Fallen London and Sunless Skies developers Failbetter Games have blogged about the dark art of running a sustainable business, while sharing a tiny bit more about their next, unannounced game. Said game is apparently a change of genre from Failbetter's previous, exceedingly narrative-driven open world titles and free-to-play RPGs. It'll also be a little less oppressive, aiming for a feeling of "fireside menace" - that is, "an awareness of the world's dangers, but also warmth and comfort", which certainly feels like an appropriate mood for a time of mass layoffs and game cancellations, to say nothing of recent conspiracy-fuelled harassment campaigns.
]]>You might brave all sorts of horrors in the supernatural Victorian setting of Fallen London and Sunless Sea, but dare you face the greatest horror of all: love? Failbetter Games this week released a demo for Mask Of The Rose, a dating sim set in the same wonderful world.
]]>Just one day after its fundraising efforts began, Failbetter Games' upcoming romantic visual novel Mask Of The Rose has been fully funded on Kickstarter. It's a prequel to all of Failbetter's games, set right after London sunk underground in Fallen London. At the time of writing, backers have pledged a total of £99,203 of the £90,000 goal, and now it's time to talk stretch goals - one of which would add an entirely new character option to the game.
]]>The folks of Failbetter Games announced the next story-based adventure in their Fallen London universe in December. They're now kicking off a Kickstarter campaign for Mask Of The Rose, a visual novel set in their gothic, underground London setting. It's to be part romance and part detective story following several characters as they navigate the newly underground and destroyed London.
]]>It's time to head back to 1862, and date some people who may well be murderers. Failbetter Games have announced Mask Of The Rose, a romantic visual novel set in the Fallen London universe. It's a prequel to all of Failbetter's games, including Fallen London itself, as well as Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, and follows a group of lodgers in a boarding house just months after Victorian London has gone underground. Ah, trapped in a creepy underground building together, what better place for love to blossom, eh?
]]>The games industry has been hit pretty hard from the Covid-19 pandemic. Most events this side of the year have been cancelled or postponed, and now hundreds of workers being urged to work from home (including all of us here at RPS). The impact of this style of working will be different for everyone, so I spoke with some UK studios to see how they're getting on.
"What we fear might be affected is creativity, as a lot of what defines Bossa stems from impromptu chats, quick discussions, serendipity between team members. We'll have to offset these with more organised structure around online meetings, which invariably will change things a bit," said Henrique Olifiers, co-founder of Bossa, creators of Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread.
]]>As part of Failbetter's 10th anniversary, the studio has made an overhaul to Fallen London. Its first game, and the one on which subsequent, exceedingly polite steampunk-ish exploration games Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies were based, Fallen London is a browser-based story game that takes place almost entirely in text form. But a little less so today, since after some downtime yesterday, it has reappeared with a brand-spanking-new map.
]]>Last year, Failbetter Games moved to new offices near London Bridge. To the incautious, the building is a maze of identical white corridors and glass walled office rooms, punctuated by sleek break areas with helpfully labelled cupboards. I kept thinking it would be a terrible place to get stuck with a serial killer, especially because I only had a visitor pass and couldn't open most of the maglock doors. I was visiting to talk about the 10th anniversary of Fallen London, the studio's free-to-play browser game. It doubles as the 10th anniversary of the studio. Sort of. Within an acceptable tolerance, anyway.
It is a very modern office - the sort where each business based there has glass jars of mixed nuts, Smarties and Kit Kats, periodically refilled by the building managers. (Disclosure: I have eaten more than one of Failbetter's free Kit Kats). It seems at odds with the tone of Failbetter's games, which are all of a Victoriana, Steampunky persuasion. CEO Adam Myers restores that balance by saying "Do you have any interest in tea brewed in a pot?"
]]>Alexis Kennedy, co-founder of Failbetter and writer and designer on Fallen London, Sunless Sea and Cultist Simulator, has been accused of being an abuser and "well-known predator" by several prominent women in the games industry, including an allegation from a former colleague at Failbetter. The allegations came as part of a recent wave of similar stories shared on Twitter, among them allegations made against composer Jeremy Soule and developer Alec Holowka. Kennedy has denied the allegations on Twitter and via a statement given to RPS, while Failbetter say they "believe and stand with everyone who has come forward."
]]>2018 has been strange as hell, I think we can all agree on this. And yet, some bits of news can be even more baffling than others, the definitive proof we are living in the weirdest timeline. Our world may be literally burning, everything is a mess, and The Brexit still looms upon us. But thanks to popular hits like Del Toro’s Shape Of Water and the adorable anime The Ancient Magus’ Bride, lusting over a fictional monster on main is now deemed socially acceptable.
