Alexis Kennedy was founder of Failbetter Games and creator of Fallen London (Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies are part of it's universe). Fallen London is an extremely grindy game, where you're repeating actions over and over and over just to get a bit more story. Now, Alexis Kennedy claimed that unlike other browser-based games, Fallen London isn't predatory, but that's not true; there are people who brought THOUSANDS of dollars worth of actions/stories. Most stories cost 12,3$ - to give you some example, in the terms of how much text you get (as Fallen London is text based), this is roughly 2 A4 pages. Biggest story (36$) is roughly ~10 A4 pages.

Now, I love Fallen London universe, I love Sunless Sea and I only slighty dislike Sunless Skies, but to claim that your game isn't "as predatory as other browser based games" is simply not true. Trend of Fallen London grind appears in all of Failbetter games because that's what they've learned working on FL - and while it's understandable there as grinding = people spending more money on product to avoid grind part - it's not understandable nor desirable in single player offline games like Sunless Sea; which still have innormous amount of grinding (both in terms of time and items you need to get).


There's quite a good article about Fallen London and other Failbetter projects on HG101, however since they're moving to new website current one looks terrible. https://hg101.kontek.net/fallenlondon/fallenlondon.htm

I laughed perhaps harder than I should have at this one....

Cultist simulator, cultiiiiist simulatooooooor

I understood that reference. Pretty sad, eh?

Plus they're not cute cheerleaders. Can't have a cult without cute cheerleaders.....
Went over my head....

80's One Hit Wonder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TYv2PhG89A

Lovely girl, though. Met her once in London, back in the day.

It is all about Lovecraft and the Call of Ctulhu, man.

Not for the human mind because they break it... Written by people who was already insane... So that others wpuld come to adore the unspeakable horrors they served... ;-) Abdul Alhazred the most well known of all of them...

A lot of Lovecraft is about people who "stumble" onto the "greater world" that exists beyond human comprehension and understanding. So this is stuff that people were never really supposed to know or understand, but at times certain individuals are able to tap into it or catch a glimpse of it (usually to their extreme detriment). Then they'll try to understand it or make sense of it, and usually either go insane or be eaten by a grue.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

That's a Lovecraft line above that sums it up nicely. Funny enough, we're probably right at the point too ;) Some fun stuff is going to come out in the next 100 years or so.

It'd be like if suddenly you gained the ability to read everyone's mind and see in six dimensions all at once then tried to write down the experience. Just before you ripped out your own eyeballs and tore out your hair.

deleted

This is true. And, Fairfox, your avatar is always fascinating.

On topic, Lovecraft and speculative art & writing generally are just life, the Universe and everything to me.

As a Kickstarter backer (this was THE game that made me join Kickstarter...), I already got to enjoy the partial implementation.

The game is not so much a "card game" as "resource management" game with tokens. The way the board works is that you have "action" boxes (Verbs) that you can feed certain "cards" into.

The fun comes from finding combinations that unlock new possibilities. Well, that and the minimalistic but highly engaging story-telling through Verb and token descriptors.

It is a... quirky game, for certain, and probably closer to Fallen London than Sunless Sea, but carries the same air of unspoken things as either game. If there is anything Alexis Kennedy knows how to do well, it is just that.

I strongly disagree with reative00's comment about grind, but perhaps I have a different definition of it. I never had issues with Sunless Sea in that regard, and certainly don't feel it with the Cultist Simulator. If anything, the game is much faster paced.

Anyway, I strongly recommend it even in current state. For an "experimental" game, it's already a great source of entertainment.

Just make certain not to bring your Lantern into the Light.

*sigh* Now I have nothing but 80s pop in my youtube recommended. :(

You say that like it's a bad thing! The 80s now that's where the good music is. Not this crap kids listen to nowadays.

God, I feel old...

"Take the Skinheads bowling, take them bowling."