Mask of the Rose

I would like this game a lot more if not for the time management aspect. The limited number of actions per day means that you don't have time to explore all the possibilities thoroughly, but it's not fun to replay, just feels repetitive. If I could mod it to increase the number of actions per day, it would be much more enjoyable.

Pick lane and stay in it or allow more than two actions per day. I cannot recommend this to anyone as it currently stands. Players of the other games in the the Fallen London universe will be familiar with how obtuse things can be, but this one takes things to another level. This game is torn between being a dating sim (as advertised initially) and a murder mystery and as such, does neither well. Time management is the BBEG in this one. You basically only get two actions/interactions per day which makes for a frustrating play when people are harping on you to solve a mystery and make that seem like the only thing you should be doing. You are also trying to do your census "job" and finding romance. You essentially need to pick one thing for a somewhat satisfying playthrough. Story telling/building is pretty broken (STILL!), you aren't allowed to choose which version you tell someone. I could only get the Rachel and rat stories to somewhat progress, but you can really only choose one thing, or nothing is complete and it feels like a huge waste of time. Now on to the very broken murder mystery plot, I put together so many different combinations but never had any option to question anyone or bring my theories to anyone. I wasted so many precious actions attempting to talk to a character about the murder, only for the conversation to never get around to the murder which was a frustrating waste of time. The price on this one is not worth it, it only seems to go down to 30% off for sale. It is a messy short game that is not worth a penny. Save your time and money, or go play Sunless Sea/Skies. I just want my wasted time back.

Mask of the Rose is a role-playing game that resembles a visual novel. I respect it. However, its visual novel format can be misleading, as it sets an expectation of easily falling into an engaging storyline, like most visual novels do. Instead, this game requires active nosiness. It is highly replayable, with many storylines you won’t encounter in a single playthrough. The story is told in a deliberately confusing way, blending the unfathomable with the mundane in a poetic manner. Events often make little sense, with only glimpses of what’s happening provided. I find this enjoyable, but it might not appeal to those who prefer comprehensible stories and solvable puzzles. The gameplay revolves around visiting people in Fallen London, building relationships with them, and uncovering information about various mysteries. The most interactive element is a unique storytelling mini-game where you craft a theory about a specific mystery and discuss it with a character. This can involve crafting a false theory to elicit information that leads to the correct one, which can be slightly confusing, but I find it enjoyable. You shape your character through varied reactions, which feels natural and leads to a well-developed protagonist, despite the story’s complex character interactions. It looks and sounds good, if minimalist. It includes optional romance, but this isn’t the main focus and can be easily avoided. Its short length makes replays manageable, and I enjoyed my two playthroughs. I’m unsure if I’ll return to it, despite knowing there are many unresolved or undiscovered story threads. I recommend everyone give it a try.

look motr isn't perfect but the browser game refuses to let me kiss the giant space bats so i bought this solely to have my mc make out with mr pages i would fr give failbetter 40 more dollars just to make out with mr veils specifically i'm a very simple lady

