DLC for Fallen London
An addon for Fallen London is add-on for Fallen London, a browser-based choose-your-own-adventure game set in "Fallen London", an alternative Victorian London with gothic overtones. Totentanz was the Exceptional Story for April, 2022.
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Totentanz is a rare occurrence for Fallen London, the debut of a new guest author to failbetter. At least in terms of the Exceptional Stories, that hasn't happened since May 2020. The new writer does a good job to acquit themselves in this outing.
Tomb colonists arrive in London in droves for the titular Totentanz. It's dance that, in combination with moonlight, can let people die permanently, normally, in the way they can on the surface. It's an attractive alternative to the horrors of the Far Shore, for tomb colonists too old or weak to be certain they can come back from death like a player character, and it's also a contractual obligation of the masters to hold one for each city. That's why it becomes your very important job to actually find everything needed for the Totentanz, as they've been lost over the centuries.
The first act of the story is tracking all the components down, with the second act dealing with the event itself, and the moral dilemma of the story.
The first act is pretty light. You meet an eccentric professor, play a small auction mini-game that worked well enough for me, and have what is effectively a chase scene, jumping around to most of the low-level areas of the game. You get some ominous overtones during each acquisition, but the process is pretty straightforward.
The chase was a highlight as it had the extra touch of actually moving the player character between locations on almost every action. So often a story will have you moving all around the city but your character will still be in their library or some singular starting storylet. It's a small thing, but I wish more stories did it. Admittedly this chase was on rails and in only low level areas, so no extra work would need to be done to make sure someone wouldn't leave an area they couldn't reenter.
The second act of the story, at the Totentanz itself, is somewhat weaker. It's not that the writing or ideas are worse, if anything the themes and lore are much more at play here, and that's handled well. The problem comes from the featured supporting character, the Withered Celebrant. She's a potentially interesting character, one of the first you meet in the story. But she's not present for the investigation in the first half, and so there simply isn't a lot of time to develop her characterization. She is also the heart of the moral dilemma, so they stakes feel rushed in that regard.
It's not that you learn nothing about her, but just that it doesn't have a lot of time to breath. There are appearances from Mr. Wines, His Amused Lordship, and The Duchess in the story, but despite the last two being only cameos, all three feel like they add texture to the work from their reactions, their perspective on what's going on.
Of course, in their case there are years of characterization from the background of Fallen London, whereas the Withered Celebrant has to be build up from scratch. She has depth, and her own perspective, but it just has to be laid out in an info dump because you weren't kibitzing about the dance during the fetch quests in the first act. The author can work well with little, there's a dancer from one segment of the first act who you get a decent feel for just by visiting places she recently left, and I think having some extra space to develop the Withered Celebrant would have kicked this rating up another star.
It may not have the greatest replay value, for the small number of people for who that matters, as the major choices boil down to two paths, with a follow up later essentially asking if you've changed your mind based on the consequences so far. It works well as an expressive choice, but if you've got alts who go through the Exceptional Stories it might feel somewhat samey.
It's a solid piece all told. The writing is good and occasionally great, and a lot of the small touches, with the characters, in the design, and the development of the premise that all weave together very well, and it's just some under-doneness with the guest star character holding it back. I hope we see more from the new author, as I'd like to see their style develop.
Tomb colonists arrive in London in droves for the titular Totentanz. It's dance that, in combination with moonlight, can let people die permanently, normally, in the way they can on the surface. It's an attractive alternative to the horrors of the Far Shore, for tomb colonists too old or weak to be certain they can come back from death like a player character, and it's also a contractual obligation of the masters to hold one for each city. That's why it becomes your very important job to actually find everything needed for the Totentanz, as they've been lost over the centuries.
The first act of the story is tracking all the components down, with the second act dealing with the event itself, and the moral dilemma of the story.
The first act is pretty light. You meet an eccentric professor, play a small auction mini-game that worked well enough for me, and have what is effectively a chase scene, jumping around to most of the low-level areas of the game. You get some ominous overtones during each acquisition, but the process is pretty straightforward.
The chase was a highlight as it had the extra touch of actually moving the player character between locations on almost every action. So often a story will have you moving all around the city but your character will still be in their library or some singular starting storylet. It's a small thing, but I wish more stories did it. Admittedly this chase was on rails and in only low level areas, so no extra work would need to be done to make sure someone wouldn't leave an area they couldn't reenter.
The second act of the story, at the Totentanz itself, is somewhat weaker. It's not that the writing or ideas are worse, if anything the themes and lore are much more at play here, and that's handled well. The problem comes from the featured supporting character, the Withered Celebrant. She's a potentially interesting character, one of the first you meet in the story. But she's not present for the investigation in the first half, and so there simply isn't a lot of time to develop her characterization. She is also the heart of the moral dilemma, so they stakes feel rushed in that regard.
It's not that you learn nothing about her, but just that it doesn't have a lot of time to breath. There are appearances from Mr. Wines, His Amused Lordship, and The Duchess in the story, but despite the last two being only cameos, all three feel like they add texture to the work from their reactions, their perspective on what's going on.
Of course, in their case there are years of characterization from the background of Fallen London, whereas the Withered Celebrant has to be build up from scratch. She has depth, and her own perspective, but it just has to be laid out in an info dump because you weren't kibitzing about the dance during the fetch quests in the first act. The author can work well with little, there's a dancer from one segment of the first act who you get a decent feel for just by visiting places she recently left, and I think having some extra space to develop the Withered Celebrant would have kicked this rating up another star.
It may not have the greatest replay value, for the small number of people for who that matters, as the major choices boil down to two paths, with a follow up later essentially asking if you've changed your mind based on the consequences so far. It works well as an expressive choice, but if you've got alts who go through the Exceptional Stories it might feel somewhat samey.
It's a solid piece all told. The writing is good and occasionally great, and a lot of the small touches, with the characters, in the design, and the development of the premise that all weave together very well, and it's just some under-doneness with the guest star character holding it back. I hope we see more from the new author, as I'd like to see their style develop.