Finally finished, and I have to say, this was utterly fantastic. My new favorite ES!
My Kingdom For A Pig really showcases Chandler’s skills not just as a writer, but specifically his understanding of interactive fiction. Cricket, Anyone? was already an excellent example of how interactivity takes an already well-written story to the next level, and this story improves upon it. Further polish to chaining storylets! A new and exciting assortment of rare items and qualities, worked seamlessly into the story! A cast of existing characters, woven together to plumb new and unsuspected depths! Existing deep lore with a twist! Another sort-of-dream sequence, with even more content and infectious prose! More experimentation with quality-dependent text and QLDs!
Every Chandler story is a treat, and though we’re being practically spoiled for good content, I hope we get another soon.
Aww geeze I’m at A Trade In Conspirators and am completely stuck between chosing The Princess or The Widow Anyone who’s played either route have suggestions/hints/pros/cons/journal entries I can totes spoil myself with to influence my decision? edited by Xorph on 6/28/2019
Well The Great Pigmeat is an idiot, he forgot he could “Perhaps Not” out of “Navigating Memory’s Road”, and he sat peeling his skin until there was none left. Now he has to experience London’s memories freshly flayed.
[quote=Xorph]Aww geeze I’m at A Trade In Conspirators and am completely stuck between chosing The Princess or The Widow Anyone who’s played either route have suggestions/hints/pros/cons/journal entries I can totes spoil myself with to influence my decision? edited by Xorph on 6/28/2019[/quote]
I chose the less monstrous one. I have recorded everything in my journal, including the end, do take a look.
Peeling your skin adds a few points of nightmares and wounds, no SMEN or any visible qualities. I didn’t keep on doing it till I hit the wounds limit or anything, though, just twice to see if the message would be different the second time. Similarly, the Dream of Gore doesn’t give SMEN (at least if you don’t have SMEN already). I plan to play this with my Seeking alt too, at some point, to see if Seeking changes any dialogues or results and to see what happens if you eat the fungus yourself. Anyway, unless there’s some hidden consequence, the "do not do this" warning shouldn’t have been there. Something like "this will hurt you and do nothing for the story" might have been more appropriate. That’s my only criticism of the story elements, though. Is it just me, or have most of the last few months’ stories been really good?
I think the warning is entirely reasonable as-is. It conveys that the option will harm your character in some fashion for no gain, without giving any indication of the specifics. I actually think we should have more options like that one—having lots of Bad Idea options that all do temporary harm for a unique effect on our characters just reduces their impact. Making more options that harm us for nothing more than delicious prose means the options that do something extra feel more meaningful.
[quote=Xorph]Aww geeze I’m at A Trade In Conspirators and am completely stuck between chosing snip Anyone who’s played either route have suggestions/hints/pros/cons/journal entries I can totes spoil myself with to influence my decision? edited by Xorph on 6/28/2019[/quote]
I had a similar problem, although I had a different companion with me at the time. In the end I went with the companion I had brought with me, and I can tell you that there are no hideously painful penalties involved.
I’m really just posting here because I want to be able to prove in the future that I always thought that this was a masterpiece. Chandler, James, Olivia, and Paul have between them produced something truly exceptional. I can’t imagine how you could tell this story through any medium other than Fallen London; it is as though the system, and its players, were waiting all this time for something like this to come along.
I will remember it for a long time, when the world sleeps, and suddenly changes by remaining the same.
I’m loving this story (and the successful use of the card mechanisms) so far. Does anyone know if the text is different if you have all of the Fidgeting Writer items, as opposed to just 1 of them?
Are there any stories/events people would recommend before finishing it? I know people have referenced changes in text, but I was curious if there was anything especially exciting/fun that people liked.
Here’s my echo with all the items, if anyone wants to compare. The unlocks seemed to indicate I needed one of each for the option, but I could be mistaken.
Most of the changes are just acknowledgements of past interactions, though the Calendar Code does give more detail on the Mog. The significant ones are just Poet-Laureate and Blemmigan Hat. edited by Optimatum on 6/29/2019
Here’s my echo with all the items, if anyone wants to compare. The unlocks seemed to indicate I needed one of each for the option, but I could be mistaken.
Most of the changes are just acknowledgements of past interactions, though the Calendar Code does give more detail on the Mog. The significant ones are just Paramount Presence and Blemmigan Hat.[/quote]
Crap, how far in is the PP one? I’m ALMOST to paramount.
Surely "do not do this" is the perfect warning for an option with nothing but negative consequences? It is exactly and literally true - one shouldn’t do that!
By the way, did anyone take the magnanimous and melancholy choice?
In the three years that I have been playing this game, the most in character role playing move I have made is to choose to take the Pirate-Poet with me to the end. I’ve been grinding for an Ubergoat and knew the Widow might have been more monetarily rewarding but Raccoona only had eyes for her tattooed poet girlfriend. Love this game!
As an aside, extremely happy we’ve had several ESs recently that rewarded new qualities - I’ve previously said that we have been lacking any new qualities for display on profiles, so the presence of unique qualities you get to keep after completing My Kingdom For A Pig and The Stag And The Shark do wonders to spice up the scrapbook, as well as commemorate major moments of transformation. Really appreciate those.