Hannah Flynn
Administrator
Posts: 491
5/27/2015
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We're officially developing Fallen London for iOS, for release this year!
The app will be free to play, offering in-app purchases for premium stories, actions and other delicious perks. It will sync with players’ existing Fallen London characters, and support offline play.
We're hopeful that the iOS app will be a success, which will allow us to devote time to an Android version.
Here's a full FAQ with more details
edited by h4nchan on 5/28/2015
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Wields the news canon, aboard the hype train.
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Jeremy Avalon
Posts: 345
5/27/2015
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The Exceptional Hat! The Exceptional Hat! Why does it look at us like that?
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Hannah Flynn
Administrator
Posts: 491
5/28/2015
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Violet wrote:
phryne wrote:
Only iOS, not Android?
According to some news it seems the android version is planned and should show up soon... Or something like that, it will probably be mentioned properly tomorrow
If the iOS version is a success, we're very hopeful that we'll be able to make an Android version soon after.
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Wields the news canon, aboard the hype train.
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metasynthie
Posts: 645
5/28/2015
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Jeremy Avalon wrote:
I would suggest that tacitly insulting Failbetter is not a good way to get them, or anyone else, to see your point of view.
If anyone's interested, you can read about the usually cited business reasons for developing on iOS first, especially for free games that have in-app purchases:
http://9to5mac.com/2013/11/27/iosandroid-app-revenue-gap-narrows-but-ios-still-miles-ahead/
http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/26/googles-numbers-show-ios-generates-4x-more-average-revenue-per-user-than-android/
The second one's from Google themselves. For whatever reason (more disposable income? more adults vs kids? more accustomed to paying for apps or higher prices?) iOS customers spend more than Android customers -- on average, mind you, which tells you nothing about any particular individual. (Personally I'd guess it's because there are more people with iPhones and iPads who, having spent more money on their luxury-ish device, don't think much of spending a few bucks here and there on apps.) So if you'd like Failbetter to continue to expand FL at a sustainable pace, keep putting out new content, etc it's prudent to expect them to invest first in the platform that has a better chance of bringing in more paying customers to support the game.
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Kade Carrion (an_ocelot)
Posts: 1372
5/28/2015
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Great news! I hope the iOS version does very well, not only for more players but also for me on Android--I muddle through pretty well but an app tailored to the touchscreen would definitely be an improvement.
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Docteur
Posts: 101
5/28/2015
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Hannah Flynn wrote:
Violet wrote:
phryne wrote:
Only iOS, not Android?
According to some news it seems the android version is planned and should show up soon... Or something like that, it will probably be mentioned properly tomorrow
If the iOS version is a success, we're very hopeful that we'll be able to make an Android version soon after.
I hope we won't have to wait for too long.  So many users are on Android, and we always seem to get the cake last.
Great initiative anyway, I just hope Android won't be thrown under!
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Estelle Knoht
Posts: 1751
5/27/2015
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I hereby nominate the Aunt, the Tiger Keeper and the Strong-backed Labour for the app icon
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Jeremy Avalon
Posts: 345
5/28/2015
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metasynthie wrote:
One slight downside of offline play -- assuming you'll actually be able to take any action offline that you would online -- is that all the text, probabilities and information about rewards would be available to anyone who pulls the files out of a jailbroken iOS device. I do hope that Failbetter encrypts this stuff more than in Sunless Sea, where it's all pretty easy to read with a JSON editor. There's a reason all the rare event percentages are listed on the Sunless Sea wiki.
(I'm assuming here that save-sate hacking won't be possible for Fallen London because it'll be caught and rejected when an offline client syncs with the servers.)
Well, we already have a pretty good idea of what most of the probabilities for luck challenges are. But I will echo your and Ian's concerns over the balance between preventing savescumming and allowing offline play. Personally I won't be too broken up if it doesn't make it in, since it wouldn't be a downgrade from the current setup, but it's a nice thought.
Tarnisae wrote:
But of course apps are made for iphones because of vanity reasons instead of being smart and making apps which cover a way bigger market.
