Continuing on from this months earlier post I must admit I've been somewhat dreading writing this as I've been struggling with how to describe the rest of the event I attend so I think I'm just going to get the negatives out of the way at the start and more on to the fun stuff.
Now one of the best parts of attending any convention is to meeting other fans and take part in theme meet ups to chat and take part in group photos, having attended in my Payday 2 cosplay I was a
mixture of excited and nervous. Now one thing I discovered over the weekend that for Payday 2 no one will bother you for a photo if your by yourself since people are only interested in having a full set, this is somewhat double edged as its great to be able to move around without been pestered but at the same time its a bit disheartening to have no comments or attention when your wearing a somewhat uncomfortable costume.
So in this state of mind I was getting increasing psyched up to attend the meet with desire to join in over coming social anxiety and according to the information on the MCM page the meet up was to occur near a police car in the halls. Now this is where the lack of distinction between the stalls and poor map basically came back to haunt me, I had remembered that on the Friday I had seen several emergency vehicles that were selling photo opportunities for charity in the centre of the halls so fighting through the crowd I made my way there.
Myself and 4 other people turned up and had a brief chat disappointed at the lack of turnout but we grouped up and made a few kids happy (why these kids who looked 8 knew about Payday I don't know). I found out later that the main meet up had happened at another collection of police cars which were over by a corner booth, that whole area had been empty on Friday so there was no way to know beforehand without having gone through the terrible booklet to cross reference the map.
This screw up kind of put a damper on whole day and if it hadn't been for the kid who was leaping around in excitement at seeing us five I think I would of been more annoyed by it all.
The other massive disappointment were the game panels, now some of them were pretty good in particular:
Lets Play Live: Rise of the Tomb Raider with Camilla Luddington
Team17 Presents: Worms W.M.D
KOEI Tecmo Presents: A.O.T. Wings of Freedom
Though the KOEI Tecmo Presents was a bit shaky at the start once they moved into their comfort zone and moved away trying to talk about the anime it got better, I even managed to ask a few questions at the end though the lack of couch co op does mean I will not be buying the game.
Now much to my surprise sound on the video is actually better than been there, due to the background noise and halls echo there was a few people who were difficult to make out during the presentation. Perhaps I wouldn't of found this particular panel absolutely god damn awful but I seriously doubt it due the mind numbing stupid repetitive commendatory.
I was looking forward to the Square Enix Presents Dragon Quest Builders, I Am Setsuna and Star Ocean 5 but it was obvious these guys presenting only had two sentences of information on each game and what made it worse was that even though one of them had played the game before they gave it to the guy who had no idea of the controls to play.
It was painful to watch and like someone had given a controller to their grand dad who has never used a console past a Atari before and then watched him fumble about blindly while he explained he was a old pro at games. I had a chat with a few other watchers later and it was a draw between which bit was more maddening to watch Dragon Quest Builders or Star Ocean 5.
Now even though I am a minor Youtuber I tend not to network much at these events with other Youtubers, its partly because I feel like its the equivalent of a guy who plays at open mike night at his local bar trying to socialise with a world famous rock star.
I did however meet a interesting pair of chaps Luke & James of Luke & James Play and seem to be starting up their own couch co op channel:
Finally while I must admit some might say I've been rather negative in my description about the experience on the whole I enjoyed it, I think I have a preference towards smaller conventions but not because of the crowd.
Smaller conventions in my experience have more events or activities for visitors to take part in and do whilst larger conventions focus on having on events that visitors simply watch rather than participate.
However this is where community plays a big part and is the reason why I was disappointed to miss the Payday 2 meet up, the appeal of larger events is the atmosphere and a con goer can revel in their fandoms and hobbies, dressing up or discussing them and finding like minded people.
A few people I spoke to actually told me that conventions are the one place they feel at ease because its like "coming home" or they can discuss their hobbies without been mocked or insulted about them.
So for the final bit of this overview I'm going to post a few of my favourite costumes a meet ups at the event.
Glory To Arstotzka! One of my favourite costumes at the event was a working booth for the Passport Inspector of Papers Please, unfortunately the picture is a little fuzzy as a passerby bumped into my friend as she took photos.
I almost managed to bluff my way past the booth before I made the
mistake of mentioning that I had not eaten breakfast at the time.
Apparently not eating a apple a day is reason enough to be denied
entrance to Arstotzka.
