(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
Well this has been awhile. It’s been crazy time with illness, changing to a new contract, roommate starting a new job, social events, more illness, and general chaos. Honestly, I feel like I need to take some time off.
So I just sent out a newsletter update, but let’s cover where I am right now
- The Way With Worlds Book 2 is in final edits. If all goes well I format and run a first print next weekend. If not . . . uh well it doesn’t happen. I think it’ll be out end of March or early April with no other interruptions.
- Those Way With Worlds Minibooks are coming out great! I’m working on the fourth (yes, they’re small and I’ve been doing them for awhile). I think you’ll enjoy them.
- There’s a new generator in the works, inspired by my gamecrush Failbetter games. Oh and go back their now project, Sunless Skies!
- I’m trying to write more than just updates and books, and hoping the lack of illness will make that easier.
- I and my roommate have become addicted to RWBY.
That’s it for me. Just letting you know I’m still working away here to make your life geekier, professional, creative, and interesting. As long as I stop catching colds from other people.
– Steve
Got a bit of bad news – Disqus has altered how comments work, which is including ads. This required me to tweak assorted settings to get it to work right, and it may be creating other problems including formatting in mobile, load, and reference/search. So I’ve had to take them down temporarily while I sort this out. I think they’ll be down one to two weeks while I test solutions and check results – things are pretty busy right now.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
- Steve
You may have noticed some ads in the comment sections – a change from my provider. I’m working to find the best settings (preferably “off”) for them.
- Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
(A few thoughts from a continuing work relevant to creatives here).
Creativity cannot be separated from Freedom; it is the source of it and the result of it. Share it, encourage it, understand it.
Creativity allows people to think in new ways that both liberates and maintains liberty. The creative can dream around problems, finding new solutions when none were apparent. The creative are harder to constrain by despots, as they have the tools to out-think oppressors. The hopeful tyrants cannot face down dreams they know nothing about.
The despot worries in his throne room, heart racing. Someone is out there who can find solutions, communicate in new ways, invent new treasons. The despot fears you and doesn’t even know your name.
Creativity strengthens the people that treasure it. Society is stronger for the news ideas the creative people bring. The imaginative see dead ideas and infuse them with new life, resurrecting the lost things of value. Creative people can see the foundations of society and connect them to their innovations, joining past and present, the new and the renewed.
A single shining inspiration in your mind and old ideas come alive, history is connected, and you can see how ancient thoughts and new dreams come together. Centuries and aeons link together in new strengths and old wisdom.
Creativity strengthens relations among people allowing them to support each other. The creative are open to new relations among people because they can dream. The creative find new connections among people, building alliances that resist tyranny. The creative discover new ways to understand others and cooperate in ways unforeseen. A web of connections and associations and alliances makes people all the more resilient.
Those that create are your allies, and a single conversation can create a year’s worth of dreams. A moment’s pause lets you see everyone new. You reach out to make new friends easy. What tyrant doesn’t fear a web of collaborators who can out-dream them?
Creativity should be encouraged and shared among people. To arm people with creativity is to give them tools to find meaning and protect themselves and others. To share with other people builds connections and camaraderie, creating alliances that maintain the society. The sharing and encouragement of creativity is a measure of the strength of society.
Once someone lifted you up and said you could create. Now you can reach out to others, teach them to use their creativity. Each person so encouraged is an ally and a beacon. Connection spreads from the outstretched hand.
Creativity is the result of freedom. Because new thoughts can come to mind, the unthinkable becomes possible. As old ideas can be seen anew, the foundations of society are renewed. Because new ideas are encouraged, society can change and evolve. As people encourage creativity, alliances are built.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
The Magical Girl Team Generator is released! It actually looks like it was in pretty good shape, though like many of my generators I may probably want to tweak it later.
Writing it was educational, since magical girl teams have some interesting naming structures such as they are. I had to extrapolate a lot as well. Overall I think it worked.
Here’s a few examples:
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Attraction Succubi
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Change Dancers
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Charm Snipers
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Cute Dazzle
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Enchanting Correctors
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Enchantresses Of Charm
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Goddess Sweet
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Pirate Music Club
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Steel Glamour Correctors
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Succubus Mechaangels
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The Four Mermaids Of Power
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The Three Enchantresses Of Spectrum
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The Three Priesstesses Of Force
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Transforming Heart Crusaders
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Wonder Ladies
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
And here we go,The Magical Girl Team Generator is in beta.Inspired by everything from Shattered Starlight to my work on Her Eternal Moonlight, it’s a generator to create magical girl team names, which is kind of obvious. Feedback is appreciated – getting the proper feel of names is a bit challenging.
