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Crystal in Carnations
Salmon Snake Games · Published by Salmon Snake Games
Last updated 7 Oct 2026
Crystal in Carnations is a story-rich tactical RPG and fantasy war epic of blood, passion, and political intrigue, where your choices determine who survives and what kind of nation rises from the ashes.
Adventure, Indie, Strategy · More free games
Navigate through Crystal in Carnations, a blend of adventure and strategy that lets you craft your own path in a world of political intrigue. Your decisions will define the fate of your nation in this intricate RPG.
About this game
Crystal in Carnations is a story-rich tactical RPG and fantasy war epic where your choices shape both the story and the battlefield. Follow branching paths, shape your party members to suit your playstyle, and master two distinct tactical battle systems that challenge you to approach every encounter differently.
Take on the role of a noble or a commoner in the kingdom of Vivestria during one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. As war tears the realm apart, your choices will ripple outward, shaping the lives of those around you and determining what Vivestria will become. You are the winds of change; but whether you preserve the old order or forge something new is up to you.
Crystal in Carnations features two distinct tactical battle systems, with the rules of each battle shaped by the map and the protagonist leading it.
Eloise’s battles emphasize formation and coordination, encouraging you to move your units in tandem and carefully position your forces to unleash devastating chain attacks and combos, while keeping the most vulnerable of your units at a safe distance.
Willow’s battles focus on individual initiative and aggression: units act according to their speed, creating a fluid battlefield where the goal is to seize as many turns as possible, overwhelm enemies before they can respond, and maintain the momentum of the attack.
Together, these systems make each protagonist’s route feel mechanically distinct, reflecting their different approaches to the war around them.
The game is set during a bloody war between Vivestria and Ehrenburg, two countries with a long and turbulent history. In the third year of the war the mountain god fearing people of Vivestria are steadily losing ground to a northern invader, the dire situation forcing King Dardaine IV to take to the field himself only for him to perish soon after with little fanfare.
Among the king’s troops are Eloise Bellerose, a young noble scion fresh to the battlefield, and Willow Fletcher, a peasant hunter conscripted to the army against her will who holds little love for neither king nor country. In the heat of battle these two discover by accident that their lives, and fates, are magically bound.
Join Eloise and Willow as they struggle to understand their bond and what it means, as Vivestria crumbles around them. Soon the eyes of a desperate people are on them, and the two women must decide which is more important: saving Vivestria, or remaking it into a country worth saving?
See the war through the eyes of your chosen protagonist and experience two distinct sides of Vivestria's story
A nuanced political fantasy of passion, betrayal, difficult choices, and emotional devastation
A two-sided tactical battle system that challenges you to adapt your strategy to a myriad of scenarios
Narrative choices that shape the course of the story, leading to six unique endings
Fight across 20+ chapters of mechanically rich battle maps, with an equal number of challenging extra maps
Explore between battles, uncovering the lives, stories, and struggles of a kingdom torn apart by war
Ten core party members with unique progression paths and deeply personal stories
Only here for the story? Equip scalable plot armor and experience the narrative at a difficulty that suits you
And much more!
