▶

Hello everyone! First of all, thank you to everyone who has picked up Mask of the Rose. We had a bit of a rough start, with a lot of feedback about the difficulty of adequately completing goals in the time available in particular, but were hopeful that we can make some changes that will improve the play experience significantly for you straight away, and follow those up with some that will require a bit more time to get right. We really appreciate the show of faith in your comments and reviews, and hope with a little time we can bring Mask of the Rose to a delightful state for your enjoyment.

Whats new?

Extended Seasons In the Constance update, the seasons of Confessions and Yule are both twice as long: fourteen days instead of seven. This is in response to hearing that you felt that you couldnt get your teeth into enough of the stories in the game. Weve now let you loose, as it were, and look forward to hearing about everything you get up to with your newfound freedom! Hand in hand with this, there are pacing changes to the opening of the game which will help new players focus on the elements that its essential to take on board before proceeding with the second act: census taking and storycrafting. Lastly, as you now have more time, you will no longer be invited to dismiss what you might call economy quests at the end of the season of Confessions (for example, closing yourself off to census taking, which is one of the income sources that you might want to keep hold of). We don't expect the update to cause any mischief with your save games, but you might want to consider starting a fresh run to best enjoy the longer play time. Detective Signposting We have also had much heart-rending feedback around being unable to save Archie, so were making some tweaks to Investigation:

Talking to characters about murder theories which include unknown elements is useful for progressing your investigation, but weve heard people were finding it counterintuitive. Now, during the storycrafting tutorial, Archie will ask you to demonstrate using unknowns in your stories in order to highlight that its the right thing to try.
After Archies arrest, it is now much clearer that there are multiple ways to save him, and that some are more challenging to achieve than others.
All characters will now be up for helping you with the investigation as a matter of course, but with slightly different dialogue about why.
You can also now take your murder theories to Harjit as a free action, and hell remind you to try using unknowns if relevant.

Full patch notes are also available, though there isnt too much more to add; by necessity most of this week has been focused on the above and less on bug fixes. Forthcoming Patch Possibilities Wed like to see how you get to grips with the longer playtime before making more adjustments, but these are some of the things that weve heard this week which were thinking about. Were hearing that initial flirtations are happening too early, and youre being asked to form an impression about someone romantically before you know them well enough. Wed like to address this in tandem with potential changes to how much you can change your wardrobe/presentation to give the impression you want in a scene. Now theres less time pressure on going shopping for outfit items, you might be able to put yourself across in more precise ways from the get go, and we want to see how all of that interacts before we decide whether to make changes to any of it. The last piece of significant feedback weve had has been around saving. At the moment the game autosaves whenever you return to your attic activities.

People feel the first autosave is too late in the game; well look into this!
There are some points in the game where it goes some while without an autosave; we will investigate where we can add a natural break to include additional saves.

However, we aren't likely to introduce manual saving at this juncture. This is because we need to maintain some amount of predictability of save files to ensure that the updates we release are compatible with playthroughs in progress. Perhaps in the future, when other substantive changes that would risk save compatibility are complete, we may be able to consider this. A note on fast forwarding and replays Some players have asked if there could be a "skip scene" option, or if the fast forward mode could automatically stop when you get to text you have read before in another playthrough. Unfortunately, this isn't really possible for Mask of the Rose. The way Mask generates text is a bit too complex for this to work; rather than set speeches, it uses a combination of pre-written lines and lines that are generated programmatically from written components. Many lines will appear in different orders, or only trigger if your current character has a certain background, costume, personality type, knowledge in the game, relationship with NPCs and so-on. Aside from the technical complexity of achieving this, it wouldn't be a great play experience; imagine the fast forward stopping every couple of lines because you'd never encountered a particular aside or reflection in that conversation before. Were cognisant that, once your pacing concerns are addressed, other new reflections will bubble up as you experience the game in a new light! So all of the roadmap plans above are subject to influence from incoming feedback. Youve been fantastically honest and supportive thus far and I hope that youll continue to send in your thoughts and bug reports. Stay tuned for news of further updates, which well of course announce here and on Discord, twitter, etc. This Friday at 8pm BST (UTC +1) well be live streaming the new update! Perhaps to coincide with something else very exciting thats also happening on Friday, who knows. I hope to see you there! [previewyoutube=HMIwXWZLUak;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-06-15 13:47:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Mask of the Rose

Failbetter Games Developer

Failbetter Games Publisher

Coming Soon Release

Singleplayer Tags

Game News Posts: 37

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🎮 Full Controller Support

Mostly Positive (205 reviews)

http://www.failbettergames.com

Steam Store

Public Linux Depots:

[0 B]

Welcome to Fallen London: a darkly hilarious gothic underworld where death is a temporary inconvenience, the rats talk, and Hell is only a stone's throw away.

Thanks to an unknown bargain, London now resides in a vast cavern under the earth. Down here, the sun doesn't shine, and Parliament has sunk into the Thames. Queen Victoria never emerges from her palace. Cats spy on their owners and whisper their secrets abroad. The fabric of strait-laced Victorian society has begun to fray.