I would suggest that tacitly insulting Failbetter is not a good way to get them, or anyone else, to see your point of view.
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How we must glow; yes, I bet we look like snow.
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NiteBrite
Posts: 1019
6/14/2015
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I'm interested in how offline mode will work in the context of non-optional autofire social actions, especially those which are advantageous to avoid.
Like take the iron leagues of knife and candle for example. If offline mode works just by simply making you ineligible for all social actions for the duration of your offline play, well, that would be a tremendous boon! How broken would it be if the game of ambushing your opponent could be trivially foiled by merely going offline while you slept or something. I guess its foilable now with the moon leagues as a usable hiding spot, but that costs two K&C cards and a few actions so it can't be done trivially or constantly. Plus you lose your parade of victories and your form. I could see iOS totally unbalancing K&C giving players a chance to attack with total impunity at no cost.
I can think of several more examples, but most of them are currently retired Mr Eaten content. So I suppose those could be trivially replaced with more appropriate content for the new format. But what about time the healer as another example? Could someone go offline to avoid it just long enough to grind out that last level of notability? To keep their noman alive that much longer? To prevent Christmas from ending so that they can stay in penestock's wicket a few more days and create a noman even after the wicket is closed for everyone else?
I am very fascinated by the idea of offline mode, especially since Fallen London mechanics have trended more and more to relying on these sorts of forced social actions and living stories to keep the game in balance.
edited by NiteBrite on 6/14/2015
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NiteBrite
Posts: 1019
6/15/2015
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an_ocelot wrote:
NiteBrite wrote:
[ . . . ] But what about time the healer as another example? Could someone go offline to avoid it just long enough to grind out that last level of notability? To keep their noman alive that much longer? To prevent Christmas from ending so that they can stay in penestock's wicket a few more days and create a noman even after the wicket is closed for everyone else?
These are fascinating questions, but I think TTH is an easy one to manage: set it to the device clock when the player first logs in, and have it auto-fire within the app if the player doesn't go back online in the meantime.
Ah but that assumes time the healer never changes. There's quite a bit of seasonal variation in the actions it performs however. Time doesn't normally melt strange catches, but after the fruits of the zee festival it does. Same with pails of lacre, masquing, spirit of hallowmas, and other such seasonal currencies. Would there need to be a maximum amount of time you could be offline before your offline session "expires"? I suppose these currency melts could be made into living stories that you enroll in when you first get a currency item, but that would make it a relative melt date instead of a fixed date that is the same for everyone. I don't believe story nexus currently has the ability to say "on January 1st, melt all buckets" as in a calendar of events programmed into it. A lot of this stuff is set manually by the devs when specific dates roll around. It would also cause troubles with manual broadcasts like when they gave out river-in-a-box a few years back, or how prize tokens were distributed in the early days of K&C, or even how [spoiler]marsh-mired dreams were given out in the currently retired Mr Eaten content[/spoiler]. It's interesting to think about all the little things that could break, and what it means to the future of live changes and maintenance of the game.
Bonus, FBG has a history of soft launching experimental content to small groups of players so that it gets tested live before being released to the masses. Think how K&C was invite only for a while, but there are other examples. Sometimes this stuff is massively broken (remember when robbing a drunk gave out free tasseled sword canes, or that 15 minute period of time where they first introduced making waves to item conversion and every step of the fidgeting writer gave out like ~15 levels~ of making waves)? It'd be interesting if you could grab an experimental soft launch of content like that, take it offline, and just reap the benefits of a break long after it was patched online. Little details and things like that are going to be very interesting to watch.
edited by NiteBrite on 6/15/2015
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[00:34] <@ortab> NiteBrite's laugh is that of a condemned soul gazing into the abyss.
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Ian Hart
Posts: 437
5/27/2015
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I already mostly play in Chrome on my iPhone, so any quality of life improvements on that will be much appreciated!
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fortluna
Posts: 306
5/27/2015
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I'd love the bazaar spires as icon...to blend into the background I already have, ay.
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Violet
Posts: 16
5/28/2015
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Ah, so its not a shroom-hopping game eh?
