Commiserations to us all on that point. Along with some other players, I like to read people’s notes and reactions to the ES before playing, and this time, the thread was really not that helpful, nor on point…
Depending on your choices you can get a really awesome option on an opportunity card after Hojotoho!, which helps make you feel like your decisions mattered and the people involved didn’t immediately cease to exist once the story finished.
If you defeat the monster, you’re free to explore any part of the island you want without cycling Airs. I left without looking for another key, though. It might be related to a choice back in London, such as possibly if you didn’t take the ratling with you. If anyone found a key themselves, please speak up.[/quote]
I can confirm that the Ratling’s parents give you the key if you don’t take her along. The key opens their miniature house, and you can see their portrait on the wall - nothing more.
It made sense for me to not bring her along on a potentially dangerous journey, but I am sorry I missed her content, as she seems the only interesting character in here.
I didn’t like this story as much as the others, to be honest - the characters didn’t feel compelling enough, and the monster - creepy as it was - went down really easily. I loved the "dullness" thing though; it made the stakes skyrocket for my bohemian (and aspiring poet laureate) character.
I think there are many questions left unsolved, especially about the Bauble that gets mentioned a lot…
Strange, I didn’t get any dullness. Only sparks of inspiration.
You were probably smart enough not to click the "QUICK! THINK OF SOMETHING" button, which, in delightful FL style, did not actually help you think of something. it might be my new favorite button. I think trying to run away also gave you Dullness?
Just popping in to express my gratitude at the swift and helpful solution to my aforementioned issue. I didn’t want to reopen the ticket just to do so, and I already mentioned it here.
…I should have actual thoughts on the thread’s topic shortly.
Oh, I kept punching the thing. So no dullness for me.
…and I took the ratling with me, so no key. Got it.
After the last few months of excellent stories, I found this one a little disappointing.
The characters didn’t do much for me, and there were no significant choices to be made.
The island itself was fun to explore, but I was forced to just accept some aspects of it without questioning. Why/how is the monster there? Why is the island so bright? Why am I even doing this?
In the end I anticlimactically shoved the monster back into wherever it came from, and the zailor got angry at me. I just tried to do the right thing by keeping him safe, but supposedly I should have let him finish it instead.
Then we get a quick mention of the mysterious mastermind behind all this (apparently the zailor knew?), but nothing about its motivation. This thread is then left unresolved.
The payoff is underwhelming too, as there is no final choice to be made that seems to significantly influence anything. After all this we are forced into this weird tacked on action sink to get rid of dullness.
TL;DR I liked the setting of the island, but too much was left unexplained and the characters were underdeveloped.
edited by Monara on 12/3/2018
IIRC if you run, you just get to the Lake District, where you get the option of throwing the monster "through the glass". I ended up using the bomb though, because I felt I might be making it a favour by allowing it to escape otherwise.
Just out of curiosity: did anyone stand back and allow the Zailor to do all the fighting?
(I sometimes let the NPCs do their own thing when the story’s set up in such a way that it is really personal to them, but it usually ends badly - it certainly did for Moth’s father, the Last Constable, and the priest from a couple months ago… so this time, I took it all into my own hands, but it felt anticlimatic somehow…)
edited by Phèdre Delaunay on 12/3/2018
I loved the island a lot, but find it somehow disappointing you cannot return to the location and build a city there… (much like I wanna do in Parabola)
The Fallen London setting is about secrets and mystery, and I recognize that giving a feeling of accomplishment while maintaining an air of mystery requires walking a very thin tightrope between explaining too little and explaining too much. I think this story wavered a little too far to the former. Not very far, but enough that the climax was a little unexciting.
I think the mystery of what was happening to the island is shown-but-not-told well enough, but the antagonist and the stakes are unclear. What I did could be anywhere in-between saving one single dude from a psychic vampire, all the way up to saving the entire Neath from an incursion of (one of?) the Parabolan sun(s?). I also didn’t feel a sense of personal danger until afterwards, when I returned to London and found myself incapable of doing anything but my taxes. That was actually a rather well-written and well-designed sense of the danger and consequences of the threat, but you don’t find that out until after the treat is defeated.