There were some impressive Space Marine crossover costumes towering over the crowd but the best of them was Warmaster Vader who was a Darth Vader inspired costume.
A entry for the cosplay compensations this costume of Isaac from Dead Space was simple yet highly detailed with a working lit backpack.
The MS Paint Adventures Homestuck may of ended this year but that didn't stop the fans attending full force in this massive costumed meet up.
A costume doesn't always have to be complex to be amazing and this con goer absolutely nailed the Justice League cartoon version of Hawk Girl spot on.
Sometimes you come across some strange sights at the conventions and it doesn't come much stranger than watching Majin Buu copy the The Stig as Deadpool in a Winne the Poo Costume looks on in irritation.
Just going to show that no matter how old a franchise is someone out there will cosplay it, this amazing Yellow Ranger and Rita Repulsa brought back old memories.
Finally just going to show that anyone is welcome several furry artists turned up in full fur suits of their original characters.
Read more »
In
2007 Turkish-German game developer Crytek released ‘Crysis’, a
cryengine-built first person shooter which exceeded the graphical
norm at the time more than any other game ever did or would later do.
Almost no computer could run it at the time and for many years it
would be the ideal game to test new gaming PC’s with, but even
disregarding this main strength of the game Crysis is a very decent
FPS.
In
Crysis you take the role of an American soldier named ‘Nomad’ who
is part of an elite squadron of nanosuit-equipped soldiers . You are
sent to the Lingshan islands in the pacific to rescue a team of archaeologists from North-Korean soldiers who took the place over.
Story is not quite the part of the game that deserves closest
examination because of that it is quite generic. After all, even back
in 2007 there were already quite a few games that had the player kill
soldiers while playing as an American soldier himself, but luckily
the story takes a bit of a back seat here. It would not be until
Crysis 2 that other things than combat would be given some attention.
In terms of story delivery there is also nothing new here.
What
you would want to play Crysis for, if not the superb graphics, would
be its gameplay and it does this quite well. Although it uses pretty
standard FPS mechanisms the nanosuit makes for a welcome addition.
Basically the suit gives you a choice of four superpowers, which
consume from one general energy bar. There is a speed mode, pretty
self-explanatory, a cloak mode that makes you largely invisible, a
power mode that lets you jump higher and fling heavy objects and an
armour mode. Using whatever improvements your power gives you costs
energy and generally this system holds up pretty well. It is nice
that you are given the choice between stealthing a section with the
cloak or fighting through it normally, and if you choose the latter
you can also pick different tactics with either the speed or the
armour mode. A nice small addition on the side is that you are at
any time able to modify your weapon, which means you can pick your
sight, add a suppressor or make other small modifications.
The
game also excels in giving the player freedom. Before Crytek set
about on making Crysis they made the original Far Cry. Why these
developers are so attached to the word ‘cry’ remains a mystery.
But anyway, Far Cry was an open world game which was, like Crysis,
set on a tropical island and sometimes it seems as if the developers
carved a big and wide linear path out of Far Cry’s sandbox to make
Crysis because Crysis feels about as unlinear as a linear game can
be. The entire game has a structure similar to Half Life 2, in that
you are never teleported to a different location but always go there
yourself. There are almost no missions that all of a sudden take
place somewhere else unless the last mission had you go there by
yourself. Some objectives give you entire towns to play around in, a
lot of the houses can be smashed up and most objects can be grabbed
and thrown as weapons. What also makes this game feel like some
fenced-off sandbox is the completely free use of vehicles. When you
need to go to the next firefight you can walk there if you want, or
you can get in a car which the game just puts outside most villages.
Driving mechanics are not very good though, so if you are being shot
at you are in more danger in a car than on foot.
So,
in conclusion I would certainly recommend Crysis, even today.
Although the graphics don’t excel anymore and the story is pretty
rubbish, the gameplay is still very nice and you have plenty of
liberty to explore the nanosuits potential, and that certainly
outweighs the game’s few issues.
You may remember a few months ago a ambitious programmer Flow aka Streamline decided to attempt to convert Dukes Interstellar Army Simulator into C++ to create a more developer accessible version of Chapter Master as Journier worked on the original build along with Thy Reaper debugging, cleaning and etc. to make it more easier
to update by hiring a programmer to help them.
Whilst Journier and Thy Reaper have seemingly gone dark for some time now with some suspecting their hired programmer having flaked on them, Flow has unfortunately decided to retire from the project and made his development blog private before shortly making this statement:
Hello!