New Masters are in charge. Why are they so… tall? And always cloaked? And why are they so interested in love stories?

The possibilities for personal connection in London are different now. Thrown together in crisis, you might befriend or romance many of the characters you meet, from Griz, your assertive housemate for whom the Fall was a chance to break free of Victorian societal norms, to the infernally well-dressed gentleman at the Brass Consulate with the amber eyes.

Even death itself has a twist here: the first murder victim since the Fall is feeling much better, and keen to see justice done. Unfortunately, as the doctor who treated him immediately before he expired, your housemate Archie is the prime suspect...

(Re)invent yourself: who were you before the Fall? Who will you be now?
Create outfits from a selection of clothing and unusual accessories to unlock different story options
Fall in love with a cast of diverse Londoners, each with their own secrets
Matchmake among your friends, or seek love for yourself (by any definition you like)
Write love stories in a delightful minigame, and use them to impress the new Masters
Pick up odd jobs to earn money and gather resources. How are you at rat catching?
Solve the first murder since the Fall, with the assistance of the victim
Discover cosy, mysterious and magnificent locations in a dark and delicious version of Victorian London
Seek deeper and deeper secrets over multiple playthroughs

Will you be a brilliant matchmaker, connecting friends and rivals while remaining unattached? Or are you looking for lasting love? Perhaps you're open to whatever comes your way? Every major storyline is accessible regardless of whether your approach to love is romantic or platonic.

Use an elaborate, dynamic story-crafting system to create love stories – and murder theories. Are the twists in the tale not to your taste? Then change the motive, the location, even the victim, and see how the stories adapt!

Your past will open different doors for you in London. What was your life on the Surface like? Were your family landed gentry? Or did they own a tailor’s shop, or dabble in the occult?

Your clothing will also make people think differently of you. Your outfits open new possibilities in conversation: be bolder, more commanding, more flirtatious. Ingratiate yourself with London's inhabitants by changing your style of dress – they won't be able to resist you in that hat!

You'll also work odd jobs and collect resources which will open new avenues in social situations. Your housemate Griz has found you work as census-taker for those curious new Masters. Fill your census-taker's notebook with intimate details about your fellow citizens and you'll find you can pursue deeper relationships with them, romantic or otherwise.

Griz

For your fellow lodger Griz, the Fall of London has been a liberation – the chance to throw off her corsets, dump the dresses and be taken seriously in a position that would have been forbidden to her when she was 'Miss Griselda'.

Archie

For your other housemate Archie, the change is terrifying. What is a medical student supposed to believe in when even the laws of death no longer apply?

Harjit

When the Fall struck, Harjit stepped up to help anyone who needed it. Now he’s settling into his role as a man in uniform, but the territory is unfamiliar – and, secretly, he has a missing person of his own to find.

Milton

Milton is the amber-eyed host of a literary parlour with a scalding handshake and a prior address in Hell. He’s an excellent listener, but does he only want you for your soul?

Rachel

Rachel was halfway through her serialised novel when London fell and everything she was writing about was turned upside-down. Her publisher grows impatient. Fortunately (?) meeting Milton has rekindled her passion – for more than just writing.

David

Rachel’s brother, and no fan of Milton, David is also destined to be Fallen London’s first murder victim. When he returns from the dead, you can ask him all about it.

Horatia

For a decade, Horatia has taken in lodgers and turned them into family. Since London fell, people need the security she offers more than ever. So when a man made entirely of clay knocks at the door, offering to pay handsomely for lodgings, she can hardly refuse.

Mr Pages

One of London's new, mysterious “Masters”, Mr Pages has embarked on the titanic endeavour of conducting London’s first post-Fall census! But why are its questions so concerned with the love-lives of London’s citizens? How do people declare their affection, in this fair city? How lasting are their attachments? Might a Londoner take an interest in a very tall, broad-shouldered, cloaked personage that leans towards the chiropterous, hypothetically speaking?

Explore this unique city in glorious, richly rendered 2D. Experience London through three seasons: the season of Confessions, the season of Yule, and the season of Love. Help establish the first Feast of the Rose, a festival of romance that will be celebrated in London for decades to come!

For players of Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, Mask of the Rose offers a chance to immerse yourselves in the city that founded this deep, dark, and marvellous universe. And for veteran players of the Fallen London browser game, it marks your first opportunity to visit the city just after it fell. But fear not: Mask of the Rose is an excellent introduction to the universe we’ve been building for more than a decade, and you don’t need to have played our other games first. Come on in. Most things won’t bite, unless you want them to.

Explore the locales, lives, and loves of an impossible city. Exchange bon-mots with devils. Investigate the first murder where the victim can testify at the murderer’s trial. Dive into the sunken ruins of poor drowned Parliament. And if you’re truly reckless, fall in love.

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Ubuntu 20.04+. ArchLinux
Processor: Intel Pentium 2GHZ or AMD equivalentMemory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 3.2+. Vulkan capable
Storage: <8 GB available space

💰 Games on Sale 💰

GAMEBILLET

[ 6132 ]