“I have informed my neighbours – Crispin and Polliver, Applewick and Mr. Chope – that you will be staying. Please make yourself at home. I have provided a supply of Murgatroyd’s comestibles.”
The Clay Coalman needs someone to house-sit his apartment in the Clay Quarters. But life on Chalcedony Square is regulated by its tyrannical clock; its inhabitants imprisoned in lonely routine. An unexpected visitor might be just what’s needed to turn strangers into a community.
Curious about Exceptional Friendship? You can now play the Exceptional Story Reunion for free, as a taster! Look for An Exceptional Story: Reunion anywhere in London. You’ll unlock it when you’ve achieved level 5 in each of the four Making Your Name storylines.
All Exceptional Friends receive:
A new Exceptional Story every month
Memories of a Tale from each story to spend on exclusive companions and items
A second candle (up to 40 actions at once)
An expanded opportunity deck: ten cards instead of six
Four additional outfit slots
Once they have Agents, the ability to run an additional concurrent plot
Access to the House of Chimes including monthly gameplay perks
Enhanced Exceptional Friends receive all of the above, plus:
A past story, or two resets of stories they’ve played from a monthly menu
It’s a bummer for the story that it must come out during a particularly intense Estival. I look forward to it, the art looks great, but I’m probably not alone in delaying this a week or two.
We’ve fixed the error that incorrectly gave access to non-subscribers, and we’re working on removing the EF story qualities in cases where people got access this way.
It would be best not to play further through the story, since all progress on it will evaporate later, like a fleeting dream. Apologies for any confusion or inconvenience caused.
This was a breath of fresh air mid-estival. Nice little slice of life down in the Clay Quarters. If Failbetter doesn’t allow me my own beetle pet now I riot.
I really enjoyed this one! I love the street-level slice-of-life stories, and this was no exception. Some fascinating pieces of Neathy history, characters I was glad to get to know, and a very cute beetle.
Loved this story - perhaps my favourite exceptional story of all time. Particularly liked how time between actions and time on the square were incorporated into the pacing. Felt very clay-like and zen myself by the end. Came away feeling fond of all the characters, and progress through the story felt like you were making discoveries and choices rather than just clicking through to the next plot point. Really enjoyed looking after Bernard and would love my own pet beetle - although I don’t know if I could realistically sustain the level of care he deserves. Also one of the most emotionally successful stories I can remember. Bravo Chris & everyone involved!
This exceptional story was an emotional masterpiece. Its descriptions of loss, grief and broken friendship are devastatingly poignant. I loved the story mechanics; the slow accumulation of trust, and consequently of personal revelation, feels natural and unforced. The bittersweet climax of the story recalled that of Oliver Sacks’ ‘Awakenings’.
And to keep us sane, we have Bernard. I like to think that my character will descend from time to time to the Clay Quarter to take Bernard for walks.
Congratulations to Chris Gardiner and the rest of the FL team.
an option on the Salon card to invite Crispin and Polliver
a cameo by them at the next Feast of the Rose
an option in the Palace to tell the whole tale as an opera
a Bernard companion whose card only has “take Bernard for a walk” and “pet Bernard” as options. Sometimes I need a break from all that law-forging and Red-Sciencing, ya know!
BTW, I noticed an interesting coincidence: the title of the pivotal storylet involving Crispin & Polliver is “The Chance Collision of Minuscule Bodies in Endless Night”.
We have seen that Correspondence-flavored phrasing before: when using the non-violent option (that needed SotC 5 and Shapeling Arts 5) to calm the Lorn-Fluke. echo
I’m stuck near the end and can’t find the option to proceed with the story. I’ve helped all three characters improve themselves, and I gotten two of them to cross paths. Where or when is the final option to end this story? I think I’ve already burned about 40-50 actions trying to figure this out. I have 9 Observations on Chalcedony Square built up now, so I most certainly don’t need to keep doing that.
I can’t believe no one else has asked for help with this here, as I’m hopeless frustrated wasting actions now. What in the world am I missing?? It’s ruining what was otherwise a really nice story.
I finally figured out how to get past where I was stuck - I had to tinker with the clock a second time. What’s frustrating is that I tried doing that a couple of different times, and it either wouldn’t let me, or the same result as the first time would happen again. I had to do it first thing in the morning, if memory serves me correctly, to get the story moving along again, which I apparently hadn’t tried up to that point.
I didn’t think to look at my “days spent” there quality before ending the story, but I have to think I got it up to at least 15. I also imagine this story is designed to take around 5 days to complete, so it was frustrating wasting 2-3x more actions than I was supposed to do it. Unless I missed it, there didn’t seem to be any clues or bolded text to strongly suggest what to do at the point where I was lost, which is unfortunate.
Overall, it was a really nice story, and I appreciate the mechanics of an Exceptional Story doing something different than usual, though it was ultimately slightly let down by my frustrating experience at the end.
I don’t usually do reviews, but for this very Exceptional Story I will make an exception just to say that A Life of Clay is probably my favorite ES yet. With its intimate setting, lovingly told story and very humanly portrayed Clay people, my trip to Chalcedony square left me more fulfilled than most stories. This story shows us that we don’t need deep forbidden mysteries beyond time and space, or the fate of all the souls in the Neath on the line for a story to feel deep and important. 5/5 affectionate beetles!
This is one of my favourite ESs in ages - great writing, and with a genuine emotional core. I appreciate getting the time to probe more emotional depth in the story’s characters than most ESs have time for.
Mr. Chope (the grouchy brother with the clock obsession) resets the clock every night, so you have to mess with the clock on the same day, before the characters you want to force together arrive at the square. But I guess you do have to know which “meeting” you are trying to trigger first…
Also would like to chime in that this story was really beautiful! I’m a newly minted Exceptional Friend and this was basically my first Exceptional Story (aside from one or two freebies). I enjoyed it a lot.
Mr. Chope (the grouchy brother with the clock obsession) resets the clock every night, so you have to mess with the clock on the same day, before the characters you want to force together arrive at the square. But I guess you do have to know which “meeting” you are trying to trigger first…
Right, I get that. It’s just that every time I tried to mess with the clock, it didn’t do anything new, and I didn’t see any hints that suggested that you needed to do it first thing in the morning to get a different result. So, I was stuck going in a loop over and over again and getting frustrated until I finally did it in the a.m. (which I thought I had already done but apparently didn’t) and was surprised to see something new happen.
But then again, no one here or on reddit is mentioning this same problem, so maybe I’m just an idiot.
Edit: I actually may have tinkered with the clock first thing after starting a new day, but just never stumbled across the meeting that results from doing that. I can’t remember if you need to be in the square to observe that or looking through your window, but I bet I never did the correct action in the right sequence at the right time. It’s super annoying that it isn’t signposted better.
I just finished A Life of Clay and enjoyed it a lot. I particularly liked that I was able to explore Chalcedony Square at my own pace and interact with all of the intriguing residents, and that I was able to make the world of Fallen London just a little bit brighter. A relaxed, slice-of-life story like this was just what I needed after the world-shattering craziness of Estival.
Definitely a top-tier Exceptional Story for me. Hats off to Chris Gardiner and the rest of the team.