So, I've disabled the blog and removed the references to
it from 1d4chan (hopefully they won't get added back in) and here's
explaining why. TL;DR at the bottom.
First up, I've immensely
enjoyed the project so far, with some minor exceptions, and will
probably continue to work on it in the future.
However, I will no longer be publicising the project or releasing it online. The reasons for this are threefold:
First,
I do not have any sort of stable schedule as of last week with various
freelance work taking up inordinate amounts of my time.
Second, I
am increasingly afraid of legal intervention despite my attempts to
distance myself from any copyright claims, also leading onto the next.
Third,
it has become increasingly clear to me throughout the course of this
project that people just don't care about things that aren't blatantly
40k. And I'm unwilling to make things that are blatantly 40k, beause I
don't want to end up ruining my life in legal battles over something I
was only doing to benefit others anyway. I attempted to run the project
in as generic a manner as possible in order to avoid any copyright
problems, and was continually met by e-mail and forum posts of
complaints that I wasn't staying close enough to 40k lore. I even tried
to spell out that I was specifically avoiding copyright, something that
could well have ruined the entire purpose of avoiding the copyright in
the first place, and it seemed to be forgotten within a day.
I
really appreciate the help of everyone that's chipped in so far to the
Chapter Master mod - Mukip who made some fantastic art, Smokazzi with
the excellent music, Skeletus with all the naming convention help and
Guardsman for his excellent art contributions. Obviously I make no
claims to any of the assets put out in the recent versions - for anyone
who wants to take up this mantle in the future please make good use of
them.
I've come to realise that this project is impossible. Not
because it's too difficult, or because the gaming requirements are too
high, but because the project seems to belong to everyone. Everyone has
their idea of what it should and will be, and the project will only
survive if public support is sufficient to drive an individual to risk
court battles just to satisfy a gaming itch. In this case, I didin't
feel like the public support was there, and that's fine, it just wasn't
to be.
Within two something months I'm pretty pleased with the
progress I made, and if anyone is a C++ dev and wants to geti n touch
with me, I'd be willing to consider passing along the current source -
it really isn't too much work away from playable engine. However I will
be completing it privately for personal and friends use only.
Good luck to whoever's next, may this be another notch on the Chapter Master belt of failed attempts.
TL;DR: Too afraid of lawyers, not enough reason to work despite them, gave it a good shot though.
Thankfully the community over at bay12forums has been understanding at his departure and have suggested alternative avenues:
SkeletusAurelius: Perfectly logical reason Flow. I think i can speak for all of us when i say we wish you luck on whatever you're doing next.
Still would like to see how the finished product looks, as i put some effort into it after all.
Retropunch: I respect that the decision is yours to take, but I'd like to point out some things and beg you to reconsider.
Whilst
yes, some people do want this to be only 40k related - as nenjin said,
you are posting on the Chapter master thread(!!!). Start one for
'moddable space battle simulator' and you'll get hundreds of people
wanting it for creating their own universes (and obviously their
favorites from books/films/games).
Secondly, lawyers are really,
really nothing to be afraid of in this case - not even remotely. If you
don't ship it with any art or content that was made by or for GW then
there is absolutely nothing they can do. That's not a presumption - that
is legal fact. Think about the amount of 'space marines/troopers' in
sci-fi today - they don't all have to wrangle with GWs lawyers!
There's
no way they can bring you to court for any of this either; lets say
they went absolutely insane and decided that generic space marines were
now their IP, the most they could do is give you a cease and desist.
That doesn't give you a record or besmirch you in any way - you'd just
have to stop and that'd be the end of it. That'd never happen, but if
you're still worried about legal issues PM me and I'd be happy to take
you through it all from the very top.
Seriously, just start an
IAS thread with no mention of CM and you'll get a hell of a lot of
support from all corners of the gaming world!
So to the C++ coders out there will any of you readers attempt to take up the mantle and be the next in the chapter in this tale of this noble attempt to create a game?
I for one certainly hope so.
To play my own part I'm still hosting backups of Dukes links and files which you can obtain below:
Interstellar Army Simulator 2015: Source Code: Link
Chapter Master 0.6555: Source Code: Link
Original Design Document (former project): Link
Features That Were Planned: Link
Don't know What Chapter Master is? The original review is here. Just want to play the game? Then Interstellar Army Simulatorand the mod and be downloaded here. Also folks please remember to check the Archives for other posted updates.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the MCM London Comic Convention it is the biggest and longest running comic and anime event in the UK having started in 2002 is held twice each year, usually on the last full weekend of May and October at ExCeL London.
