I believe Miss Petal killed him? I don’t remember at what point in the story he vanishes and can be found dead in the kitchens.
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Yeah, she definitely did. We have a whole story of walking around this house and she’s not telling me what’s going on, even though she knows and I don’t? Jerk move.
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Hrm. Not thrilled by the railroading, given that I figured out who Petal was less than a third of the way through (at the same time I knew what was going on with the irrigo – and, given that I’ve got a full neathbow of mirror-catch boxes, would have used). But the writing was solid (especially the constantly-updating room descriptions) and I liked the author’s somewhat cynical take on Poirot.
Speaking of mirror-catch boxes, I have the option to douse Petal in irrigo here at the end, and am sitting at the last decision trying to decide whether it’s worth it. I REALLY don’t want to help the Intellect, but neither am I convinced that her plan is remotely something I’d support (even though, apparently, I once did.)
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Update: dousing her in irrigo is NOT worth it.
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What happens if you do that?
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From here forward: Fallen London
TL;DR: She’s stripped of her memories and arrested for the murders. Poirot intends to continue preying on “criminals,” the smug little psychopath; the epilogue ends with you sitting alone in a room with him, fully realizing the depth of his depravity, and NOT just killing him.
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I don’t understand how this opinion exists. In terms of prose style—not even taking account the typos—this was the worst piece of writing in all of FL, and it’s not even close.
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Have you read much Christie? I felt it was actually a pretty passable Poirot pastiche.
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As for the story itself… I really wish there’d been an option to irrigogate (hem-hem, Mr Pages) BOTH the detective and the murderer!
This. I took that option thinking it was that, only to be disappointed.
I could see where the story was going almost from the beginning [been playing this game way too long, I know the signs and subversions] and was resolved not to let either of them walk away from this, Intellect for being who and what he is, Petal for being just as bad and involving me in this.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no such option.
That said, I do think they really nailed the Poirot character while utterly assassinating it in the process and hammering home the dark and cynical nature of this setting/universe in a way that feels so haunting if you’ve come to know and love the character.
The prolific spelling errors and dropped quotation marks were a little distracting, but it wasn’t too bad for my tastes. I also love that this ES was purely character focused and not some big grand lore reveal or city threatening plot or throwaway reference to some faction or other. You need those now and again to remind you that Fallen London is made up of actual people.
I just think what annoyed me most was just the lack of agency the PC had in the story. It makes sense given the events and premise, but at the same time, it does take away from the experience and leave a sour taste, particularly when there are almost certainly ways the PC could affect or upset things, especially if a mid to endgame player.
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So many people mentioning the spelling mistakes etc. I usually wait a bit in the hope someone will do us all a favour and send a bunch of corrections off to FB. (Otherwise I can generally not stop myself doing the deed.) Though if this ES is 20,000 words long…
But in a game where the text is the thing, it does suggest the process lacks a step. Or was maybe rushed this time around.
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I really enjoyed this one. It was longer and more detailed than usual and had fun with all the characters. I really liked that in the end the entire thing felt ‘railroaded’ exactly because my character - along with Isabelle - had planned it it to unfold like this.
So you were solving a mystery and executing your plan at the same time.
It reminded me of Salon Scandal, which I also really liked.
Everyone is obviously entitled to their own taste and opinions. But I had a lot of fun with this one.
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I quite enjoyed this one. Does anyone have the echo for the midnighter ending. I’m curious how that ends up.
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This was long but I liked it. Story was good. Would like to have seen more FL lore integrated and some more rewards but otherwise that it was good. funny at times too.
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This was great, one of the best Exceptional Stories of recent years. Up there with the best Chandler Groover ones. Definitely felt some “Waltz That Moved the World” vibes there at the end, too - all that was missing was Tales from Vienna Woods playing in the background.
Which only increases my sadness about how incredibly poorly edited it is. There have always been ES with a few typos, and ES with a few more. This one, however, seems to have been edited in great haste by someone with a limited grasp of English grammar and spelling. I laughed out loud when the epilogue went on about my character “damming the Immaculate Intellect to his fate”.