Here’s a few examples:
- Bejeweled Soul Singers
- Candy Wand Sirens
- Crystal Sorcery Heroines
- Elemental Angels
- God Dress Ninjas
- Guardian Witches
- Rose Dracomoon Enchantresses
- Rose Travellers
- The Seven Dancers Of Action
- Ultimate Sparkle Mechacrusaders
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
Some thoughts for all the people out there that follow me for career and creative advice . . .
Improving our skills and abilities, learning new things, is something we all develop. Most of us do it consciously, sometimes with a great deal of planning. It may even obsess some of us as our jobs and lives require us to learn at a rapid pace. However there’s a shadow side to what we choose to become competent in – a choice to learn something means there’s a lot else we choose not to learn at that time.
Every choice to educate ourselves means we’re spending time and resources that aren’t used learn a different subject. Each competency is paid for in not learning something else. For all you are good at, there’s a large amount of things you don’t know and can’t do, and you chose these “incompetencies” willingly or not.
We probably don’t look at learning as “choosing an incompetency” as a form of defense because there’ so much we don’t know and it scares us. We’re taught to think only of being good (or acceptable) at something, not bad at something. We’re taught not to admit failure or lack of ability because we seem weak, but to ignore it or pretend we’re good at everything.
But we have to accept the truth – choosing a competency is also choosing incompetencies. If we accept the we choose our ignorance and lack of ability, we can choose wisely. If we’ve decided we can’t truly know or learn something, then we’re prepared for that gap in our lives.
We can develop that valuable competency of knowing what we don’t know – and why we don’t know it.
We can bring an innocent attitude to learning so those that know something we do not (that we may choose not to educate ourselves on) can teach us.
We can stop worrying about not knowing. We’re all fools at one point, so let’s be fools consciously.
Exercise: List ten things you know nothing about that affect your life. Why didn’t you learn them? What did you learn in their place?
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
I found Failbetter Games browser-based adventure game Fallen London via it’s Kickstarted sister game, Sunless Sea, a kind of nautical rogue like of comedy-horror-adventure. I quickly took to Fallen London’s playable-novel style of adventure (in fact, moreso than the brilliant but nerve-wracking Sunless Sea). As I played this game I began to wonder just why I had taken to it so much – enough to get a monthly subscription for extra elements. That’s where this essay comes in.
It’s clear this award-winning browser game has a certain something that compelled me and others. By getting my own thoughts together here I hope to make a small contribution to game analysis, as well as understand my reactions. Fallen London got me thinking about game mechanics in surprising ways, and a good analysis should help me – and others.
So let’s look at Fallen London – and what it does right. Join me, Delicious Friend.
The Basics of Fallen London
In Fallen London you’re a newcomer to the Victorian subterranean city, which was London some thirty years ago until it was stolen below ground by strange forces. Now under control of the mysterious if often friendly Masters of the Bazaar, nominally ruled by the “Traitor Empress” that made a deal with them, it’s a haunted, weird, scary, and wonderful place. Hell is nearby and has an Embassy, living objects come from distant shores of the underground “Unterzee” and previous stolen cities ruins lie around. Also, people are mailing cats.
You walk into this as a newcomer, arrested for some reason (likely just coming there), and upon escaping embark on your own destiny. Poet, spy, mercenary, investigator, and more all are available to you. As you progress you make connections, improve your character, find lodgings, unlock further secrets, and so on. Whatever you do is up to you.
All of this happens with very well-written text and story vignettes that really bring the half-horror half-comedic setting to life. Fallen London, bluntly, is probably better written than most any game and quite a few books, somewhere between Monty Python, Eldritch Horror, and Discworld.
As I analyzed it I was able to find six areas that the game did things right. These traits and mechanics, in combination, produce a marvelous experience.
Let’s take a look.
Fallen London’s Writing Writing: Expressive, Layered, Personal
It’s hard not to go on about the writing in Fallen London. Were it simply a series of novels or a comic series it’d be an epic experience on its own. The fact this writing is couched as a game makes it even more compelling as you live the writing. This excellent wordsmithing succeeds due to three factors:
Writing Comes First. It’s very clear that the writing of Fallen London is meant to be of the highest quality. The tale-telling clearly has come first over all else, bringing you into the setting, but also making the choices and usual actions of an RPG have a particular urgency and life to them. The writing is not just witty and illustrative – it makes your choices feel real, and the choices and plots are well-thought out.
Branching And Combining Stories. Various conditions unlock story options, stories have multiple resolutions with real impact, and the end of one of the tales may lead to several others. This produces clear choices that feel very real – and are often real as they will lock future choices on one hand, while opening others or at lest providing resources to open them.