It is a mass gathering containing loads of events and stalls though this is it described in the organisers own words:
We aim to put on the best consumer shows for the modern pop-culture
market. Our show floors are packed full of activity from live eSports
matches and cosplay celebrations to experiential opportunities inspired
by the movies and brand new releases of your favourite games to play.
On top of all that we have the awesome Comic Village area for
independent comic artists, VidFest for upcoming YouTube stars, PopAsia
to revel in all things Asian inspired and Memorabilia, our collector
haven. Our theatres also play host to exclusive screenings and panels of
special guests, all whom take part in photograph sessions and signings
throughout the weekend.
MCM Comic Con is THE destination event to celebrate all things
pop-culture, it is not to be missed by any geek, nerd, cosplayer, or fan
boy and girl!
As you can imagine I was pretty excited to attend for the first time having secured a early full weekend ticket and a apartment close to the DLR Tube line for easy access to the ExCeL London.
Arriving at Circus Apartments they were reasonably priced between the four of us, in good condition and had friendly helpful staff though been on the 10th floor our rooms were stuff and hot even with the windows open which caused a bit of an issue while trying to sleep.
I should also mention that the Wifi isn't free and the TV signal was simply awful with the arial been pretty much useless but it wasn't really something that came up during our stay.
Attending on the Friday the 27th I personally think I enjoyed this day the most, the crowd was reasonably small and as a result we were checked in and given our weekend passes in less than 10 minutes. In the past years there have also been special swag bags full of free goodies ranging from sweets to vouchers to DVDs and Figures for attendees which are often unavailable by the Saturday due to sheer amount of visitors, but this year there was nothing much to my disappointment and this disappointment was something I found kept cropping up throughout the weekend.
Let into the wide corridor between the two massive halls the event was split between we had no sense of bearings, there was no maps or signs apart from the ExCeL London own code for each hall section.
We quickly found a information stand and obtained a map and a event magazine however this is where things began to break down even further, now when I attended EGX 2015 I was impressed by how their map was simple to read and organised whilst in MCM's case I found the map near useless apart from from a general gist of the layout, just look below to see what I mean:
Front with map
Back with panels and events
Now the astute amongst you may already notice something important missing from this map, that's right there is no key referring to the numbers listed on the stalls apart from the big name logos. In addition there is no reference to the ExCeL London own hall numbers or the entrance area so it is extremely easy to get turned around and disorientated due to the similarity of the stalls and lack of directions posted about.
There is a key but its inside the 140 page advert and article event magazine which also has a copy of the map located between pages 62 and 65, after another advert the key is listed BY ALPHABETICAL ORDER OF THE STALLS which is bloody useless unless you already know what stall your wanting to find beforehand. I'm looking at the damn key to find out what 471 is not the other way round. The panel event program is also a nightmare to find and read through in the magazine with information scattered between articles so at least the map was an improvement in this regard.
Now I imagine what the event planners expect was for people to check the digital copies before attending take note of the numbers and then use the map to find them but that is not very useful for a first time attendee or for anyone who doesn't have a smart phone.
Adorable and ever so soft, I just wanted to dive in. The feeling does go away though after the 10th identical stall however.
With just a small morning crowd it gave me the chance to look about the various stalls about the convention which ranged from old school video game stalls with tons of collectables ranging from the Atari to the Modern day from all over the world (curse you region locking), western comic and action figure stalls, Japanese food vendors, Plushies and anime related merchandise from Japan, Gundam model kits and other figurine stalls, Cosplay costumes including a multitude of foam weapons (which would be the bane of my life on the Sunday) and finally the Artist Alley were people sold their own artwork and comics.
In the first hour it was fascinating but I quickly grew a bit dishearten, while there were many variation of stalls they often stocked identical merchandise with little to no variation.
The same plush or swords or wall scrolls and figurines cropped up over and over again with many stall owners having huge amounts of the same Pop Figures, this lack of distinction between the stalls added to the fore mentioned disorientation and I often found myself wondering if I had already explored an area of the hall I was in.
