Fallen London

Produced by Failbetter Games

Gothic, Romance, Gothic Romance

Wallpaper from Fallen London

The date is 1899, December 31st. You lie back in a armchair sewn of ratskins sipping a warm cup of coffee brewed of the purple fungi dotting your windowsill as you listen to the mutterings of bats soaring above the town of London. Down on the street a carriage driver screams as up on the rooftops a gang of urchins pelt the poor fellow with pebbles. In the distance are the spires of the Bazaar, black and twisted, carved with letters of languages so ancient that even the dead don't dare dream of their meaning. The thrashing of the waves, whose color holds a pitch so black and a blue so deep that the finest satins and silks couldn't compare to their nauseating ripples, like quaking skin rolling against the blow of a baton. Down the road you hear a duke of some sorts crying out in celebration for the turn of the century, proclaiming the streets will fill with wine, while books swallow the heads of nestled academics who are too studious or disinclined to celebrate the new year. Someone shouts "Rain!", and you catch a few folks looking up at a sky without clouds or sun, merely the shadows above to show the silent stone around you. You hear the ticking of the clock as the seconds grow nearer, the calendar pages turning for the height of a new century, breaths coiled in throats, and then - then it is 1899. It has always been 1899. Again. As you expected. Groans and cries of dismay swell within the street; "New ban" is shouted above the smokestacks. Of course, this is nothing to be surprised by. Every year is 1899, because every year is the year London was claimed by bats.

London has sunk into the Earth. Hell is real, Death now isn't, and the bats now rule.

What is Fallen London? Where is it? Why is it "Fallen"?

Welcome to Fallen London, a browser game made by Failbetter Games set inside of the Fallen London series. Made in 2009, the game has been routinely updated for almost two decades, and is available for free online. According to Wikipedia under the Development section, Fallen London was originally written by Alexis Kennedy to test out an open source engine called StoryNexus, with art drawn by his friend Paul Arendt. StoryNexus eventually flopped, but the setting of Fallen London persisted in numerous other works.

The story of Fallen London is hard to identify as the majority of the plot, lore, and major characters are revealed passively. Item descriptions, storylets (which are what you can consider to be "quests" or "goals that your character wants to complete"), and vague tantalizing hints are used to portray the actual setting of Fallen London and how London ended up underground. This means in-between the cryptic interpretations and alludes of betrayal, I don't actually have a complete picture of what the entire setting is about. But I can make a reasoned guess. I won't cover EVERYTHING (some things are best left unsaid, such as the name of Mr. Eaten), but I can cover what I know from my own personal playthrough of the game.  So forgive me for my incomplete ramblings; here is the story of Fallen London.

 Fallen London takes place in the 19th century (as far as I know, given that every year is 1899) where after a terrible incident the entire city of London fell underground and lies in a gigantic cavern beneath the rest of the Earth. The reasoning for this is that one day the Empress of London's husband grew gravely ill. In a desperate bid for a cure the Empress made a deal with a group of figures only known as the "Bazaar", who only asked for London in exchange. Upon making this deal a huge sinkhole opened up beneath London, which went crashing down into an underground sea and crushing a previous city and its inhabitants who were already living peacefully in the cavern below. Except for the Bazaar, I suppose. That part of the previous city remained untouched, untroubled, and undisturbed by the former city becoming thoroughly extinct via London divebombing it. 

Screenshot of Fallen London's Map

Along with the surprise move-in underground, London finds itself amidst a vast sea of various cultures, concepts, and creatures that would seem utterly alien up above.

First most, Hell is real. Yup, Hell is real, they live in a giant pit over yonder, and are London's neighbors. Yes, there was a war where London tried to extinguish Hell. No, this did not end well. No, the plot twist isn't that London is ruled by devils. Yes, the devils do like collecting souls. Yes, they only collect souls through contracts and legal obligations. No, they don't coerce (at least not physically) contracts. No, you don't actually feel anything wrong with you when you lose your soul; you feel exactly the same. Yes, there IS a very interesting theological and philosophical implication from the idea of a "soul trade" as people have begun assigning monetary values to souls (precisely 0.04 pence to buy one) and some even advocate for it as there is no apparent downside. The afterlife? Well, that brings us to our second point:

Death does not exist in London. It is a foreign concept. Die, and you wake back up a few days later with a sore head and bruised back. Of course, more permanent and severe injuries remain. Immortality does not entail the ideality of regeneration. The more severely disfigured and injured citizens of London are banished to a place called the Tomb-Colonies; abandoned cities where people spend centuries mourning, covering their mauled skin with rags as they drift throughout the streets. They are also quite bland and find everything terribly exciting, as having nothing to do all day would make even the sight of a cat swooning. There are very few ways to permanently die in London. Drowning doesn't actually kill you, but when you come back you do think you are dead and prefer to spend the rest of your days drifting in the sea. Decapitation, incineration, being eaten, anything where there is no body remaining, all is permanent. This also includes getting crushed by a falling city, which brings us to the next point:

You are not the first civilization here. Remember that city that was crushed when London first went underground? Well, there was a city before that one, which also mysteriously is no longer around. And another one. And presumably one before that. You arrived here at the behest of the Masters of the Bazaar. And when you did, your city crushed another. Make no mistake, you laugh because you think you're invincible. Death has no stay here, you claim. You are wrong. Your stay here is temporary. It may be centuries, it may even be millennia, but one day, on a distant shore there will be another Empress. There will be another deal. And a new city will crush the remnants of yours. Why, I'll just leave London then. Maybe head up to the surface. Good luck with that, truly, because that ties into our final point.

