Update: Boy, that sure didn't take long.
Original story:
There are two vital elements to every Failbetter game. Firstly, everything is dark and a bit steampunk. Secondly, London has gone somewhere it shouldn't. In Fallen London and Sunless Sea the capital fell into a vast underground ocean full of strange islands, dark magic and bizarre folk. The upcoming sequel—now seeking esteemed patrons on Kickstarter—plans to send London into space.
Not ordinary space, of course. Failbetter promises that you will "Speak to storms. Murder a sun" and "face judgement" in a void full of clockwork suns, ancient alien cultures and leviathans that eat time. Like Sunless Sea, you'll pilot a vessel around the cosmos, meeting interesting weirdos and intermittently battling nasties in tactical real time combat.
From Fallen London through to Sunless Skies Failbetter has experimented with new interactive fiction formats, combining detailed choose-your-own-adventure structures with atmospheric art. It will be interesting to see that approach translated into a universe where Queen Victoria has decided to take her Empire to the stars. We gave Sunless Sea a very respectable score of 80 in our review, and the underwater expansion Zubmariner an outstanding 90.
At the time of writing Sunless Skies has already received £39,653 of its £100,000 goal. Stretch goals are due to be announced later, but you can find out more about pledge tiers and the game's setting on the Kickstarter page.
All Sunless Sea [official site] players get access to the formerly Kickstarter-exclusive Pirate Poet and Cladery Heir content thanks to an update to the game today. Failbetter consulted with Kickstarter backers to see if they backed the move and the consensus was apparently “the more, the merrier”, or words to that effect.
I assume the timing is very much related to Sunless Skies (the Sunless Sea sequel*) starting its own Kickstarter campaign on 1 Feb so the more people are eyeballing Failbetter’s games, the better its chances of success. … [visit site to read more]
As we continue to turn the one known human-friendly planet against us, the rich and hopeful look to space. Mate, we’re purpose-built for Earth yet couldn’t make this work; do you expect we’ll fare better with what – and who – awaits us up there? Sunless Skies [official site, Failbetter’s follow-up the the oceanic horror of Sunless Sea, will let us explore that possibility. Announcing that their Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign will launch on February 1st, Failbetter have shared a few flavourful snippets of their cosmic horror. Would you believe they’ve managed to make black holes even worse? … [visit site to read more]
Failbetter have been looking at Sunless Sea in order to inform what they do in Sunless Skies [official site], their Sunless Sea sequel set in a kind of Victorian/Fallen London version of space where the stars are being murdered. It looks like one of the lessons is about making the return journey part of exploration a bit shorter/less punishing. Obviously Sunless Skies is still in early development but the blog made for interesting reading from a design problem/solution point of view and I’ve been thinking about what I’d change myself for a while as a result. … [visit site to read more]