The Missing Candle is a reliably quiet pub in Veilgarden – the drinks are cheap, the food is… extant. These days it is best known as the meeting place of a very exclusive club – one that happens to include you.
The Candlefinder Society – the five greatest detectives in London – regularly meet to talk shop. Sometimes, you join forces to unravel the city’s most unusual mysteries. Today we’re releasing another new case for you to solve: the Case of the Missing Moll.
Join the Banded Sleuth on a search for the Spall-Skinned Romantic’s lost love: Molly, a performer at an old music-hall. The trail is cold; the evidence scant; the witnesses decidedly unhelpful. What intrigues move beneath the surface? Is it really as simple as single missing woman?
This is embarrassing: I’ve written a smutty short story for this [Candlefinder: Case 6 - The Missing Moll - Progress in a Case 70] but entirely forgotten what I’m supposed to do with it on completion. Any pointers please?
That stumped me at first - you take it back to the warehouse at Wolfstack Docks. (By the way - appropriate username for playing a Holmes-inspired story! I noticed this mystery included a Captain Gregson, too - apparently in this timeline he became a zailor instead of a policeman.)
There’s a particular action within the story-writing interface that’s specifically marked as being the kind of story you need. From memory, it requires 10 pages and 30 potential.
Eh, I’m fine with this. Couple stories that cost Fate back in the day used to follow a similar structure. Remember that doll you can chase into the palace cellars to find out the dreadful truth about the royal family? This kind of reminds me of that structurally, there weren’t a lot of meaningful choices until the very end.
I’m also fine with this, conceptually. Ideally a new story with new characters would flesh out the setting more rather than just have the Tentacled Entrepreneur or somebody else just be everywhere, all the time.
That said yeah, this is the part that’s let me down so far. To compare it unfavourably to another old FL story, a certain romance between a Clay Man and a young lady had mystery, tragedy, a touch of gothic horror to give it flavour in a concise package. On the other hand, this one just feels like running errands and side quests, you just happen to be accompanied by some detectives who don’t actually matter for the purposes of the checkpoints you need to clear to progress.
I did enjoy the story, which in my opinion was fun to play (well, more like “read” admittedly) and gives a bit more shine and flavor to old places such as Veilgarden and Wolfstock, as well as an opportunity to come back to a forgotten carousel, namely the Writing Desk.
That said, it is always a pity when interactive fiction has nothing interactive in it or any meaningful choice.
I am having the same problem. I have written 3 short stories, each starting with Counterfeit some Romantic Literature and I still don’t see any options to continue the Candlefinder thread.
I think you have to also choose the particular smutty pamphlet at the very end? Like even if you choose it at the beginning, it’s not a final choice until that end click. (Maybe they should fix that.) If you choose the regular short story choice after you’re done it won’t work.
Hey fellas, not really sure where else to ask this. I’ve finally gotten round to doing the other Candlefinder cases, and I’m currently working on the Mr. Punch one. I just got to “Funished, at last” at the Wolfstack Docks, where do I go next to progress?
That one has more than one instance of canvassing the dockers as well as a specific expedition in the Forgotten Quarter. Oh, and there is a lab experiment as well.
Sorry, I can’t identify the exact place in the story from your heading. I can do a search for a random sentence, if you like (assuming I chose the same branches).
Uh, my latest choice does include the sentence “You collate your notes, assembling them into a timeline of events and a web of relationships” if that helps
Sequence of locations appears to be: your lab, Beatrice’s, Watchmaker’s Hill, Wolfstack Docks (Blind Helmsman), special expedition in the Forgotten Quarter (Seek the Granite Gallery), Ladybones Road (resolution)
Sorry, the quote doesn’t appear in my version of the story. The only one who does notes is the detective. But maybe the list will help to work out what you still need to do – Forgotten Quarter maybe?
Just finished all the Candlefinder cases (including the Fate ones; had a little left over from Aestival). Embarrassingly, it turns out the Fifth City tab was just closed and I found the option to progress after expanding it
Late to this most recent one (I urgently needed to become a knight), but I continue to really enjoy these! It really does help balance things to have some smaller-scale questions and mysteries from time to time, and as an end-game player it’s a rare satisfaction to have a story that’s engaging and mysterious but you can resolve in a few candles (though I also like the long, multi-installment things like Firmament). And I love spending a little time with each of the detectives!
That said, I do agree this one could have used a little more Fallen-London-ish atmosphere and flavour compared to the others, and that it would have been better with a little possibility for interaction. Still enjoyed it, though!
In case you ever thought, “What if I don’t write a cheap forgery of illicit Khaganian romantic literature? What if I bear my lurid heart on the page, give it my all, and write the greatest, most scandalous, most illicit Counterfeit Khaganian Romantic Literature the Neath has ever seen!”
