We're offering a paid traineeship in games writing, running Nov 2 to Dec 11, open to Black candidates.
You do not need to be a UK resident and are encouraged to apply regardless of familiarity with games and games writing. More info here:
failbettergames.com/trainees…
Please share!
the indie game we're making and three of the inspirations behind it
ALT A Fallen London illustration of a city skyline with a broken Ben Ben poking up out of a river. Text reads Fallen London, city of a thousand stories.
ALT A bat! He's little, brown, and his mouth is open with his little teeth sticking out!
ALT A cat! Black, with her mouth open showing her teeth, and green eyes.
ALT A rat! Hiding up against some wood looking cute.
We fully understand and respect that. This sort of behaviour has no place in our industry, or in any other. We can only say that we strive to be a studio we can be proud of, and that you can be proud to support.
ALT a tweet from someone called 'Cum' with the handle '@shootingHotCum' that says, "i think ur next game should be sunless floor ur train is just on the tracks like a normal train @failbettergames"
to which we replied, "thank you for the idea, twitter user @shootinghotcum"
Dear @canyoupetthedog,
We are quite invested in your output and would like to be considered for inclusion.
You can pet the Inadvisably Big Dog in Sunless Skies.
Yours hopefully,
Failbetter Games
the situation may not improve once you actually play it 👍
ALT Y'know thanks to you I've seen probably a hundred Fallen London tagged posts and it's the one fandom(?) that I've gleaned absolutely nothing about. Just no idea even what the premise is or what's going on.
Just every once in awhile I see a post like "Going to the Wonder Emporium to spend 500 golden candelabras in order to convert my 52 cursed weasels into 51 Slightly Less Cursed Weasels and 51 Minor Weasel Curses before my elegant masquerade dinner with Mr. Rodents and Mrs. Phantasmal Goop" and it's always tagged Fallen London. I understand nothing but I also sorta feel like that's the point.
Our next game will be Mask of the Rose: a Fallen London romance.
It's a romantic visual novel and prequel to all our other games in the Fallen London universe.
Coming to Kickstarter Feb 2021 - sign up to find out as soon as we go live!
kickstarter.com/projects/fai…
We know that for some of you, Fallen London and Sunless Sea are irredeemably linked with him. It can be heartbreaking to love something as much as people love these games and feel they're tainted by association.
We're hiring!
We're looking for a Senior Writer/Narrative Content Designer to work on an unannounced project in a new setting!
(Full job post follows in thread.)
#indiedev#gamedev#gamedevjobs
ALT A screengrab of the job posting, which reads:
What We Can Offer
We have a very experienced, very collaborative writing team. We talk a lot about what we’re doing, how, and why. We celebrate each other’s successes. We’d love to learn what you have to teach and to share our knowledge with you.
Failbetter is committed to offering employees a safe, respectful environment, a healthy work-life balance, and transparent decision-making. We make our games without crunch and enthusiastically eliminate systemic sources of overtime. We don’t talk over one another in meetings, and we don’t expect all our employees to share the same hobbies and cultural references. We won GameIndustry.biz’s Best Places to Work award in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Mask of the Rose is out now on Steam, GOG and Nintendo Switch!
Lose your heart to a stolen city. Solve a murder with the help of the victim. Find love, in any form you like.
Or sack all of that off in favour of discovering the origins of the tentacle in the basement.
reminder that in this age of services getting made worse in new and surprising ways, fallen london is an unbelievably huge text game that:
- is free
- is ad-free
- does not require installing anything
In partnership with the excellent @MagpieOfficial, we are giddy to announce that Fallen London: The Roleplaying Game is going to be a reality!
Coming to crowdfunding in 2025, for Fallen London's 15th birthday 🦇🎲
ALT A skeleton in a top hat brandishes a chess piece at you, against the backdrop of a darkened city. Text reads: Fallen London The Roleplaying Game, Coming in 2025
ALT A quote from Fallen London: "Pay far too much for a Headless Skeleton. Used, says the attached card."
A tumblr user adds: "what do you mean 'used'. what do you *mean* by that."
We add: "someone has used it hope that helps"
We're overjoyed to present SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG!
A free pen and paper RPG by @gshowitt to accompany SUNLESS SKIES. Play as the crew of a spacefaring locomotive, captainless and looking for trouble!