Most of these shelves were bare by Sunday
In addition there were various groups that simply didn't fit in, while I welcomed and understood the presence of cosplay sculpting material sellers and some manga/anime subscription stalls the paintball trip sellers and the university course advertisers seemed like they were only there because they had paid their way in.
Also the presence of CEX and various other big names with large stalls seem just a bit strange, its like if you attended a farmers market and Tesco and Sainsburys turned up and put up huge stalls while blasting out loud music to drown out the smaller sellers shouts.
Sorry for the fuzziness some rude fellow pushed his way passed as we took photos
I was pleasantly surprised by a roleplay game stand by Shades of Vengeance as I honestly hadn't expected to see anything like it at the MCM, unfortunately it was only manned frequently on the Saturday and had no seats free to join in when I went past but they were advertising a strange mix of Roleplay/Card Games which are their Era series with:
Era: The Consortium: A sci-fi tabletop RPG with 500 years of playable
history, using a multiple d10 rule set made specially for it. The game follows the inhabitants of Taranis as they create a society, encounter alien races and explore the space nearby.
The game allows the GM and players to choose where to begin playing –
at any point during the 500 years of history. You can experience the
wonder of discovering new alien races, command a ship in wars spanning
entire solar systems, and join a Resistance movement against the
government to save or destroy billions of lives.
Era: The Empowered: Upon discovering your abilities, most of you had no choice but to
register as members of the Empowered Division, a government-controlled
agency. This agency gives you assignments, all in the name of keeping
the peace.
Do you dedicate yourself to the cause, following their direction and completing the missions assigned to you? Or do you pay attention to the suspicious activity going on: the crimes are too coordinated, your responses too well-timed.
Someone seems to be controlling the Empowered… but why?
Era: Lyres: My personal favourite. You would never make it as an adventurer, however, that doesn’t dent
your ambition at all. you have bought equipment and plan to go to
taverns and tell stories of your magnificent “adventures” in return for
coin! While I didn't get the chance top play in person I've picked up a copy of this and hope to do a more detailed review and play session of it in the future.
A small collection of the Deadpools with a sneaky Spiderman too, Deadpool cosplaying as other people was very popular including A Payday Pool and a Maid Outfit Pool.
For those of you interested in upcoming TV series there was plenty to see and take part in from the Walking Dead new series (zombies on a boat I like to call it) and The Preacher as well as tons of signing opportunities as for myself I wasn't too fussed as I've almost stopped watching TV entirely in the last few years so I moved on.
Though I did take time to check out a few of the anime series been showcased though much to my frustration the only stall with DVD of the new series of Fate Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works was a magazine that required a years subscription in order to get it as a "Free" gift.
Heading over to the various game highlights I had the chance to take a go at a variety of new releases:
I've been a long time fan of the series though I had seen issues with it been a bit grindy and repetitive with no ability to transfer items between the games.
Monster Hunter Generationshas four new signature monsters and introduces new special attacks known as "Hunting Arts" which have different effects such as dealing massive damage, providing buffs, or healing allies and four "Hunting Styles" which add different attack styles for a weapon.
The Guild Style is a balanced and basic style akin to combat in
previous games of the series, the Striker Style is less technical but
emphasises the use of "Hunting Arts" letting the player set up three
special attacks. The Aerial Style specialises in mid-air attacks
allowing players to use monsters as a platform which they can propel
themselves off and finally the Adept Style gives players an opportunity to perform
powerful counter attacks after successfully evading a monster's attack.
My favourite addition the new Prowler mode which allows you to play as your sidekicks the adorable Felyne and you apparently can even play the whole game as one, the only downside is that its only available on the Nintendo 3DS.
Having played the original Odin Sphere on the Playstation 2 and a massive fan of Vanillawares work I was delightfully surprised to see this Atlus classic given a remake (though more a polish would be more accurate). This 2D action RPG is influenced by Norse Mythology in its design and is told across five tales from the perspectives of five unique protagonists as they try to fight fate.
I can't really fay more without spoiling the plot but I recommend checking out the trailer below:
Another game I'll be adding to my wishlist Grand Kingdom is the debut strategy title from Tomohiko Deguchi’s development studio, Monochrome Corp and it looks fantastic.
Playing the leader of a mercenary squad, players will assemble a team to lead
across a battle-scarred continent to complete contracts for each nation.
Players may also hop online to form an exclusive contract with one of
the Four Great Nations, and participate in war with other players for
the future of Resonail.