On Twitter, at least.
]]>Failbetter Games have launched a shiny redesign of Fallen London, the browser-based alt-history Victoriana horror RPG which spawned Sunless Sea then Sunless Skies. Failbetter last updated the site's look in 2009, when I'm not sure computers even had came in colour? Now it looks fancier and it works better on different screen sizes too, so I suppose you can fill your pocket telephone with horrors and oddities.
]]>Following a difficult year, Sunless Sea and Fallen London devs Failbetter have battened down the hatches and scaled back some of their plans, including laying off several members of staff and delaying Sunless Skies. Part of the problem is early access sales of the encounter-unspeakable-cosmic-horrors-then-eat-your-crew space survive-o-exploration RPG sequel have been lower than expected. The small English studio assure that they will finish Sunless Skies but they want to be sure they'll be safe to fund another game beyond that, so they've made a few cautious cuts.
]]>The problem with fantasy is that it's often not very... well... fantastical. Far too often, even brand new worlds feel like Tolkein or Warcraft or Star Wars with a few twists, and the serial numbers scraped off. The good thing about this is that when a game does take us somewhere new, it feels all the more special for it. This week then, a quick look back at some which have caught my attention for their sense of place. That doesn't necessarily mean super-original in the great scheme of things, or even not based on a licensed work, or even necessarily that the world contained a great game. These are just a few settings that have stood out from the crowd as cool ideas that surprised, inspired, and deserve borrowing or dusting off.
]]>'Sunless Skies' sounds a bit too 'A Day Trip To Reading' to my ears. I guess 2unless 2ea, Sunless Sea 2: None More Sunless and 2 Sea 2 Sunless were deemed insufficiently lyrical. The name, of course, matters nought: what does matter is that charmingly bleak, ocean-bound, narrative rougelikelikelike12 Sunless Sea [official site] is going full sail to sequel-land with Sunless Skies next year. And then taking off into space.
]]>Stellaris [official site], Paradox's sci-fi fusion of 4x design and grand strategy ideals, is a game that generates stories. As your species moves through the galaxy, encountering all manner of alien life, you'll create tiny tales and epic sagas. There are also stories already written, however, in the form of quest chains, and over the weekend we learned that one of the minds behind Fallen London and Sunless Sea will be adding to those space-stories. Alexis Kennedy, co-founder and formerly creative director of Failbetter Games, is now crafting word-shapes for Stellaris.
]]>Full disclosure time. I'm about to talk about Fallen London [official site] by Failbetter Games, a game and company that I've now done a fair amount of writing for. Please pause to get the necessary pinch of salt to take with anything that follows, if you wish. However, my love for this crazy Victorian universe goes back a lot further than that, and this week I'm not going to talk about anything I've had a hand in. Instead, I thought I'd discuss Seeking the Name. It doesn't sound like much, but it's one of the most interesting, disturbing quests you'll ever regret taking on.
Some minor lore spoilers follow, but nothing too deep.
]]>If I've one regret with regards to games I've let slip through my fingers over the years, it's Failbetter Games' Fallen London. I'm told its mysterious world, its lovingly illustrated interface, and its quirky character ensemble is rather wonderful; yet this is exactly how I feel about last year's follow up Sunless Sea [official site]. Not only did the latter bag a place on our list of best RPGs, we singled it out for bestest best words of 2014 - testament to Failbetter's storytelling prowess.
Which is why it's a surprise to learn today that their creative director Alexis Kennedy is parting ways with the studio he co-founded seven years ago.
]]>Failbetter Games have found fame and fortune with Fallen London and Sunless Sea, and now they've started helping other folks in the narrative games lark. For fun and profit! They've already helped fund Harry Tuffs's A House of Many Doors, but today formally announced Fundbetter. It's a funding initiative for folks who want to make small narrative games and interactive fiction, fronting them cash in return for a cut of profits. You know, it's funding. Money stuff. Like Dragon's Den but without the gits.
]]>After a year drifting through the sinister oceans of Early Access, Failbetter's wonderful Sunless Sea [official site] is released this Friday. Full steam ahead, Mr. Boatswain, full steam ahead. It's a game of steampunk and Lovecraft, sailing and survival, roleplaying and pint-sized naval combat, wonderful words and terrifying faces. It was one of 2014's best games as far as Adam and I were concerned, and all being well we'll be saying the same thing by the end of this year. I looked in on it a couple of weeks ago and all seemed well on course. We shall see, though: a question mark still hangs over the long game. While we all wring hands nervously, let's enjoy the splendid typography and apocalyptic drum soundtrack of its launch trailer.