Download from @tabletopmag: ttgami.ng/skyfarer
Mask of the Rose is now live on Kickstarter!
It’s a romantic visual novel that takes place just months after London was stolen by bats.
Take a look at our campaign to find out more!
kickstarter.com/projects/fai…
ALT Screenshots from the text-based browser game Fallen London against a moody backdrop of thousands of candles in a cave. Reads: You now have 1x a Queer Soul, and then, A twist in your tale! You are now A Union Sympathiser.
ALT Three quotations from the web game Fallen London, placed against a moody background of thousands of candles in a cavern.
"This will begin a storyline that you will later greatly regret. Don't do it."
"Playing this branch will give you an unsatisfying ending in another, as-yet-unwritten story. You will not know which story; it may not come out for months, or even years. This is permanent and irrevocable."
"This is not a wise choice."
You dream that the ink that is your flesh is running off the page.
Firmament is Fallen London’s next major expansion. Acquire an airship. Explore the stalactite fields ruled by the Starved Men, the paths of the Moon-Misers, the inverted jungles of the Antipelago.
ALT A dirigible flies through a storm towards a vertiginous city in a stalactite. Lightning crashes over the city and flames on the dirigible roar. Text reads: Fallen London. Firmament.
Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition will be released on 19th May!
This is an enhanced version of the game. It will be a free update for all our players on PC, and will be the first version of Sunless Skies on consoles!
failbettergames.com/sunless-…#SunlessSkies#SovereignEdition
Marvellous romance with a hint of murder: you can now wishlist Mask of the Rose on Steam!
Seek love, for yourself or your friends. Help a murdered man find justice. And watch out for the bats.
(Steam link in comments!) #indiegames
Today is Fallen London's 14th birthday.
Thank you, delicious friend, for burning a candle with us!
(For the people who find this via the RTs, yes, it's still going, bigger and weirder than ever, and you can still play for free at fallenlondon.com)
ALT A darkened map of a place that looks like London, but isn't.
Today is fallenlondon.com's 13th birthday. A teenager!
Please join us in raising a glass to the deep, dark, marvellous, weird and wonderful game that brought us all together. 🍷
#indiegames
welcome back to all of the lapsed fallen london players who've seen fallout: london everywhere this week and suddenly remembered that goat they were grinding for
We've just released a demo for Mask of the Rose!
- Play the opening act of our marvellous romance
- Meet the citizens of Fallen London: your roommates, a couple of devils, etc
- Wear a mushroom hat
Steam link in thread! Please RT, delicious friends 💌
#indiegames#visualnovel
Anyone who plays Fallen London and also watches Dropout: please tell @samreich that we'd make a wonderful sponsor and we wouldn't at all have his cast eating candles, swapping faces and talking earnestly to rats
Since we announced a delay to Mask of the Rose in order to maintain our commitment to working without crunch, we've seen nothing but kindness and support in return.
Thank you to our community. You're truly the best games community there is.
ALT
a tumblr screenshot:
grimm-the-tiger
"Hey, you know what would be really funny?"
-Average Fallen London PC moments before disaster
failbettergames
- average fallen london writer moments before writing the worst thing you ever happily chose to do in a video game
ALT The inside of an iron ore mine in the Forest of Dean, UK. A tall cave with ragged rock face, metal mining equipment that's old and rusty, and spotlights picking out the sharp shadows of the walls. In the background there's an artwork on the wall of a simplified figure, painted in ochre.
We're hiring for a rare opportunity: Quality Analysis Intern!
- Working on our visual novel, Mask of the Rose 🌹
- Early January to the end of April
- Between 28 and 35 hours a week
- Remote inc outside the UK
- Paid (at £13 an hour)
Full details follow in thread.
ALT During the internship, your focus will be on helping us test Mask of the Rose in its last few months of development. Mask of the Rose is a visual novel, but unlike most entries in the genre, the story is extremely responsive to player action, and it has some unusual and intricate systems – the player can assemble outfits that subtly or less subtly shape how others perceive them, and there’s a whole system for crafting stories which players can use to propose a solution to a murder, or to sell tales of romance to London’s shadowy Masters.
