I ended up saving my future of shooting Mr. Wines in the face …hood?. Especially hilarous since in Heart’s Desire I plan to give Paris to the Bazaar to play a card game. Am I a complicated person, or was it my plan all along? I have no idea.
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Absolutely amazing story, really enjoyed it.
Some things I liked: Cool forward looking dreamy content, being able to see all the options in the dreams, shooting a certain person in the face
edited by Anstruther Barron on 7/2/2015
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[color=#0066ff]We are humbled by your feedback about Lost in Reflections, thank you everyone![/color]
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[color=#0066ff]IHNWTR, Fred, Rackenhammer, rhygadon, Cuban Pete and Anstruther - would you mind of I poached a few choice words from your posts for some tweets and emails? I would love to let other players know how much you enjoyed this one. :)[/color]
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Please do! July’s story has been the finest of a fine lot by far.
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I’ll add my voice as well to all those praising the story.
Absolutely delightful lore, and beautifully written and structured.
As someone has mentioned before in this thread, it’s at the same level as The Gift. I especially appreciate the ability to play (and replay) all options.
As for rewards, I don’t expect very expensive items at the end of such stories, since they are aimed for characters at all levels.
However, it would have been nice if there was some memento item to remember the story by. I’m thinking as in the end of The Gift, in which you receive a neutral Affiliation (no need for a new card to go with it, though!). Over time I think it would be very nice (and nostalgic) to look at our Affiliation tab in the expanded inventory and see these little mementos of past Exceptional stories, reminding us of choices that we’ve made.
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And, BTW, I’m kinda stuck on that final choice. I think I’ll let that sit for a while.
[spoiler]I want to preserve my future, but I also want to do what’s "right".
(Also, I assume that if we sample all the possible futures, only the last one we try "stick". Is that so? Because as least two of those futures seem to be mutually exclusive.)[/spoiler]
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Only the last future sticks, you can see it as a quality you have. Only one of the four endings will result in that future coming to pass. If that ending is “right” is not abundantly clear.
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Re: "what’s right"…
This exceptional story makes for a really interesting pairing with the story of the Missing Heiress and some of the attendant controversy about that story from years past. Once again it’s not clear what the heroine’s agency is, but this time around the player has a greater ability to investigate and puzzle through the various fragments of information about the character – some of that at the cost of actions and attribute CP, which is a great tradeoff. The July you talk to in Parabola is a partial memory-wraith, formed of what July’s given up in exchange for glimpses of a future where she steers kingdoms and saves a city from falling. In that future, July is no longer in a fugue-state of "remembering the future," she’s a clear-headed and steely revolutionary. It makes sense that the memory-wraith would want events to turn back towards the past, but it’s not clear that’s what the real July of the present wants, right? Of course, the Orts might be lying about all of this; the Orts might just be leeching her into madness, enslaving her to unprovable promises about the future, but you never get to talk to the Orts. (Or do you?) Wonderful philosophical musing about loss, forgotten pasts, destiny and foreclosed futures here, reflected by that Epictetus quote from the white raven in one of the endings.
Anyway, 5/5
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Here’s the thing - there really isn’t a right choice at all, regardless of your stake and motivation.
Even if you don’t care about July and just want to advance your goals, you still have the dilemma of getting something done right now (sell her out to the side you support / earn that money right now), or work toward a future that you possibly know about (so you can deal a greater blow to the Masters / ensure the Fall of Paris / steal more stuff from a powerful July), and you don’t know whether the Orts and the memory can be trusted or not, or things. Everything is uncertain and prone to change, but it can be tempting to have an inkling of idea that "if things happen like this, I will have a chance to do these things in Paris with July and have a good idea of the outcome".
Of course, that is moot if you are, say, already looking forward to a future where the Liberation of Night happens before Paris or something.
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[quote=Hannah Flynn][color=#0066ff]We are humbled by your feedback about Lost in Reflections, thank you everyone![/color]
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[/color]
[color=#0066ff]IHNWTR, Fred, Rackenhammer, rhygadon, Cuban Pete and Anstruther - would you mind of I poached a few choice words from your posts for some tweets and emails? I would love to let other players know how much you enjoyed this one. :)[/color][/quote]
Please do! One thing I particularly like about this one is how it balances being an interesting story in its own right (and so accessible to newcomers) with extra clues and significance for long-time players who are steeped in the lore. Not every story needs to do that – I don’t think it would have been such a good fit for the Marsh-House, for example – but it’s certainly a nice thing to aim for where possible.