You cannot return to the surface. Ever. Once you die in London, you are bound to it beneath the crust of the world. If you ever come into contact with sunlight at all, all those seemingly innocuous fatal injuries catch back up with you, with the scent of your mortality begging you to wither and rot and die. Once you are down here, you stay. Hope you like the taste of mushrooms, sight of the dark, and scent of sea salt. 

What is the Fallen London Series?

Logo of FailBetter Games

The Fallen London series are a collection of games, visual novels, and web browser games all made by Failbetter Games set in the Fallen London universe. All of the games follow a certain aesthetic of gothic Victorian romance coupled with cosmic horror; think Dorian Gray, Dracula, and Lovecraft all mixed together in an amalgamation of tragedy, suffering, and romance.

 These games include, at the moment:

Sunless Sea - where you are a sea captain on the ocean beneath Fallen London, and try not to drown. Also, don't ask about the sun.

Sunless Skies - where you are now in the sky. I haven't played this one, so I cannot say much about it except that its in the sky. 

The Mask of the Rose - a dating game, surprisingly, set in the backdrop of a murder.

The Fallen London Roleplaying Game - a tabletop RPG set in the world of Fallen London (as of writing unreleased)

They have also made numerous comics and books, apparently, and while I have not read any of them and thus cannot judge their content, I will leave the link here for you to explore.

What is the Gameplay?

Fallen London is, at its core, a narrative game that is also about resource management. The gameplay loop is fairly straightforward. At the start of the game you choose an Ambition; a goal you will spend the game pursuing (although you can keep playing even after completing these Ambitions). These can include winning a card game that offers anything to the winner, stealing a giant diamond, hunting a mythological creature, or chasing a nemesis who killed your loved one.

You are not given a predefined character in the game. The central "draw" of Fallen London is that as you play, you are asked to define your character, their past, and their opinions about the world around them. This lets you not only create a character that lets you play as the person you wish, it actively encourages roleplaying to progress through the game.

Every few minutes, you get a resource called an Action, up to a maximum of 20. This means you will frequently have to wait for your actions to refresh before you can proceed with some of the stories.

You can use these Actions to pursue Storylets, small narratives that give you resources and rewards as you play. Resources are needed to improve your character and progress with some of the storylets.

Some decisions in the game are barred by stat checks. 

You have four Stats - Watchful, Persuasiveness, Dangerous, and Shadowy. When you select a decision with a stat check, it will show a percentage of your likelihood of success. You can improve your stats by partaking in relevant stat checks, completing storylets, or by wearing certain articles of clothing. Outfits are significant in Fallen London, as switching between outfits are the main way to increase your stats suddenly. 

When your stats move over 100, you get the opportunity to become a Person of Significant Interest. This makes the game slightly harder, but also unlocks previously inaccessible areas of the game. Unfortunately, I have not reached this endeavor so I cannot elude to the changes it brings beyond new Storylets, some Menace reduction items being weaker, and presumably new areas.

Menaces! What ARE Menaces? Whenever you fail a skillcheck, or perform certain actions, you have the risk of raising a Menace. A Menace is an attribute that represents overall risk and harm your character is subjected to throughout your playthrough. When a Menace hits 8, something unfortunate befalls you; exile, night terrors, imprisonment... 

When this occurs you are locked out of your traditional Storylets and are instead sequestered away in an isolated Storylet. Here you must spend several actions reducing the Menace until it reaches 0, upon which you return to the initial Fallen London.

There are 4 primary Menaces in the game.

Nightmares - which reflect your deteriorating state of mind as you witness terrible truths - too high, and you get sent to the fun nightmare realm of mirrors and wells!

Suspicion - for all the illicit activities you will be committing - too high, and you get sent to prison. Go to prison TOO often, and you may get a permanent record.

Wounds - how long you have left to live - failure temporarily kills you (haven't actually died yet personally)

Scandal - how controversial you've been in London's high society - failure means exile to the Tomb-Colonies

One detail I did not initially notice was that each Menace also corresponds to one of the characters stats. Credit goes to the Fallen London Wiki for finding this out, because I had no idea initially.

Key Selling Points

There are a few main selling points for Fallen London

1. The setting. Its the main one; great worldbuilding, factions of anarchists, urchins, squid-men, and high society all duking it out in a giant kerfuffle a thousand miles beneath the Earth.

2. The setting again. Not everything in Fallen London is mentioned in other games, and vice versa. For example, the Iron Republic is a province where everyone got fed up with laws and decided to dissolve them; including physics. There is a gate in the North Pole that leads to space? death?, Santa Claus is canonically alive and steals from you, and rats are sentient. 

3. Roleplaying; play as you like, build a character as you like, be as you like.

4. Discover the mysteries and piece together the world of Fallen London in a mismatched puzzle of notes, gossip, and hearsay.

5. Tiny time commitment; only takes a minute to fully use your actions each day

6. Lots of reading