These unusual, intricate systems make it an interesting and rewarding game to test. That said, you’ll probably have the best experience if you enjoy games with strong storytelling elements.
You’ll be working closely with our Principal QA Specialist, Lesleyann White. Lesleyann has worked as a tester with half a dozen companies and studios across games and the wider software industry, and for two as a QA training co-ordinator.
Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition is now available on #PS4!
Smuggle sunlight, barter your soul, become a spy. Perhaps you'll even achieve your life's ambition, if you don't lose your mind and eat your crew first... bit.ly/2PLfNlp
ALT a tumblr text post: Fallen London writing is 30% the most bone chilling terror you've ever experienced, 20% soul altering beautiful and poigiant prose, and 50% your character and the narrator looking at each other and trying to decide if the funny option is worth suffering the consequences of your actions
Props to the Steam commenter who described Mask of the Rose as an 'outdoor gay club'. Pejoratively, but still: one to consider for the marketing materials.
ALT An in-game text describing the Weasel of Woe
"It's not the weasel's woe. No, this weasel brings *you* misfortune."
Watchful -250
Shadowy -250
Dangerous -250
Persuasive -250
Kataleptic Toxicology -10
Monstrous Anatomy -10
A player of Chess -10
Classwork -10
Shapeling Arts -10
Artisan of the Red Science -10
Midrithacy -10
Greatly increases wounds buildup
not dissimilar from the housing market in actual london
ALT A screenshot of a Tumblr post that reads:
Buying property in fallen London is wild you just show up to the real estate agent like “okay what can I get for 600 rats on a string, 200 jars of screams from the dawn of time, a couple hundred human souls and gossip about half the population of london” and they’ll be like “okay that’ll get you a broken down boat on the zee shore without heating and with a 70% chance of death” and you’re like “sweet sounds homey”
#fallen London#anyway I have upgraded to a bigger home#hope the bookshop customers like the sound of my army of weasels
Failbetter and Alexis Kennedy are pleased to have reached a mutually agreeable settlement of all their disputes, and by such settlement have drawn a line under their long-standing disagreements.
1/2
Sunless Skies is quite a big game so we were able to fit in lots of nice things.
Steam: bit.ly/SkiesSTEAM
ALT a screenshot of a steam review which reads:
things you can do in this game:
- sabotage the british empire
- steal honey from space bees
- have your flying train torn in half by angry space bees
- be ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by a giant nonbinary space bat to help them unravel the secrets of life
- fly into the sun and get turned into glass
- fly into a different sun and get vaporized for trying to learn the secrets of the kingdom of the dead
- fly into a black hole and be forced to put on a play by the thing living inside it
- lead a rebellion and help undermine the prison industrial complex
- learn the secrets of the universe
- trans your gender at a party in the middle of space
- perform as a clown in the circus
- join a cult
- join several cults
- receive mental healthcare from demons
- receive mental healthcare from wizards
- smuggle escaped slaves to freedom
... and more that we can't fit in here!
When the pandemic arrived, we introduced a card to Fallen London called A Gift of Time, as a tiny salve against It All.
Today, we've updated the card. It's now An Invitation to Linger, and it'll be available permanently.
Thanks for lingering in London, delicious friends.
good afternoon to this now *extremely* cheerful player who wanted to join the fun
ALT a screenshot of a discord chat:
so, after seeing this tweet I had a silly idea to buy those 1500 cheerful goldfish as well
an inserted tweet: good morning to the player who accidentally bought 1500 cheerful goldfish, and their 1500 cheerful goldfish
I mistyped the amount...
an image of a fallen london inventory icon showing 11500 cheerful goldfish, with some emoji reactions expressing lols
Congratulations to our delicious friend @TheStupendium, whose Mask of the Rose/Fallen London/everything Neathy musical has hit 150,000 views in just three days!
ALT A YouTube thumbnail image of Victorian London with illustrations of four colourful characters: A humble-looking newspaper seller, a pretty barmaid with wild hair, a scruffy pickpocket and an arrogant-looking gent in a top hat.
In second place we have, "Quite frankly I am appalled you think you could get away with throwing a series of JPEGS together and call it a game."
buddy even i don't know how we get away with it
Sunless Skies: #SovereignEdition is now available!
