Welcome to Pixellated Culture. This week we'll take a look at the story mode present in the browser game Echo Bazaar.
At first I wasn't sure I would write this today, but then I hit my 40 action limit and here I am. Yes the game is that good. However this is a particular kind of game. You don't have any action sequences, but you still have to grind your stats up (explaining where half of my actions went) and you do everything by pushing a button and waiting for your result based on chance (sort of). These mechanics may sound annoying/familiar to some, as many browser games take this approach but where Echo Bazaar shines above everything else is the story.
The story is the driving force behind everything. You are in Fallen London in 1889. Who you are, why you're here, background, skill set, interests, lodgings, pets, clothes etc. are all up to you and your decisions. That's what makes this post hard. It's my old friend Choose-Your-Own-Adventure popping out of book form and onto the internet. I can't say what kind of experience you'll have because it's very flexible.
Each of the stats can be raised in a section of the city (i.e. Watchful in Lady Bone's Road, Shadowy in Spite, etc.) each with the potential for their own story. Some of the tasks are arbitrary raise the stat tasks with the potential of finding goodies. So you can choose how many stats you want to raise, how many of the storylets you want to pursue and so on (don't worry, this is all easily kept track on in your character profile). Over the course of the stories you can accomplishmets, quirks, contacts, menaces and ambitions (which as far as I can tell, ambitions are the closest thing to an story arc and are hard to change once you pick one). All these will affect your interaction with the story and how the NPCs react to you.
The best part of this is the story is extremely flexible. I started playing the game thinking I'd build up my Shadowy and Watchful stats and be an info gathering ninja. Now these two stats are secondary to my Persuasive skill and I'm really connected to bohemians. And I honestly can't tell you when the change occur. My most recent events led me to build up my horribly neglected Dangerous stat, as it was an option for my ambition. So now I'm a balanced character again, something I thought would never happen. This game drew me in after I realized my experience would be unique from everyone else's.
Part of this is due to chance. Luck plays a role in what events occur and certain events in Fallen London. You can also get cards that depict events outside of the storylets. Today I got a giggling mandrake because I was lucky and that card popped up. I didn't even know giggling mandrakes exist, but I have one in my pocket now. That's what makes it exciting. While chance things can feel like a machine just saying whether you win or not, chance here adds whole new elements that you didn't even know existed. That's what sets this game out: the element of surprise. Joyful, wonderful surprise.
I guess the importance of this post is realizing the thing about self-created stories. Of course, there's limits for what can happen, since the creators only have room for so much, but the options feel endless. I decided to take a break from my usual and go to the carnival and that is where I first met Jack of Smiles, Fallen London's serial killer. He didn't kill me, merely wounded me, but I thought I'd meet him after I wrote that poem about him. So sometimes I make the story and other times the story surprises the heck out of me.
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