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First: an echo (sorry) of others: delightful writing, a fascinating character, atmosphere that made me shiver, and one of the most thought-requiring choices I have encountered in the game. Many, many kudos.
In the end - and after a lot of thought - I returned Julliet’s mirror: having done so, I was delighted to find confirmation of my choice in the text regarding retention of my future:" You have returned July’s mirror to her, allowing her bargain with the Orts to continue - and leaving a brighter future open for you." Not just a future, but a brighter future? Excellent! [And in that future, I dance across Europe looking for a suitable reward for my deeds - huzzah!]
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Feel free hannah
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Bravo! Bravo! I try to be judicious about spending fate, but I had to refresh some actions because I was so caught up in the story.
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This was an absolute delight.
The mechanic that allows to review other branches is very fair. The choice is really, really hard and there is no “right” option; encourages pure roleplaying even in incurable munchkins like me.
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This has been the best exceptional story to date. I’ll echo the praise on being able to investigate all the storylines before making a final decision. The writing in this story was especially good.
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It has just occurred to me that in fact there are 5 choices at the end of this story.
Simply put, you can choose to keep the mirror to yourself, at least for a while. That is: you can choose to reject/postpone the other choices. You can always choose one of the other 4 options at any time in the future.
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There’s also the choice to never even go find the mirror, and just tell February about what you found at July’s hideaway. I’m not even sure if anyone’s done that option yet, and I’m amused at how anathema it is to the general “the story must go on!” mood of FL & Londoners.
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I don’t want to rain on your parade, but a brighter future is not necessarily a good thing. For example, the Fires of Revolution engufling the Surface because of a dead Emperor might be described as "bright". Perhaps that’s exactly what you want, though.
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Loved this. Best exceptional story yet - can’t wait for August now!
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I really enjoyed this story.
[spoiler] The nest of Orts was fun to visit: great imagery.
I really like talking to "July" at the nest. The idea of a person as their memories is a concept I really enjoy. More so in this case because it makes the end choice really interesting. If "July" in the nest is actually a fragment of July, the part of her which does not want to bargain with fingerkings is never actually going to reunite with her, along with at least a portion of her which both likable and rational. The July out in the world is likely going to continue to be deranged for a period and still influenced by fingerkings, if not as actively, until she builds up enough of a history to function as a person. Even then, given that the fingerkings have taken the memories of July actually making the bargain, she’s pretty unlikely not to get trapped again, unless what they took also included her motivation for dealing with them. Basically, if I smash the mirror and free her from a bargain she entered into willingly, I’m letting loose a deranged, highly influential, and likely personally powerful creature adrift into the world who may very well not like me.
I too was disappointed at the extent of the reward spread. I don’t mind getting a reward with less value. I like that choices have consequences. However, I tend to expect something at the end. Sometimes the "right" choices will give more of a material reward, often selling out will give you more. That’s fine, its how the world works. Games have also lead me to find intangible rewards as being acceptable. I do something nice, give up my rewards, then get a bonus to reputation or something like a quirk or title. I like that too. Especially when the reputation, quirk or title allows you to make another choice further down the line. In this I didn’t like that my choice removed the intangible AND gave poor rewards. Hopefully, along the line, both of these choices could have an effect, but it seems like, as both selling out to the Masters and July removes the quality, there isn’t going to be a story difference between selling out and smashing the mirror. That would be dissatisfying. Rather than making me feel I have thwarted a possible future I don’t like, I feel like I did nothing. Which is fine for a sitcom, but for a story with bones, I want effect. Hopefully this won’t be the case, but especially since you didn’t get an end quality like the previous stories, (which come to think of it is probably a bug and I’ll send a report) I’m not expecting it.
edit: the quality which tracks this is in circumstances as opposed to the previous two EF qualities which are in stories. I’ll largely retract my complaint about the reward spread. I’d like to get more, but won’t say I’m really disappointed until such a time as my choice proves not to have any effect. Which, given a circumstance tracking quality, I’m willing to assume will happen.
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edited by Teleri13 on 7/3/2015
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