for inviting me on the podcast. I’m Crysil. I’m the director and artist, lead artist for Gaelin Games and our current main project is called Dual Chroma. Dual Chroma is a fantasy visual novel with RPG elements that basically follows you as you play as a magi who is an advisor to the Imperial Prince and gives them advice, and see where that leads you.”
Crysil: “We have a thousand-year-old empire and it’s set in a magical world. So you basically play as a magician who is invited to advise the prince of the empire. And basically, there’s a lot of mystery and a lot of problems you have to solve. And the main part is that you get to romance the prince as well. So that’s a big attraction right there. And we do also have a mystery second love interest in the game.”
Crysil: “So it’s the standard, you know, light versus darkness narrative, but I wanted to focus. I’ve always been obsessed with authoritarian empires and similar things because they do impose their own views on everyone. And you want to see what the effect of that is. Even though they do pose as an empire of light, there’s also drawbacks. We wanted to set the world in a conflict that would draw out really strong emotions from the characters as well and place you in that situation.”
Crysil: “That was basically the main reason I wanted to do the game, was because of this historical impact on the current story and the cycles of history. So essentially there’s a few other stories interwoven into the main narrative that you’ll see now and then of characters in the past and what choices they made. And now it’s your turn to make similar choices and see where you end up.”
Crysil: “That’s actually set a long while in the past and explores one of these historical characters that we were just talking about. And it’s basically a glimpse into the lore of the game to get players interested.”
“It’s a glimpse into an era of the past that you only see as history in the game. So I find them very intriguing. Like, it’s very good to play Hereticus and give a shot.”
Crysil: “There’s a bunch of historical characters that have their own personalities and their own stories and their own cycles. yeah, we do have so much material, but yeah, we’ll see how things go. Essentially, there’ll probably be shorter games if they do happen.”
Crysil: “I’ve always liked world building. I like very immersive novels and media like, well, Lord of the Rings. That’s a really big one since Tolkien went in so much depth into creating his language in his world. I was just inspired by how he built layers and layers and different ages of history.”
“And I was just inspired by how bhe built layers and layers and different ages of history. different conflicts and characters that all play into how the world is today. So that was a main influence. And I also do watch a lot of anime and films which play into it.”
Crysil: “I’d say Hermione Granger from Harry Potter was the main inspiration.”
“She is half her family is from a magi bloodline and she’s very determined to study hard for her family.”
Crysil: “So basically this goes back to lore and the world building. In Dual Chroma, what I thought of was a blank canvas and then colors bringing the world into being. So that goes back to the gods being based on colors, magic being based on colors and hues and light.”
“The mages themselves have their own strengths. So like you can be a violet mage and not be very good at it. So then you wouldn’t be that strong.”
“Violet is rare because the deity does not choose that many mages and not that many magi are attuned to the deity, which is Rona.”
Crysil: “So basically we got one Emperor who married three Empresses and each Empress had a kid. And then all these factions within the court.”
“Keldran does not have much power at the moment. He was expelled from Lumens Academy, which means that his reputation is really bad. That’s why he’s hiding because he doesn’t have a place.”
“Even the fact that you’re given your appointment as his advisor is a move from essentially his enemies. And that’s also why the Empress approaches you occasionally, because she wants you to help her.”
Crysil: “He’s like your, your perfect son, right? The golden child, the prodigy. He’s very good at what he does and an intellectual. He’s a scholar and a accomplished gold magi. So he’s like the ideal son.”
“He’s more of a scholar and very gifted politically. So he would have done great things for the empire had he lived.”
Crysil: “I had the idea from the start. I wanted to do an RPG hybrid because I love RPGs. I played Final Fantasy, I played Fire Emblem. And I wanted to have this element where you felt involved.”
“I did play a few visual novels where there were battles, but they weren’t actually played out. So I wanted to improve upon that.”
Crysil: “There’s been a lot of moments. This game was concepted a very long time ago. And I got a team together for other games that we published before Dual Chroma, such as Deliver Us from Evil and the prequels.”
“Honestly, this has just been so much. I can’t think of something off the top of my head right this second.”
Crysil: “So much, so much. Like I even drew some sprites that just basically got cut out because like we didn’t have the word count for them or they would be a tangent on the story. And that’s part of reason why we did a few prequels. And that’s part of reason why we did a few prequels, which was just to give those characters their own screen time.”
Crysil: “So the game will be 100k words. We said on the Kickstarter that’s not changing and we’re over halfway there right now. We’re set to reach the other half depending on team availability because some of our team members are in pretty tough situations right now due to the economy and we have to take that into account as well. So it’s not something that I can promise currently, but definitely it’ll be out within a reasonable time frame.”
Thank you all so much for joining us for this deep dive into Dual Chroma. It’s been a joy hearing Crysil share her passion, for the world they’ve created. If you haven’t already, be sure to play the demo and experience the magic for yourself. The team is hard at work bringing the full game to life, and we can’t wait for you to try it out for yourselves.
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