Galaxy Princess Zorana: Beginner Player Tips

I recommend playing your first playthrough without the help of a guide – there’s a lot to learn about this game, but also a lot to stumble upon with choices you might not’ve made in a more focused playthrough!

But if you’re eager to start seeing some of the epilogues, or are feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed, read on!

These tips were developed through a large number of playthroughs of the beta. The full version may have some differences here and there, but from what I’ve played of it so far, all of the tips below should still be relevant.

• Don’t stress too much if you see that you’ve failed a skill check: there are usually multiple ways to succeed in a particular event, and sometimes skill checks simply offer differing narration or dialogue indicating Zorana’s extra knowledge or experience.
• The game is very good at remembering what Zorana has said or done, so go out of your way to find those connections! If there’s any callback you think should happen that isn’t already in the game, you can log it on the itch.io forum!
• Reaching certain levels of a Knowledge skill (either by having Zorana study, or through having a minister with an appropriate skill level) can unlock extra abilities. Most notably, having 50 Science allows the palace to travel two spaces at once, and 50 Bureaucracy grants Zorana an extra social action in every social phase.

  There’s not a huge number of great science ministers, so it’s often a good tactic to head for one first: good options are Stoyan on Draug (the highest possible science, but a lot of enemies), or Lorkas on Tharkas II. Electors who are good at Bureaucracy are relatively more common; an easy pick for this is Vahter (Myrkka I), if you just want anyone. (In fact, Vahter is moderately good at most things! But he also tends to really like Zorana no matter what, so making him a minister means not winning over someone harder to impress…)

• If an elector hates Zorana enough to want her dead, they will try to assassinate her. This can sometimes happen during scripted events when there are a lot of people around (e.g. the Jubilee), but mostly occurs during Mood scenes. Each elector has certain types of mood scenes they prefer to assassinate Zorana on. So, if you get shanked, one way to get around it is to reload and choose a different Mood option.

  This also means that options to alter Zorana’s mood (e.g. her pet) can be very useful for avoiding assassination. Keep them in mind if you get stuck!

  If there’s one elector who wants Zorana dead, speaking to Korundi about Security Threats will have her give Zorana a tip on how to avoid peril: e.g., ‘avoid being alone’ would indicate to avoid Negative and Secretive moods. If more than one elector wants her dead, however, Korundi will give a generic ‘watch your back’ response and Zorana’s mood will change to ‘Cautious.’

• Every elector has a network of allies and enemies: cosying up to their enemies will decrease their favour. (They can also lose favour in other ways; e.g., electors also have ideological preferences for things like military strength or whether they believe their species is being favored by Zorana!) If an elector is part of Zorana’s cabinet alongside an enemy of theirs, their favour will tend to go down pretty fast.

  If a cabinet member *really* doesn’t like Zorana, but never gets a chance to try and assassinate her, they might quit immediately before the election so they can vote for an opponent.

  Also, if Zorana’s life is actively threatened but she survives (due to her getting away or defeating the assassin), the culprit will 100% be unmasked and removed from the pool of electors. If they were a minister, that also means they’ll be removed from that position. 🙁 (RIP Stoyan. I’m okay with you trying to kill me so long as I can keep that fast palace movement!!!)

• Electors’ personal quests are super fun and a big part of the game’s story, but they’re an inefficient way to get votes. You’ll want to rely on some other tactics (offering cabinet positions, winning their favour, blackmailing them, etc.) alongside the quests if you’re trying to actually win the election.

  Some elector quests aren’t immediately unlockable; investigating their background often helps with that. A small number of electors do not have any quest.

  (I do recommend checking out every quest at some point over multiple playthroughs; they’re all interesting and some are lore-relevant!)

• Early on, the Interaction skills are good to focus on, because having at least a bare minimum level of them will make a lot of things easier across the baord. Empathy is also really useful for first-time playthroughs, but even in later runs it helps to ensure you know which electors can be contacted (if they dislike Zorana enough they won’t respond to her calls) and which already like her enough to pledge their vote as soon as you hit ‘negotiate’. It can also rarely lead to extra options being available e.g. if Zorana notices that there’s something on their mind.
• IME, the smoothest way to get a win is to focus on the Emotion skills (taking Interaction as a secondary), and butter up favorable electors with Charm and Flatter while blackmailing the others. Note that Media is a must-have for a blackmail run; I favour Sola as minister for that, if you don’t need her for Science.
• Write down the dates for important main-storyline events to help you plan out future runs. If Zorana has a reason to know when an event will happen she’ll be given warning, but sometimes stuff happens that nobody in-universe could have predicted.
• If you want to delve into the plot, work on the puzzle you’re given as a birthday present and then meet up with the Novan fleet. Building up Galactic Relations will also help.
• Fully maxing out knowledge skills can in some cases unlock fun stuff; in particular, a maxed out Media will allow you to check everyone’s internal stat values, which is worth a try at least once! Maxing out Intrigue was also worth it IMO 🙂
• Every proposal option (including NPCs without sprites, or who are never met in-game) comes with its own epilogue sequence detailing how the wedding and/or the early stages of their marriage go. Some are super cute or romantic!! It’s definitely worth collecting these outcomes as well! 😀