]]>We’re deep down now, deep down where dreams and figments tumble and churn together like silt, deep down in sleep, where pain and sorrow fall drop by drop into the Sunless Sea, and wisdom comes in whispers of text and through the rubbery fronds of some ancient lifeform. Now in Early Access, Sunless Sea is the first ‘proper’ game from Failbetter, the clever-clogs creators of Fallen London and the Story Nexus platform. I've been navigating its strange shores for the past few days.
]]>If I had my way, everybody who reads RPS would have at least a nodding acquaintance with the writing of Failbetter Games. The showcase for the tiny English studio's talents is the free to play, browser-based RPG/adventure Fallen London, built in their own StoryNexus engine. Understandably, some people don't want to invest time and (potentially) money into a fragmented narrative, which requires players to pay or to pause between play sessions.
Good news arrives in the form of Sunless Sea, a new showcase for Failbetter's magnificent worldbuilding in the form of the most RPS-friendly game I've seen for some time. Steampunk ships undertake FTL-inspired voyages of "discovery, survival and loneliness", while crews face down vast tentacled horrors, risking life, limb and sanity. Watch the first in-game footage below and keep an eye on the log at the bottom-left.
]]>Our lengthy conversation with Alexis Kennedy and Paul Arendt of Failbetter Games continues, with mysterious, enigmatic and untold tales of Fallen London, details of the nightmarish voyages undertaken by the captains of the Sunless Sea, and adventures in the mind of a dead god. If you haven't read part one, you'll find it here. If you have, jump right in.
]]>"Have you ever been to Córdoba?" It's not the sort of question an interviewee normally asks me but this isn't a normal interview. I'd like to say that I spoke to Paul Arendt and Alexis Kennedy of Failbetter games in a corroded wine cellar by gaslight, but that would be a lie. The creators of Fallen London work in Digital Enterprise Greenwich, overlooking the Thames from on high rather than sifting through its waters in search of stories to tell. I've had a long and fulfilling relationship with Fallen London, and Sunless Sea looks like a marvellous mixture of Elite, roguelike and top notch storytelling, so I was hoping for a fulfilling conversation.
A couple of hours later, we'd talked about everything from Dark Souls to Dickens, and the world felt like a more fascinating place. These are two of the most interesting minds making games and whether you've played Fallen London or not, you would do well to consume their thoughts.
]]>Sunless Sea takes the excellent writing and world-building of Fallen London, and injects it into a 2D exploration, trading and survival game. It's Elite but with steamships instead of starships, and dwindling-dark ports instead of space stations. Throw in giant fish with moustaches, living mimic islands and deranged cannibal crew members, and the resulting concoction seems more than satisfying. I spoke to Failbetter about Fallen London, Black Crown and Sunless Sea a few weeks ago, and today, as the Kickstarter launches, I plan to feed you their words over the coming days. Visit Fallen London, toll-free, for a taste of the style and the setting of Sunless Sea, and then ponder if it is possible to pass up on a game in which the images and text below appear.
]]>When I read Alec's salute to Kingdom of Loathing, I recognised the sentiment immediately. Although it hasn't existed for as many years, Fallen London is a firmly entrenched feature of my waking life. I've written about it before and I'll readily admit that I've only been reminded to mention it again because of a Valentine's press release, detailing The Feast of the Exceptional Rose content. That's a fantastic name for a romantic event. The Failbetter folks spin some marvellous word-threads and the possibility of discovering new parcels of prose is the best reason to revisit every day.
]]>While it's still at the 'sign-up for info' stage, Fallen London creators Failbetter Games are getting ready to launch a cool sounding set of tools that could let you beat them at their own game. It's called StoryNexus, and with it anyone will (eventually) be able to create their own card/text based adventures. There's also going to be a new game based on the technology, described with the company's ever-erudite panache as "kind of a musketeer noir thing".
I'm really looking forward to seeing this in the flesh, for a number of reasons...
]]>Browser-based narrative experiment Echo Bazaar has quite the following and when it took on the new name, Fallen London, I decided I was long overdue a visit to the delirious, devil-haunted sprawl of suggestive steampunk. It's a browser-based adventure, working from a lovingly illustrated but mostly textual interface, which involves seeking mysteries, stories, secrets and opportunities in the sunken city. There are stats that increase as plotlines are pursued and there are action points that replenish over time, or through the expenditure of real world currency. The pleasure of it isn't really in the self-improvement though, it's in the joy of discovery, and the word-forging and world-building are quite brilliant.
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