I must say I rather liked the second act of exploring the island. It had a very good sense of creepiness and hidden danger. I also like the use of the Airs mechanic to selectively hide and reveal the exploration options. It’s perhaps a little inconvenient to explore everywhere because RNG, but I think it helps the atmosphere that I don’t have the full list of places I can explore in front of me. The island as a whole gave me a Twin Peaks vibe. I’m honestly disappointed that it doesn’t remain a permanent overzee destination, although I also don’t know what the point of returning would be.
Someone who is a better literary critic than myself can probably make some analysis on how blinding light serves the same purpose on this island that shrouding darkness usually serves in similar stories, and what that reversal means thematically. I think there’s something of significance there, but it’s a little out of my reach.
Perhaps the season will revolve around the same question? And the stories to follow will answer our questions (or hint an an answer?)
This one really didn’t stand out much to me. I liked it, but it didn’t draw me in like the past few.
[quote=Jolanda Swan]Have any ES NPCs become a staple of London, by the way? I know we have asked for a card from the priest in All the Saints, but this is very recent.
I love FL NPCs but after a few years of playing, I would not mind seeing new ones, taken from Exceptional Stories. I understand different people pick different fates for some of them, but for some their fate is a given, and they could very well stay with us. Think the man from the ministry, from the fireworks story. I would love to see them in cards, or shops, or storylets, if for no other reason then because it would be a waste for them to only appear once. They will enrich London and possibly entice players to find out more about them by buying older ES - I know I bought a couple for the exact same reason.[/quote]
They may not have shown up in London, but some, at least, have show up in what I’ve played of Sunless Skies.
edited by Winthropx on 12/4/2018
For those who care about such things, what were your reasons for taking the Precocious Ratling with you, motivation-wise? I feel like taking a young child with me to a place they had just escaped from because of some unseen danger is dangerously irresponsible, but then, I don’t want to miss out on any great content because of that hang-up…
Well, I was quite hesitant, but then I remembered all these Victorian adventure stories where children get involved on all kinds of dangerous travels and come out the wiser for it. It would be a harder thing to do in a contemporary game.
To be honest, I still asked in the forums to make sure it doesn’t meet with a horrible death.
edited by Jolanda Swan on 12/4/2018
Young rats are generally far more capable than young children. Well, 'cept the Regiment, I suppose…
I generally agree with most here. The story did feel a little like too little was explained or even shown. I definitely get the direction that the writing seemed to intend, and I liked the sense of grim finality I felt when agreeing with the Zailor that yes, this… thing needs to die. But then the fight overall felt like it was sort of over in a flash. Though I’ve kind of felt that way with most of the pursuit dynamics I’ve been seeing lately: something is hunting you, lurking, oh no, it’s real threatening… then one single action and boop, it’s reset. It generally makes the big threats we’re supposed to be afraid of… not that scary. Although part of that is my post-Shattering Force inhuman level of Dangerous. I guess if fighting off the Stalker was a 50-50 shot, it’d be far more tense. In that regard, I can’t really complain, or else I’d be defeating the whole point of increasing stats. Clearly the time for an alt is fast approaching. I did take some Dullness at the end, trying to continue my previously successful attempts at giving the beast what-for.
In all, the Stalker was actually pretty disturbing. Creativity-vampire is a novel idea, and a lovely portrayal of the less-nice aspects of Parabola’s nature. Requiring time to "recuperate" afterward was also a cool idea, although I feel I should be offended at the idea that balancing my finances and accounting records is "dull." I happen to find it exhilarating to achieve proper organization and cost-cutting in my-
Ahem, to summarize, I like a lot of what this ES introduced, but felt like it didn’t quite deliver as much meat as I’d like, and I sadly wonder if this will be the end of it, at least for the foreseeable future. The writing was good, as was the Stalker, but the conclusion wasn’t the most satisfying and I feel that linking the threat to the usual pursuit-and-reset thing I’ve been seeing hobbled it just a little.
edited by Isaac Zienfried on 12/4/2018
My experience of the ES was somewhat marred (and my memory of the burgeoning plot blurred) by the fact that I got “stuck” in the story about halfway through. By that I mean after choosing a storylet I got a blank bar and even after refreshing the page I was unable to choose another storylet and there was no “perhaps not” button, because I was in Daylight. I had to have one of FBG’s tech personnel blast me out. Though I got 3 Darkdrop Coffees as a compensation, I kind of lost the thread of the story after that.