Parts Of A Whole. Though there are many stories and “storylets” great care has been taken to make them part of a whole. A mysterious squid-faced man handing you a chunk of slimy amber isn’t a random event, but is due to a backstory. A marsh filled with giant mushrooms isn’t just a marsh, but the site of races as people have discovered that running across giant mushrooms is rather sporting. Everything is connected (finding these connections could occupy you quite a bit in the game).
Abstract Characters. One of the most curious elements of Fallen London is most characters are referred to by abstract names – the Wry Functionary, the Knuckle-Scarred Inspector, and so on. Instead of making them distant this abstraction makes them archetypical, giving them life, while also making the experience personal and unique. Everyone may encounter a Sardonic Music-Hall Singer, but it’s their own, personal one.
Attributes And Failure States In Fallen London: Clear, Abstract, Applicable
Representing characters with various numbers is a classic element of role-playing games. Fallen London is no different, but does it with a mix of generality, clarity, and precision.
Distinct Attributes. Characters are represented by four different Attributes – Watchful, Shadowy, Dangerous, and Persuasive. These Attributes affect a character’s chance to succeed at an appropriate task with a simple random “roll,” and a success provides colorful descriptive text as well as various rewards This simplicity makes characters and characters easy to understand – but also distinct depending on how high that Attribute is.
Attributes Associated With Settings. Various areas of the setting are associated with the activities requiring a given Attribute or Attributes. A monster-haunted area may yield mostly Dangerous tasks, while a street of crime and mysterious couriers may have mostly Shadowy activities. The limited but distinct sets of Attributes in turn allows for easy definition of various areas of the game and the stories within, as well as what one may do there.
Distinct Failure States. Each Attribute has a parallel failure state called a Menace that usually increases if one fails a more severe challenge – for instance failing a Dangerous challenge may result in an increase to Wounds. One can usually guess the probable results of a failure state from the Attribute involved and the descriptive text. The failure states also contain witty descriptions, such as one where spending time with a Vicar raises the Menace of Scandal when said Vicar turns out to be a reporter in disguise who assumes less than pure intentions. Failure is a story.
Unique Results Of Failure States. The Menaces can be treated by specific actions, such as taking Laudanum to deal with the Menace of Nightmares. In addition, if Menaces get too high then the character you play suffers specific effects, such as being imprisoned for having too much Suspicion. Addressing these challenges leads to further stories, making the tale one experiences both appropriate and unique.
Acquired Traits: Linear, Distinct, Multiple
As the character adventures, they make friends, solve cases, advance in the ranks of clubs, and so on. Representing these is done distinct from the attributes in question, often as the result of an action.
Achievements By Simple Numbers. To represent the connections people make, achievements and reputations and so on, there’s simple number scores characters acquire. These represent everything from how good a thief they are to how well-connected they may be to the police. A character may have many of these or only a few – it depends on the activities of the characters. This simple method allows for very complex character differences all with different “piles” of simple numbers.
Reputation As Number. Depending on how a character dresses, their home, and how they comport themselves, they get reputations – Bizarre, Respected, etc. that also have simple number scores, much like Attributes. The items that influence these traits, of course, often have clever and witty descriptions.
Use Of Acquired Traits. Acquired traits open up new story opportunities or may even be used like Attributes in some occasions, such as using one’s Dreaded reputation to threaten someone. Thus these acquired traits become goals, rewards, and tools while just being simple numeric stores. The drive to upgrade them also helps propel some of the game, and may inspire players to upgrade equipment and Attributes.
Progress In Fallen London: Numerical And Relevant
Progress in various ventures in Fallen London is measured by numeric scores, much like the acquired traits.
Progress Is A Number. Progress in almost anything is represented by a simple number score, often raised by challenges against Attributes or exchanging certain items. One may be “Solving a Case” and solve it when one has a score of ten. Or one may be exploring an area and solve it when one has ten points of “Exploring.” These scores are like very temporary Acquired traits, and often reset when a venture is over. These provide clear, simple measurements of progress.
Progress Influences Story. At a certain amount of “points” gained towards knowing a character or group you may unlock options such as starting a romantic relationship. Other scores may increase the challenge, such as solving a case getting harder the further one progresses, with new challenges arising. The score becomes a signal of challenges to come as well as a goal (and a player may feel their heart race as a score climbs . . .)
Negative And Conflicting Progress. These progress scores may, at times be negative or even conflict. One may be trying to outrun a rival, and as “progress” increases the rival is closer. Or one may be trying to keep one score up and another down. A few simple numbers can lead to complex stories and decisions.