This is the game’s debut on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch, with many completely new features, fixes, and improvements. If you already own #SunlessSkies on PC, you can now play it as a free update!
failbettergames.com/sunless-…
We're currently inviting portfolios from freelance artists interested in occasional, ongoing work on Fallen London and Mask of the Rose.
If you're a 2D illustrator with strong figurative and portrait skills, we'd like to see your work!
#GameArt#GameJobs#GameDevJobs
ALT A collage of artwork in the Fallen London style: numerous Victorian faces, silhouetted London landmarks, unusual objects, and lamplit backdrops.
In Fallen London, it is possible to wear an outfit comprised entirely of cats who have attached themselves to different parts of you. There is a secret bonus for equipping them all.
ALT a tumblr post and reply:
you ever play fallen london for so long in the morning that you forget your own real life actions aren't part of an action system
"i can't come, i'm out of actions" does work for many situations
Are you ready for the Welcome to Night Vale roleplaying game? Step into the world of Night Vale like never before!
Crowdfunding campaign coming soon!
Sign up to be notified when the campaign goes live: backerkit.com/c/projects/ren…
ALT A purple rectangle with two equal sections. The first section is The Welcome to Night Vale logo: a purple sky, with Welcome to Night Vale written in white on a black band on the bottom. Below this in black letters outlined in white are the words, "Roleplaying Game." Out of the black band rise a pyramid, antennae, water tower and telephone pole. In the sky is a large Night Vale eye. The eye is dark purple, with a crescent moon in the middle. To the right of this there are three small fluffy white clouds - two at the top, and one midway down on the left. Between the clouds are the words: Coming to Backerkit October 1! At the bottom are the Night Vale Presents and Renegade Games logos.
ALT A travel poster depicting the ruins of the London Horticultural Show, a broken signpost and twisted framework of a glass greenhouse, all speared by a giant stalactite.
Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is coming in the first half of 2020!
Nintendo Switch
PS4
Xbox One
and as a free upgrade for PC players!
Sunless Sea will also come to Switch and Xbox One in 2020. 🦑
Read the full story: bit.ly/31ALaUE#indiegames | Please RT 🚂
You gaze out across the mist-shrouded rooftops of London as the rain falls onto the slates and gables. Drop by drop, it pours.
Begin the prologue to Firmament, a free expansion to Fallen London.
ALT A dark and stormy promotional poster illustration for Fallen London's new expansion, Firmament. A dirigible with coruscating engines flies away, towards angry stalactites. More than one of them seems to contain a civilisation: windows, spires, roofs. Fog, smoke and shadow are broken only by the pinprick windows, lightning and the dirigible itself, all doused in driving rain.
We've done a blog about how the studio is doing.
I'm going to link to it in the next tweet, because that's how we have to do things on "X".
(In short, we're doing ok!)
It's launch day and before you ask, yes I've had two scones and a pot of tea
And I am READY
Mask of the Rose is coming to Steam, GOG, Switch and Epic - today! 1800 BST (UTC +1)!
ALT A nightmarish London cityscape with an ominous building in the distance. Text reads: "And then the sky was full of bats. More bats than I thought could exist in the world."
In 1663, the partial fossilised skeleton of a woolly rhinoceros was discovered in Germany. This is the “Magdeburg Unicorn”, one of the worst fossil reconstructions in human history.
If the only way you log in to Fallen London is through Twitter authentication, we strongly recommend that you add another method to safeguard against future issues with Twitter.
Mask of the Rose will come to @Steam, @GOGcom and Nintendo Switch on the 8th of June, 2023!
Here's a little about why we've delayed for a final time (clue: it's to do with that old devil called crunch): bit.ly/MotRReleaseDateBlog#IndieGames
We are hiring a part time Junior Editor to work on Fallen London!
This is an entry-level position for someone based in the UK who is familiar with Fallen London. Please pass this along if you know someone who fits the bill!