But this is fine too, I will be waiting for the android version though.
It also might be the time for me to make that GameBoy Fallen London joke image I have been wanting to do for a while
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Hannah Flynn
Administrator
Posts: 491
5/28/2015
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Docteur wrote:
Hannah Flynn wrote:
Violet wrote:
phryne wrote:
Only iOS, not Android?
According to some news it seems the android version is planned and should show up soon... Or something like that, it will probably be mentioned properly tomorrow
If the iOS version is a success, we're very hopeful that we'll be able to make an Android version soon after.
I hope we won't have to wait for too long. So many users are on Android, and we always seem to get the cake last.
Great initiative anyway, I just hope Android won't be thrown under!
It's true that many users are on Android - most of us are. We're very hopeful that we'll see sufficient success on iOS to do both.
Spare a thought for Windows Phone users, who seldom get any cake at all! 
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Wields the news canon, aboard the hype train.
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Dok06
Posts: 1
5/28/2015
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I see the point of having an app in the store in order to grow your base of active players. But why don't you create a responsive version of your website first? That would benefit all devices/OS and you would not be forced to give Apple a huge share of your earnings.
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metasynthie
Posts: 645
5/28/2015
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One slight downside of offline play -- assuming you'll actually be able to take any action offline that you would online -- is that all the text, probabilities and information about rewards would be available to anyone who pulls the files out of a jailbroken iOS device. I do hope that Failbetter encrypts this stuff more than in Sunless Sea, where it's all pretty easy to read with a JSON editor. There's a reason all the rare event percentages are listed on the Sunless Sea wiki.
(I'm assuming here that save-sate hacking won't be possible for Fallen London because it'll be caught and rejected when an offline client syncs with the servers.)
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Positively antique
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/metasynthie
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Fhoenix
Posts: 602
5/28/2015
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Ios app? Oh, if it's from the phone, I think I will finally find it in me to grind for the goat after all these years. Hurray!
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An Individual
Posts: 589
6/11/2015
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Tarnisae wrote:
I had hoped that there would be an app for fallen london. To read that it will be an ios app is a huge disappointment though.
I am German hence I only know the numbers for Germany where way more people use Android instead of ios.
But of course apps are made for iphones because of vanity reasons instead of being smart and making apps which cover a way bigger market.
In my experience it's way easier to write an app for iOS (assuming they're using Mono/Unity which they likely are) which makes it a much better first platform. There may be more people with devices running android but there are also a lot more devices running android. Android devices can also contain special tweaks to the OS. This means that iOS offers less testing and less random bugs because you didn't think to try to run it on device X while still containing a large and active user base.
It's also worth noting that the people I know who actually make a living making mobile games have lead me to believe that while more people have Android devices the iOS market has a larger percentage of users who are actually willing to spend money on the apps. I know for certain that at one point one of these companies stopped making their apps work on Android because there just wasn't enough money in it. This, however, was years ago and the market may have changed.
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fitz
Posts: 91
5/27/2015
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I nominate the bazaar, door or prison icon; though I suppose fanghat or the storynexus logo would be the more obvious default...
Or the elusive icon...
edited by fitz on 5/27/2015
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 Ô fitzGwahir
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BlakeTheDrake
Posts: 237
5/28/2015
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Well, as the proud owner of an iPhone, I welcome this! I recently spent a week in the hospital, and was sorely vexed at the need to fiddle my way through my daily dose of Fallen London in the tiny browser-screen on my phone. A proper app should make things much easier!
As for the icon, yeah, I bet it's just gonna be the Exceptional Hat. I'd vote for the Spires of the Bazaar, myself, though.
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Deanscig
Posts: 72
5/28/2015
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I'm super excited for this! But does this mean we can buy stories/exceptional friendship/nex using Itunes Credit?
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Hannah Flynn
Administrator
Posts: 491
5/28/2015
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Deanscig wrote:
I'm super excited for this! But does this mean we can buy stories/exceptional friendship/nex using Itunes Credit?
In honesty, we don't know for sure yet. 
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Wields the news canon, aboard the hype train.
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