Now that I’ve had time to reflect and allow the story to marinate in my mind, I would propose one change to try to improve the story structure, in my opinion: not introducing the Dark Bar until the story begins and featuring the Inspiring Imaginator (pre-Dullness) and the Rattus Faber in the preview.
As it stands now, the preview is very atmospheric, introducing the Dark Bar and allowing us to choose from one of the three interestingly-shaped drinks, but it’s separate from the rest of Daylight and the strongest part of the story, which is the haunting atmosphere of the island. Instead, it’s essentially the opening lines of the story: you end the preview by having a drink at the Dark Bar and you begin the story by having a drink at the Dark Bar. This is especially notable when the Grieving Zailor is introduced, where you are told you order a drink without further detail.
[quote=The Dark Bar]When you order a drink, a scoff from the dark lets you know you’re drinking with company.[/quote]I would propose, then, that the choice between the three drinks - an essentially meaningless choice - be moved into the story proper, with the sequence of events where (1) you enter the Dark Bar, (2) you choose between the three drinks, and then (3) the Zailor offers a quick comment on your choice of drink, offering immediate pay-off for the choice and introducing the character (rather than broadly commenting that "You don’t seem like the type for a place like this" regardless of whether your character is or not). This would not interrupt the current flow of the story, and it frees the opening for a new scene.
This could be framed as a flashback, where the disappearance of the Inspiring Imaginator causes your character to recall a past interaction with them, who would have an early draft/model of Daylight on display to garner attention. The Imaginator should be very passionate in this scene, establishing their character and demonstrating how much Daylight changed them. The Rattus Faber family should also be present, excited at the possibilities Daylight offered. The choice could then be a question of how to proceed with Daylight’s future. You could argue (1) you don’t have time for this, (2) the art is the artist’s work and should be kept as such, or (3) Daylight is built by many minds together and that it should welcome change made by outsiders settling in. This parallels the final choice of the story, where you encourage the Rattus Faber family to either return to Daylight now that the Stalker is gone or to remain in London, only the positions are reversed. The interaction between these two choices offers an interesting albeit simple question on subjective decision-making.
The flashback could then end with the Imaginator referencing the Bauble (without context, implying that the Bauble is a MacGuffin rather than a Fingerking), and then the preview would end with a clue pointing to the Dark Bar and a zailor acquaintance of the Imaginator’s. The rest of the story could play out much in the same way, but such a change addresses a couple of my personal issues with the narrative:
[ul][li]The Zailor is given too much narrative importance with respect to his role. He’s supposed to be the former love interest of the Imaginator and the driving force of the story, but he’s kept in the periphery. He’s not even the one who can convince the Imaginator to leave Daylight - there’s no chemistry left there, and I think that’s potentially powerful - love fades, after all. It’s just that there’s not enough to characterize the Zailor in a way that he can carry the story. By giving players a more direct connection to the Imaginator, the importance of the Zailor is de-emphasized, allowing for a stronger core story.
[/li][li]The Rattus Faber are too peripheral. It says something that you even have the choice to not bring along the Precocious Ratling - if Daylight had no rats, the plot would not change significantly. Without making more substantial edits to the story, then, it would make sense to connect the Rattus Faber to the theme of waning creativity and depression by making them represent external creative force in a more benevolent sense than the external creativity offered by the Bauble.[/li][/ul]
That all being said, this is still one of my favorite stories because the atmosphere and tone is marvellously crafted, and even traveling on Daylight was made enjoyable by that mood.
I’m currently at the point in which the Zailor wishes to murder the monster. Is there any story impact on convincing him to stay save vs agreeing to let him fight?