Ack! There are things I like about the game, but overall I really cannot recommend it. The good bits: the lore-engaged moments of the writing are very impressive -- it has excellent art and music. Fans of the game should take a look at the roster of characters -- is there someone in the list that you want to hang out with? If so -- do so!! There they are. There's a lot of bold and fascinating systems, for that matter! The Storycrafting system should probably be lifted and reused in future games. It kind of reminded me of Scents and Semiosis in a way that made me happy. That said, my overall recommendation to anyone who isn't a Fallen London obsessive is not to buy the game, so I want to spend the rest of the review selling the idea that there are severe and noticeable bad bits. So I'll segue to that -- The overall impression I have of the game is that it is extremely dense with filler text. This comes from a few things: - The game's day/night system will present the player with a lot of text unrelated to their current progression state. You do about four things per day -- a memory, a supper event, two errands -- and only the errands are determined by player choices. - The bulk of the game's conversations are formalistically structured. There is a procedural salutation (and solicitation for romance); there is a human-written observation on a relevant world event; there is a response to the player's purpose of inquiry; there is a second salutation and an invitation for the player to reconsider their decision on romance. - You're given a staggering number of options amounting to "Ask character X about character Y." Because most facts are known to more than one character, most of these paths produce redundant answers. But of course you can't know this without checking them. The filler text problem is bad, but I would add to this that the game suffers from a serious tension between its detective features and its dating features. The most obvious instance of this tension is that -- unlike in Fallen London itself -- your errands can either be dating or detective-oriented. Any dating you do does not advance your detective work; any detective work does not advance your dating; you have a limited number of actions that can be spent on either. For an example of a system that's not present: I couldn't see evidence that the general level of my relationship with a character actually fed into that character's willingness to feed me clues. I would add to this that there's apparently some kind of hidden reverse feedback between the dating system and the detective system which seems to make this a lot worse. I couldn't totally figure out how it worked, but it seemed like my romantic interest kept showing up and derailing quest scenes. My best guess is that there's some kind of pattern of dialogue variations which are split into two categories: "follow-ups on info the player probably already has," where each version of the scene tries to adapt to include information you might have learned elsewhere -- versus "romantic versions of the conversation, where the player experiences the most basic version of the scene, but now their love interest in the room." Something like this -- - <version 1> Player has ZERO CLUES and now STEVE tells them CLUE X. - <version 2> Player already knows CLUE Y; when STEVE tells them CLUE X, they reject it and interrogate STEVE. - <version 1B> Player has romanced GLORBO and therefore GLORBO talks about CLUE X. (again, even if the player already knows CLUE Y.) STEVE is not interrogated. Whatever the mechanism was, it felt like seeing my romantic interest in a scene meant I was about to get blocked from useful progress. There's one other problem I would tend to identify, which I think is understated in the positive reviews of the game. The game struggles as a character piece: it has an absolutely damaging tendency to take its text and whack it with a hammer until it fits into its procedural storytelling system. For an example -- in general, characters in Mask of the Rose do not require the player to complete failable actions as a condition of their trust. A character might say "Don't interrogate me until you talk to Steve," but they'll break under pressure instantly if you really didn't talk to Steve. Or a character might say "I have a secret; I won't tell anyone who's a cop; I think you're a cop" and then by the end of the scene she has told you anyways. I can only understand this as an attempt to limit the depth of multistage questlines. The game apparently can't ask the player to walk away from an errand because errands are a limited resource and walking away means a wall of filler text. Everyone will do everything they were opposed to, if you ask persistently enough, as if they lack stable preferences or a stable evaluation of your character. The compromises of this system are the sort of thing I would expect a really inventive writer to be able to write around, but there's not a lot of liveliness and zest when it comes to the detective bits. The writers could have confronted this as a problem, but instead it seems like they tried to ignore it. Ultimately, while a handful of individual mechanics are pretty impressive, the quest structure doesn't present much that feels expressive or original. I'll reiterate -- I think a dedicated Fallen London fan would probably still find a lot to enjoy here, but as a game I think this is really not very good!

