i'm writing up a guide to:
- what the game is
- why it's popular right now
- how to get into it
- some advice for new players
and would be curious what questions you have or what weird things you don't fully understand about it. please let me know of any!

we're now on cohost! coruscatingDere on twitter and serketineWillfulness on tumblr!
24yo
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i'm writing up a guide to:
and would be curious what questions you have or what weird things you don't fully understand about it. please let me know of any!
should i play sunless sea or skies first? if i already have, will that color my impressions of fallen london?
i'll give a quick answer to this: the games are basically entirely separate worlds, skies isn't so much the sequel to seas as much as it is the spiritual successor. there's lore that makes more sense with seas, but they're very playable independent of each other.
Seas is a bit more freeform, it lets you explore more of the content when you want where you want, but at the same time it's INCREDIBLY jank; this is the sort of game where you will Almost Certainly want a guide to just like. how to Make Enough Money To Survive. if you can stand that sort of design that is uhhh unfriendly to humans and find the stuff within the cracks, it's great tho
skies expects a bit more out of you (i.e. you have to unlock certain areas of the map instead of just being free to go wherever the fuck you want) but at the same time it has like Coherent Gameplay Systems instead of just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. i also like it more.
Don't feel bad if you bounce off them (especially seas) as they are weird as hell games
both will color your thoughts on fallen london, but not in a bad way; you will simply have seen another side of the world then the one you're presented with in FL. that's not a bad thing, it's a cool thing. like i wouldn't say "oh you played a sonic the hedgehog game now your opinion of sonic the hedgehog is changed forever!" don't worry bout it!
ther's also MASK OF THE ROSE, failbetter's newest game, a dating sim/visual novel/mystery game that's incredibly, incredibly fucking cool!i recommend this one wholeheartedly it's fucking amazing what they've manged to do mechanically
Another big point in Mask of the Rose's favor is that it's set in the immediate aftermath of London's fall, so it can give a lot of setting background and context for some of Fallen London's oddities. Definitely recommended.
I'm definitely looking forward to reading this. I have tried a couple times to get into this game and I keep falling off of it. I like the flavor of the writing but the actual game itself feels hard to grab onto. And the 20 turns at a time thing means I can't just stick with it until I get it.
I don't have any particular Qs but I've always struggled to get into Fallen London (despite wanting to!) so I'm really looking forward to seeing your guide 'u'
The thing I'm most curious about right now is the monetization structure. I understand that there's a subscription (and 2 levels of it). The first level gets you, among other things, a monthly Exceptional Story. The 2nd level gets you that plus an extra older story (among other things).
But it doesn't sound like subscriptions give you Fate. When I play, I sometimes encounter options that require Fate expenditure to play. Are these the "Exceptional Stories" the subscriptions get you, but there's just also an option to buy a la carte? Also, is there a way to get to these, like... later? I mean, if you don't have Fate at the time and you pick one of the freebie options to progress, is that avenue just lost to you now?
Also err... what is a "story" in this context? I've been playing a little over a week at this point. Have I played a "story?" I dunno. I mean I guess it would have to be a, uh, non-exceptional one since I haven't spent any money yet. Is there even such a thing? Please help lmao. 
Ah, this i can answer!
Exceptional Stories are short little side stories you can play through. They are never "necessary" to play the game, they're always short (usually can be completed in like less then 60 actions) and self contained (never asking for stuff you would need in game or giving you necessary stuff in game). They focus almost entirely on their own writing, instead of trying to fit into the rest of the game Progression Wise or Grind Wise. Think of them like signing up for a monthly book club that sends you a book that just so happens to take place in fallen london. You can buy any previous month's story at the store, and they're all a good time to play through; but none are necessary in any way. the Fate Based Microtransactions are separate from this, you get the new story each month automatically.
The OTHER microtransactions you're talking about are almost always 1 of 3 categories:
to summarize: exceptional friendship good, gets you 1 little self contained story a month, there's paywalled stories in game that AREN'T exceptional friendship stories, these you just gotta pony up the money for if you want to see, none are necessary to enjoy the game and you can always come back to them later. they're called "stories" because they're self contained, and thus dont' really influence the rest of london that much.
Is Fallen London still whole designed around a realtime "hurry up and wait" loop where actions take time to complete and resources take time to accumulate and you are essentially rewarded (with faster progress) for staying incredibly addicted to the game and taking actions the instant they're available to you?
I played a few years ago, and bounced off because it felt like the game was encouraging addictive behavior. Balseball felt similar, and its grounding in realtime caused me to burn out there too. Has this aspect changed at all?
nah, it sure is. tbh it's part of what i like about the game; instead of addicting, it encourages me to take breaks and NOT spend all day focused on the game. but i get that's mostly a matter of like. how my brain works as opposed to yours.
Alright, thanks! I'll just stick to listening to Bruno opine about narrative design then :)
I can play a game for one, or three, or six hours, and then put it down and walk away and feel great. But when a game wants me to check it every hour, I do, and then I'm constantly knocking myself out of my ADHD flow state and never accomplishing anything else.
If it helps, with a subscription the best way to play the game is technically around every 6-7 hours as that's how long it takes your actions to recharge. This means that it's pretty good for something like
which sounds like a lot, but all of those are pretty short.
still, that may not work for your brain and if so i 100% get it
I played a decade ago, and anytime I try to go back, I get overwhelmed by everything happening, and the fact I'm in the middle of something I guess and have no context whatsoever.
Any idea how to proceed? Make a new account? Or is there a way to get a better idea of where I am?
in this scenario, the best option isssss to literally dm someone and go "here's my current status, here's where i am" and get them to tell you about what's up
and if that triggers your memory, fuck yeah you're good to go
and if it doesn't: make a new account
i would be glad to do that lol
but thanks this is a good thing on the guide i'll note it down