When I first saw the God Eater Stand from behind at a distance I thought it was the Monster Hunter Stand.
A remake of a PSP game originally released exclusively in Japan on February 4, 2010, the
enhanced version features an expanded story and new game mechanics will also be available for the PS4 and PC. The remakes sequel was also been showcased but I was unable to have the chance to play but it looks like more of the same with bigger monsters and more weapons.
The game seems to have a similar play style to Monster Hunter I wish I had more time to really get to grips with this game but the demand to play was huge and I didn't want to hog the console. Interestingly there is also a anime that is been created based on the game animated by Ufotable.
Possibly the strangest game at the MCM London Comic Convention, Gal Gun Double Peace is if a dating visual novel game kidnapped Time Crisis, tied it to a chair and force it to be the father of their love child.
The sequel to Gal*Gun in which a student Tenzou is accidentally shot with
several Cupid Arrows by an apprentice angel, Patako. The blessing from
the arrows makes Tenzou irresistible to the opposite sex, transforming
him into the most popular boy in school for one day however the catch is if Tenzou is unable to find his true love before the
effects of the Cupid Arrow wear off, he’ll be destined for a life of
loneliness.
The new games plot is nearly identical with a new loser protagonist and references the events of the first game as a school/collage legend as you fight off the unwanted attention and confessions of nearly every girl in the school with winks and glances.
Actually quite fun as cabinet shooters go I find the main issue with Gal Gun Double Peace is that it has occasional scenes that just make you cringe and pray that no one else walks into the room to seem them out of context. Just watch the trailer to see what I mean.
Gun Double Peace the only game to boast that there are 450 underwear designs to discover.
I didn't actually get to play this one properly I had the chance to mess around with the character and class editor finally deciding on a Plasma Gun wielding Tactical Marine but after waiting nearly 20 minute at the top of the game queue and been unable to connect I decided to move on. If your unfamiliar with Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade it is an upcoming MMO third-person shooter video game based on
Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 setting.
Not an official trailer but it shows the glory of the powerfist that may or may not still be in the game after the latest patch.
There were plenty of other games including Battleborn and Overwatch and these were in high demand to play but those have had plenty of coverage and I'm sure you've already heard about them.
Some indie developers were also presence but due to very cramped areas they have to set up in and the massive flow of the crowd most of the weekend I only had the chance to play a handful of titles, those of note that stuck in my mind are:
VA-11 Hall-A's developers SUKEBAN GAMES have had their ups and downs but this great homage to 1990s cyberpunk and DOS games is almost ready to release and its looking great. I was one of the early backers and managed to get the game for a mere £5, unfortunately if you've not gotten it yet the price has risen to its full price of £15 but it is certainly worth it.
Developed by SMAC Games and published by Mode 7 Tokyo 42 looks like a possible classic and is a stylish looking isometric action game inspired by classics such as Syndicate and GTA1.
In reality it was a waste of my god damn time the person manning the stand was rude and seemingly clueless about their own game apart from the controls as when I politely enquire about the style of game and the objective/story they talked to me like I had never used a keyboard and mouse before without actually answering my questions.
The game itself had terrible story writing with a stupid nonsensical plot in which you are framed for the murder of one of your love ones and been a hitman, so your response is naturally to have your friend sign you up with a assassination guild some how to become a hitman and start killing random people.
Combat was a chore with guns simply not hitting where you aimed no matter the camera angle, now some of you may have seen my youtube channel and know I can get irritable but after taking 25 shots with a sniper rifle from a designated mission spot, at a still target which your tiny aiming reticule is directly over and every shot missing inexplicably no matter which angle the camera is rotated on the target then your game has problems.
Originally released in 2009 under the name Echo Bazaar Fallen London is a browser based game that times in with Failbetter Games roguelite PC game Sunless Sea, I had the chance to have a chat with Failbetter Games Communications Director Hannah Flynn who described Fallen London to me as a Choose Your Own Adventure which certainly peaked my interest.
I've had the opportunity to play it since and in all honesty its more accurately describe as very similar to a facebook game but without the need to bother your friends and contacts to join or send items.
It does have a very interesting setting and much of the writing is good but its only every obtained in drips and drabs hidden behind stat grinding and paywalls.
I do think however that it will work very well as a mobile app and the format is far more suitable for its style of short burst of play than a browser.
As this post just keeps growing and I've barely skimmed the surface I'm going to leave it here for now and I'll catch you in Part 2.