Inventory; Abstracted, Related, Storied
Having a large inventory of “stuff” is a time-honored RPG tradition, and Fallen London is no different. However it uses the “adventurer inventory” to cover a wider range of ground, representing possessions far differently.
Everything As Inventory. Anything in one’s possession is portrayed in inventory, but this goes beyond guns or treasures. Possessions can also include knowledge, stories, or insights (each with its own description). One may thus have 1000 Clues or 50 different seafaring stories from their ventures – treated and inventoried no different than 70 pieces of Jade or a mysterious pistol. By treating everything as inventory the game allows a unique way to measure progress and address challenges – one may need to blackmail and enemy, and that story requires 3 Blackmail Materials (which a handy intriguer may have handy).
Inventory Presents Story Options. An item in your inventory isn’t just something to sell or “spend” for a challenge, be it pearls or an Appaling Secret. Inventory items often provide other story options when you select them, from acquiring other items to opening more stories, to helping you solve mysteries. A single kind of item might open up multiple options, giving you different ways to use them – each with their own descriptive text or substorm. One of my favorite examples is having Appalling Secrets – one option in using them is to try and “forget” a few of them with the hope of reducing Nightmares.
Inventory Converts. Another brilliant innovation in the game is that related items, from treasures to knowledge, can often be traded up in the associated “story options” mentioned. Hints become Clues, Jade can be traded for artifacts, candles traded to a church in return for mysterious salts. “Trading up” and at times “trading down” is required to unlock stories or do tasks, and figuring this out is an interesting challenge that contains its own miniature tales. One of my favorites experiences realizing that treasures I’d gathered in a seafaring venture could be swapped up to get information that in turn I could trade for a map to let me continue my adventures.
Economics: Omnipresent, Clear, Varied, Storied
As noted, some of Fallen London is about swapping various items or literal pieces of knowledge to achieve different goals. The entirety of Fallen London is actually about economics.
Progress Is Transactional. All of the well-written stories in Fallen London are essentially accessed by a transaction. This could be swapping a “move” to achieve something, or as complex as figuring out how to “grind” for information to get a legal document in order to get your hands on some important books. As these transactions are clearly stated and often work in a similar manner, the game is very easy to pick up – but the challenge is figuring how to pull off the transactions. After all you may want to save those Whispered Hints to solve a bigger mystery later, or your need to get your hands on seditious material requires you to choose between stealing from a group of Devils or getting into a fistfight with a book-carrying critic.
Tradeoffs Requiring Thought. The economics of the game also require one to consider tradeoffs. One may reduce the Menace of Nightmares with a good cup of wine, but a drunken night may raise the Menace of Scandal, which is best addressed by spending a few turns going to Church.
And So Our Analysis Of Fallen London Ends
So those are my initial thoughts on what makes Fallen London work. To sum it up I’d say it’s a writing-centric game that uses a series of simple scores and inventory systems in combination to allow for complex tales, and has simple but interesting ways to portray common game mechanics and choices. That is, of course, a simple summary.
Now as for what else we can learn, let me see where my investigations – and you reaction to this essay – take us . . .
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
And Merry Post-Christmas everyone! I hope you’re doing well. Me, I’ve got over a week off and am enjoying it – which means plenty of time to do projects. And by that I probably mean play videogames, but still.
So let’s catch up!
Way With Worlds Book 2 – I have finished my latest edits and am getting feedback in from pre-readers. Very positive on this one. Still looking to be end of March. I will need reviewers too . . .
Way With Worlds Followup – I’ve been bouncing this idea around here and there, but there are followup minibooks to Way With Worlds. Those are in the works. Those probably drop in April, over time. There’s more in my newsletters.
The Next Generator – Taking a break from Food, the next generator is a Magical Girl Team generator! The current alpha version produces teams like “Beguiling Rose Angels,” “Rune Ladies” and “Seraphim Of Energy” which seems to be on track!
Thats about it for me – enjoying the time off and relaxing. Of course that means writing . . .
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
After plenty of interruptions, Way With Worlds Book 2 is ready for pre-readers! So go on, get a preview, get a chance for feedback and contact me!
This one is a shift from the first book. The first book focused on a roughly linear set of advice on worldbuilding across various subjects. THis one is a series of collected deep dives on various issues, arranged a bit more freeform from the specific to the general. It covers conflicts, viewpoints, worldbuilding tools, and team effort – among other diverse subjects. It’s definitely a companion book to #1.
So give me a write, let me know if you want a PDF copy and let’s see what you think!
– Steve
