Emily Short's Aspel

Fallen London
1

Her Majesty has sent your team to investigate the mountain palace of Aspel, now ruined, to find out its secrets and determine what value it may still have.


Aspel is an experimental interactive experience designed for multiple players, featuring asymmetric information and collective decision-making. The text you see on the screen won’t necessarily be the same as what everyone else sees, so you’ll need to communicate with your fellow players in order to experience it most fully.

The XYZZY awards for interactive fiction were announced today (congratulations for Sunless Sea winning Best Setting!) One of the awards was for Emily Short’s Aspel. It’s a multi-player interactive fiction - as in, groups need to go into together and play the game at the same time.

Anyone interested in arranging a play-through some time?

2

I’d like to play, if you can bear the sometimes wonky grammar of a non-native speaker. I love Emily Short’s writing.

3

I’d be up for it. (BST)

4

I’m not native speaker too, but count me in.
GMT +3
edited by Kharsirr Lynx on 6/3/2016

5

I fear that time zones may turn out to play a large part, but if that is not a concern, I would be interested. Also, how many players total would this game require?
Oh, and GMT +3 here.
edited by Vavakx Nonexus on 6/3/2016

6

I am interested as well, as a non-native speaker. GMT+8 here.

7

Hmm. I’m GMT-4/EDT. I don’t mind if the rest of you go on together though - as I think it might be a bit hard for me to coordinate with the rest of you!

I also spaced and forgot to add her blogpost on this (note a spoilery post mortem is also on her site)

8

I’m GMT-3, but I stay home at days and work at nights.

(First one to make a vampire joke will be viciously bitten.)

9

I’m AUS Eastern Time/UTC+10. How large are are the recommended groups? Would organising two different playthroughs, 12 hours different from each other, be viable (to better allow for varying timezones)?

10

EDT - 04 over here

11

I know that it is free to play, and that we probably shouldn’t touch it before we arrange a group and everything else.
edited by Vavakx Nonexus on 6/4/2016

12

Sounds interesting. Zulu -4 here.

– Mal
edited by malthaussen on 6/4/2016

13

Too large a group might be a problem (as Cecil mentions) upon reading again: you need a minimum of 3 and >7 is definitely too many. So splitting up by time zones may suit to keep the groups smallish.

We may also want to run a separate chat of some sort as there’s only limited chat logging in game.

So, GMT -4 (+/- 1) folks (Mal, SC, PS): I’m busy over the weekend but free a bit more during this coming week in the evenings post-8PM EDT. Professora, you mention working at nights so perhaps that won’t suit?
edited by Parelle on 6/4/2016

14

I regret that I keep to a fairly rigorous schedule of going offline around 9PM local, Parelle. So not available for more than about an hour after 8.

– Mal

15

What I don’t have a good feel for is how long it is. If an hour and a half will do it, we could start closer to 7?
edited by Parelle on 6/4/2016

16

I think we could get at least 3 people at roughly GMT+2(+/- 2) to make a team. Both groups still have to choose a time to gather and play the actual game though.