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i5-2300 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 460 / Radeon HD 5850
Supported Languages
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
AnnouncementsOfficial
Devlog: Problems with Permadeath
Note: If you would be interested in:Getting info on future play testing opportunities Chatting with the devs and like-minded people about your favorite games Taking part in future raffles (You may get to influence easter eggs in the game)Consider joining our Salmon Snake Games Discord Server! We would be so happy if you joined our small community ^^ I have crawled out of the trailer hole I jumped into last month.August was spent running against the clock to complete the first trailer for our game by the end of the month. My part in it is now done, and the trailer has made its way to our composer’s desk. Once he completes the audio, I’m finally free to post it everywhere! ^^ I’m quite proud of everything I accomplished to make the trailer showcase the game in the best way possible.Now that the trailer is complete, it’s back to prioritizing demo development. My list of things I need to implement is steadily decreasing, and I’m still confident we’ll have the demo out by the end of the year.But onto the topic I actually wanted to discuss today, which is... Raise your hand if you’ve encountered the following scenario in an RPG with lots of characters:A character is introduced in the story. You get to know them and what they fight for. You quite like the character. They have quirks that endear them to you, and you get excited about how they might develop over the course of the story. At the end of their chapter, they join your party and then......they never speak again for the rest of the story. :(The above example is a bit overstated, but it’s not that far from the truth of a lot of games. More often, “Beloved Character A” still has lines, but they aren’t critical to the story and could be cut with minimal impact. Why is this such a common pattern?It’s because the game has a permadeath mechanic and has to account for the fact that, in any given scene, most characters have a chance of being dead or unrecruited. This means they can’t have anything too important to say, or...Read full article on Community Announcements (SalmonSnakeGames)AnnouncementsOfficial
Devlog: On choices in story-heavy games
Note: If you would be interested in:Getting info on future play testing opportunities Chatting with the devs and like-minded people about your favorite games Taking part in future raffles (You may get to influence easter eggs in the game)Consider joining our Salmon Snake Games Discord Server! We would be so happy if you joined our small community ^^ As fans of story-heavy games, choices and their perceived meaningfulness is often in the mind of the Salmon Snake Team. This whole project was kicked off, because the team played an unnamed strategy game that presented itself with deep and meaningful choices, but that in the end felt shallow and the outcomes felt like they were outside of the player's control. I will not go into details or name the game in question, but people that have played it might guess it.Basically, going into the game the team decided on opposite strategies: I decided I would stick to the side of the bad guys like a thorn, only to back-stab them at the doorstep of their goals, whereas Vivi and Hani would decide to protect the "choisen prince" till the very end and never stray from "the good path."On my playthrough it became clear very quick that the game would not actually let me do anything as morally ambiguous as pretending to ally with the bad guys for greater good in the end. The story immediately forced me to stray from this path and the bad guys decided I had betrayed them, with no choice on my part. For Vivi and Hani the illusion of choice remained intact much longer... until at the very end, when the prince they were protecting makes a choice that goes against all of his characterization before that point for the sake of cleranly settling the plot. My friends did not feel like this made sense, since they had spent the entire game taking every opportunity to protect the character and make sure justice was done.We also learned that the game has a so-called "golden route" that the player would enter if they happened to make all the right dec...Read full article on Community Announcements (SalmonSnakeGames)AnnouncementsOfficial
Crystal in Carnations Devlog #29
Note: If you would be interested in:Getting info on future play testing opportunities Chatting with the devs and like-minded people about your favorite games Taking part in future raffles (You may get to influence easter eggs in the game)Seeing these devlogs earlierConsider joining our Salmon Snake Games Discord Server! We would be so happy if you joined our small community ^^ Welcome to yet another devlog for our game ^^ This sprint has largely been about fisxing a lot of weird bugs, but there are also some pretty neat large-is features at the very end. This devlog's topic -- Cake Clubs!Last friday the devteam had our monthly cake club! For those not in the know this game team was originally a cake club. Well it still is. This time we convened at script writer Elmo's place. He baked us some excellent pineapple pie from his historical cookbook. I believe this recipe was from the 