Read the full details: failbettergames.com/were-hir…
say what you like about tumblr, when they're right they're right
ALT a tumblr post which reads: Mutuals, followers, everyone, You should play fallen London. It's free, it's a browser game, it actively forbids you from spending eight hours on the game in one sitting, the writing is literally better than any novel or book or anything I've ever read or heard, you can be nonbinary, my pronouns in fallen London are "si-, er, mad-, er, yes" you can be a communist, you can be the equivalent of a billionaire, it's possibly the best self insert roleplay game ever, your marriage options are up to you, your character can be gay, bi, pan, poly, hell I married quite possibly hundreds of people all at once, anything, and only one of the stories genuinely makes you want to throw your phone off the tallest building in the world! There's hundreds of amazing stories and plots, your character backstory can be anything you choose, and the roleplay options for your character are numerous.
🌘Internship alert!🌒
We're looking for Communications and Quality Analysis interns for January 2019.
💸 Paid!
🌃 Based in London!
🌌 Supporting the launch of SUNLESS SKIES!
Full info: bit.ly/2wgTP0F
FAQ: bit.ly/2Ps4xdr
Please RT! #gamedev#indiedev
Our birthday present to Fallen London is a new, lush, isometric map! Could you help us test it? The map beta opens on Monday 3rd February.
Find out more and apply: bit.ly/2tKiqhl#fallenlondon10
Our Communications Director, @itshannahflynn, has returned from maternity leave this week. She has no trouble tweeting about herself in the third person, and she humbly requests a weasel check.
On the 1st of August, not only are we kicking off Fallen London's mass participation festival The Sixth Coil, but we also have a special Fallen London announcement later in the day. Gosh etc. More on that as it comes.
(Yes I announced an announcement. This one's worth it.)
Well bless my soul, Mask of the Rose is back in the Steam New and Trending chart, 12 days after release.
Many thanks to everyone who has taken a look. We're so glad to have you in the Neath.
🌹
ALT A picture of the Steam new and trending charts showing mask of the rose at number five
Welcome to the new players who've joined us from the Steam Summer Sale!
To address a couple of beginner concerns: no, that's not a profanity filter. It's a Victorian thing. Yes, you are doing what you think you might be doing with that Devil.
Enjoy!
Constance, the first update to Mask of the Rose is now live! 🌹
- Twice the time to seek love and save Archie
- Talking about your murder theories with Harjit costs 0 time
- And more tweaks!
(The Switch and Epic updates will follow, we don't control when they go live. ❤️ )
Our next game will be Mask of the Rose: a Fallen London romance.
It's a romantic visual novel and prequel to all our other games in the Fallen London universe.
Coming to Kickstarter Feb 2021 - sign up to find out as soon as we go live!
kickstarter.com/projects/fai…
In case you missed it, friend of the studio @TheStupendium has created yet another top tier, game-accurate, lyrically masterful song and video, this time for Alan Wake II.
Congrats to them and our friends at @remedygames!
'The Ribbon', my song feat. @camicattweets for @alanwake, in collaboration with @remedygames and @EpicGames is now LIVE!
It's the biggest production I have ever attempted and I'm so excited to finally be able to share it with you!
Link in the replies!
#AlanWake2#AlanWake#ad
i realise now that by publicly suggesting we sponsor an episode of @dropout's @GameChangerSam we have entered into an infernal bargain wherein nothing we say or don't say will convince people we are or aren't doing it, at least until the episode airs
well played, @samreich
Our community: I don't care how ambiguously evil or anatomically improbable it is, I want to romance it.
Us: SIGH ALRIGHT
35 days until Mask of the Rose comes out on Steam, GOG and Nintendo Switch.
ALT A screenshot from Mask of the Rose featuring a young woman in mannish Victorian dress, a tie and an updo, next to a very large figure in a camel coloured cloak that obscures its eyes.
Text on screen is their conversation:
Griz: The whole Ministry of Accounting and Recounting is under Mr Pages' direction.
Response options:
Acknowledge the introduction
Express gratitude for the job
Stand well back and make no sudden moves
Surprise! Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition will come to Nintendo Switch on the 23rd of April, and Xbox One on the 24th.
Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition will follow in August/September.
LOSE YOUR MIND. EAT YOUR CREW. SURVIVE.
Did you miss the news? Fallen London is getting a tabletop roleplaying game, made by @magpieofficial!
Coming to crowdfunding in 2025!
🎩🎲
ALT A skeleton in a top hat taunts you with a chess piece, against a subterranean city backdrop. Text reads: Fallen London, the roleplaying game, coming in 2025.