Great writing, good characters, interesting mechanics, abysmal limitations Overall writing - 10/10 Main story - 5/10 Art - 10/10 Mechanics as Idea - 8/10 Mechanics Implementation - 0/10 Overall - 4/10 I absolutely love the idea that clothes define our behavior and how it's tied to the narrative. Also the storyboard mechanic is great and overall I loved it (after I realized how it worked). I can’t recall any character that I can call cardboard, but some quests felt like a waste of time. And that’s precisely this game’s main issue. Now comes the rant) The creators literally steal 10 days from your calendar at the end to reach the epilogue. And if you haven’t finished some quests, characters might call you out on it with subtle ‘I don’t hold it against you though’ Thus, I know that they are consciously guilttripping us into replaying the game. And since this game has my favourite ‘autosave’ feature, it’s not fun at all. You can’t finish the main quest and at least a few additional ones. Give me more days to play or ability to save where I need, I don’t wanna see the prologue for another twenty times! Limitations in this game do not add to its replayability, they just make the game awful and waste our time on clicking through the prologue over and over again. I swear I came to hate the starting animation, even though I liked it at first. And it’s not like it’s the only way. Make a different mode for hard core players with less days. I mean it’s only one variable in the code. How hard is that? I probably sound like an awful autsource client right now, but it’s not like I dug through your code, so my suggestions are obviously dumb. Or the dressing up mechanic may be a restrictive factor instead. Perhaps, you choose an outfit for a day and can’t change it without spending ‘time’. Not to mention, I may be not the brightest, but I swear I figured out the details of the case before I realized how to use the storyboard to actually start investigating 0-0 At that point I had to replay a few times already, so I straight up started abusing saves by coppypasting them. Actually, its a good game if you start abusing the saves from the get go. Seriously, if you liked the premise, you’ll probably enjoy it, here’s the directory: %userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\Failbetter Games\Mask of the Rose\saves I really hope creators will recall what replayability means some day. For example, in my teens I played a weird free game that basically was clicking magic school simulator or something. It was dumb, but the animations, art and other small details that were changing during the playthrough were so great that I replayed it even after I got all the achievements. I could save at any moment, but the experience in its entirety was so good that I rarely saved the progress at all. Another example - Ebon Light. You can choose whatever route you want in the third act, regardless of with whom you interacted more. But all the characters were so interesting that I replayed it from the start almost each time I tried to romance another guy. I think I can recall good detective games too if I think a little more, but truly I don’t want to invest any more of my time. Maybe in a year or two I’ll forget how frustrated I was and finally finish all quests I was curious about) It just breaks my heart that so much effort from designers, writers, coders, testers went to waste(

This game is such a slow burn. I had hopes but I struggled to finish it - or to find anything to keep me going. The romance is a drag, the whole detective thing is boring, there's too little time window for too many things. I think the game struggled to focus on what it's trying to become.

FIRST: There was a learning curve for this game (for me!) that I'll share incase anyone else is doing the same thing; it will improve your game play dramatically. The game requires an element of 'storycrafting' that ultimately gives you potential dialogue within the game. For my first 1.5 playthroughs I was under the impression you chose/discovered a singular crafted story and ran the day cycle with that info. It did take me until hour 8 IRL to realize that's NOT how the game is meant to be played. Rather, you should craft every possible outcome for every possible dialogue choice so that during interactions you have very thought out materials for quests solutions and the direction you want to proceed in the game. In retrospect that OBVIOUSLY makes the most sense, but that wasn't how I interpreted the original game instructions during the tutorial. I don't know WHY it took me that long to put it together but it's making the game significantly more interesting. I do feel like I'll have to play it a 3rd time just to get the original intended experience, but I can see how knowing this moving forward gives the looping playthrough aspect more direction for quests in the future. Otherwise, the game is slow with no direction and it will discourage you from playing again. NOW, however, I see the intrigue. So, if you did the same stupid mistake as I did, I'd at least say give this game another chance. SECOND: I would echo other sentiments that 2 AP per day with multiple paths means choosing early what direction you want to take the game. The first play through is entirely experimental and very seat of your pants. I would like to discover the stories, but I'm also torn on how much I want to replay the same scenes over and over. YES, there is a fast forward, but I'm not 100% convinced I'll discover all this game has to offer. Especially after floundering for the first 8 hours just trying to grasp what was going on. I do wish it had some type of save slot or after completing an ending they allowed you to rewind to a decision and play other options forward instead of having to replay in full and rediscover everything on every successive loop. THAT IS FRUSTRATING. Loading up a game just to press fast forward 30 times can be a bit dull with very slow pay off. I don't usually want to grind a visual novel. That's not a combo I'll look for in the future. That all being said, I do like the world building. The characters. The story crafting. Choosing the right items to convince the characters of your intentions. I just wish there was a more enjoyable way to experience them.