1700's? The club works so that the baking turn rotates to the next club member every month. Since we are four people everyone get's to bake once every 4 months. This is not actually that much baking in a year, so despite the fact that the cake club is soon 6 years old, we are by no means professional pastry chefs :PCake clubs are great! I recommend every dev team starts a cake club, even if it's virtual. There was a time when one team member lived in Norway temporarily, so we had to make the cake club partially virtual. It worked quite well actually, so I do recommend this even if your team isn't local. We do have this (unspoken) rule that during cake club we don't discuss our game project, or if we do, its lighthearted and jokes, but no work allowed! It's good to have some time with your team when you talk about things besides the project. For us it's quite easy since we are a pretty tight friend group and we do loads of stuff together even without the game project. This sometimes brings it's own problems. Conversations about money and project finances are always a bit iffy between friends,...Read full article on Community Announcements (SalmonSnakeGames)AnnouncementsOfficial
Crystal in Carnations Devlog #28
Note: If you would be interested in:Getting info on future play testing opportunities Chatting with the devs and like-minded people about your favorite games Taking part in future raffles (You may get to influence easter eggs in the game)Seeing these devlogs earlierConsider joining our Salmon Snake Games Discord Server! We would be so happy if you joined our small community ^^ Hello again! It is time for another devlog. This forthnight has unfortunately been shadowed by numerous IT issues. My computer of 5 years is nearly at the end of it's life. When I got it in January of 2021, it was already refurbished by then. I think it's originally from 2017, so it's pretty much an elder machine. I've already ordered it's replacement but I do mourn for it somewhat :( (And my wallet) Despite this we've had a good sprint! Even if a lot of it is kinda unexciting progress: Marketing: 💠 Our current wishlist count stands at 112 (+12) Wishlist our game here at Steam!💠 We ordered some business gard for the game! I love that we get to use the key arts in them ^^ If you happen to find yourself at the monthly IGDA event in Helsinki, we'll gladly give you one!Art: 💠 I drew the expressions for Eloise's remade sprite. I hope those are the last expressions I'll have to draw for a while! 💠 ...That said I did one more expression for every character in the game. But this one was easy! A simple black silhouette "expression for everyone) 💠 I started working on a concept for Bellegarde's background art. Bellegarde is the first city you encounter in the game. I'm pretty new to this whole landscape painting thing. Originally we had planned to have a professional artist to draw all the mandatory backgrounds for us, but that got expensive fast and I cannot evade developing this skill forever (nor do I want to.) I've improved as an artist a lot over the development of this game and I'm hoping that my art skills will at least partially translate to landscape paintings as well.Programming: 💠 Fixed an is...Read full article on Community Announcements (SalmonSnakeGames)AnnouncementsOfficial
Crystal in Carnations Devlog #27
Note: If you would be interested in:Getting info on future play testing opportunities Chatting with the devs and like-minded people about your favorite games Taking part in future raffles (You may get to influence easter eggs in the game)Seeing these devlogs earlierConsider joining our Salmon Snake Games Discord Server! We would be so happy if you joined our small community ^^ Hello again! ^^ It was my birthday since the last devlog. I received absolutely beautiful watercolor art of Eloise and Willow as a gift from a friend I'm so happy about them I put them on my wall. I hope I can see lot's of fanart of our characters one day. At least let me hope... I like to write these devlogs immediately after we finish our bi-weekly sprint meetings, so I let the last sprint extend a little to sync them with the meetings again after we all returned from our christmas break. For this reason this devlog is quite meaty! Marketing: 💠 We have reached 100 (+10) wishlists on Steam! Woohoo. It's quite pathetic amount, but considering we have not marketed that much yet, I take it as a win :P I expect most of our wishlists will come when we release the demo, but my heart stings a little every time I see a post on reddit celebrating the thousands of wishlists a game has gotten on the first week. But I try not to pay them any mind. You can help us if you wishlist our game though!💠 I have started posting on TikTok. If that is your social media of choice, follow me at https://tiktok.com/@hanulisalmonsnake Art: 💠 I finished old fisherman Greg's expressions! Now all characters in our game have their expressions! (It only took a year...) 💠 I promised myself a long ago that once I have drawn all the expressions, I would let myself re-render Eloise. She's our other main character and her design had stayed mostly the same since 2022. I felt like She wasn't up to my standards anymore. Here is a before and after picture💠 I made some pixel art indicators for turn changes (? I'm not sure what they ...Read full article on Community Announcements (SalmonSnakeGames)