I seriously want to urge you, Failbetter, to spend more time and resources on proof-reading and editing. Exceptional Stories are - as you like to say every month - Fallen London’s most premium content. This story was indeed premium, but presented like cheapest pulp fiction.
There definitely seem to be different ways of playing through this. In my version of the story, the butler also just left and didn’t die (or I never found his corpse). Up until the end, I was sure he had to be the murderer - I thought he was Lord Tuffnell in disguise!
I also never got round to unlocking the option this text in the Billiard Room alludes to:
Just as you determine that there’s nothing here, your eyes fall on the large, dramatic landscape of a lighthouse surrounded by crashing waves, that hangs above the embers of the fire. Something tugs at you, implores you, to examine it more thoroughly.
If anyone unlocked and played that, I’d like to read the echo.
Seeing as this was Ben Sabin’s first second ES, I’m definitely looking forward to more stories by this author!
Oh, and well played, Miss Petal. I do hope we meet again.
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I’m about half way through, maybe a bit more, and doing a mop-up of the more obvious typos as well as highlighting a few of the, let’s say, infelicitous phrases.
For instance, you “pay interest” at a bank – the expression the writer was looking for was “pay attention”. Or the use of opposed rather than opposite in an entirely hopeless attempt to explain the layout of the attic.
A fair few of the issues seemed to be the writer trying to refresh some hackneyed phrase that just went badly off the rails.
But yes, A decent editor. And less of the ooh, I’m so creative with my out-there language.
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I just finished this story, and I enjoyed it a lot! Congratulations to Ben Sabin (who also wrote The Tale of Old Fritz from earlier this year) for writing such an excellent and engaging story! I look forward to even more stories in the future from this Exceptional Author.
What I liked:
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Being able to explore many areas in a new location without any time/action-based restrictions, which is something I always appreciate. I also liked how we revisited the same areas later to uncover new clues.
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Excellent writing and an engaging story. It was fun to gradually uncover the mystery of what exactly was going on during (and before) the party.
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Great characters! Most exceptional stories just have one or two well-developed characters, but this one had six (…and the butler), several of which even had new art.
What could have been better:
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At several points during the search of the house, qualities in the storylets spoiled what was going to be found. For example, when searching the art studio there is a quality you can see for having found Giles’ skin, before you’ve actually found it. It might have been better if these qualities were named and described more vaguely so as not to give away what was about to be discovered.
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As others have noted, there are quite a few typos. For some of them, however, I’m not sure if they were overlooked during editing or if they are simply the author’s writing style. For example, there are several uses of question marks in sentences that are technically not questions, such as “Ask what Giles had done?”. By contrast, sentences like “What is left in this little play you find yourself in…” seem like they ought to end in question marks rather than ellipses.
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One of the endings at the climax of the story requires the player to have a specific profession. I was fortunate enough to have this profession and so had the option available to me, but this restriction seems unfair to other players. I’m all for including minor snippets of additional text or non-essential storylets available only for specific professions (e.g., when you find the false wall in the Boudoir), but not for locking an entire ending.
That said, having chosen the profession-specific ending, I don’t fully understand what actually happened. Maybe it’s just supposed to be unclear. Can anyone explain to me what they believe happened in it?
Overall these are only minor quibbles and suggestions for A Dinner to Die For. I leave you all with this classic Poirot moment: https://youtu.be/EQRMFpbmgt0?feature=shared&t=14
You’re right, of course! I overlooked that and thought this was his first ES.
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I enjoyed the story for the most part. The mechanics were neat and while the mystery wasn’t too hard to figur out, it did create some suspense and kept me engaged.
The conclusion however left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. I couldn’t fit any of the motivations to my character. They simply would not have participated in such a plan. A pity, since this was really intriguing me from the start. How does my character fit into this? Also my character would easily have dealt with both of them. Why would they let either of those criminals walk away?
The ending sadly puts this story in the lower ranks for me.
I was enjoying this story until the room I need to investigate straight up disappeared. It is nowhere to be found. I’m trapped in the house forever now.
Can you give more detail? I’m sure someone will be able to help.Don’t give up!