A Delicious Guide to Fallen London
Chapter 1: IntroductionContinued from: Chapter 0: Creating your Character
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This is the screen where we were left off after creating our character:
Next, let's choose the option "Tell me a little more before I start" and see where this will lead us.
Onwards!
Only a few clicks into the game, and we are already imprisoned. I get the feeling this game will not feature fair trials. Hoping there will be some bribes, at least.
Most actions in FL will raise your primary stats. On both successes and failures. Look at me: getting notable stat level boosts for...being imprisoned! Yay!
Apparently, this game is not about staying inside prisons. Well, that would probably turn out to be a boring game.
We are expected to make a choice from between 4 different options. Based on the very little amount of information given to us so far, it is not likely to be an informed choice. Therefore, let's pause for a moment and explain what the game is actually asking us to do.
On the left-hand side, you will see your 4 primary stats: Watchful, Shadowy, Dangerous and Persuasive. These are the ones that increased from 2 to 5 upon being imprisoned.
Much of the progress in FL comes through improving these 4 key stats. In practice, following interesting stories will end up advancing your stats as a reward, so for the most part, you won't need to actively think about how you should go on progressing them.
The icons for Watchful, Shadowy, Dangerous and Persuasive. You WILL learn to remember these icons.
Watchful (Owl)
Watchful ~ Perception. Your ability to locate and see missing things, people and their motives, as well as hidden agendas.
Failing in Watchful challenges increases one's Nightmares.
Shadowy (Cat)
Shadowy ~ Sneakiness. Your ability to move unseen, steal stuff and advance hidden agendas in secret.
Failure in Shadowy challenges makes one Suspicious.
Dangerous (Bear)
Dangerous ~ Combat. Your ability to punch or blast through things and people without stopping to ask questions. You don't rely on or trust no one but yourself and your strength.
Failure in Dangerous challenges increases one's Wounds.
Persuasive (Fox)
Persuasive ~ Charm. Your ability to charm, manipulate and convince the NPCs of Fallen London to bend to your will. You are pulling all the strings.
Failure in Persuasive challenges makes one Scandalous.
Upon closer inspection, we realize that each of these stats is associated with a corresponding challenge:
Challenges!
In other words, you will choose what kind of a character you will become in the beginning of the game.
Clicking on a challenge - or alternatively holding your mouse over a challenge for a couple of seconds - will expand the challenge, and display the percentage probability for that challenge in numerals instead of colored words. The higher your stat associated with the challenge is, the higher your success rate. And with high enough stats, you can achieve 100% success rate, as we have here.
Numbers!
Both succeeding and failing challenges will advance your stats. Successes will move the story forward (or give an additional reward, such as Rostygold); failure will typically have a non-stat penalty (e.g. if you had to pay something to attempt the action, you will typically lose the payment upon failure.). For simple actions, you will be allowed to immediately try the challenge again if you failed.
In other words, Fallen London is not a game where you should be scared to attempt stuff for fear of failure. Not even death is permanent in the Neath; but more about that later on.
I have already mentioned actions and stories. These are called "actions within a storylet":
Action within a Storylet!
Clicking on an action within the storylet will typically perform a challenge. This is an action, and you are allowed a limited amount of actions. But more about that and about other ways to use up actions outside of storylets will be discussed later.
(NOTE: During some stories, one of your 4 stats will grow more quickly than the others. For example, a story about solving a mystery might involve many Watchful challenges, while a story about courting someone might involve many Persuasive challenges. Therefore, having 1 of your 4 main stats much higher than your other stats is perfectly normal in the game.)
For now, I want to be a Persuasive individual, since I imagine guides will need to have a lot of Persuasion to make you try out this delicious game yourself.
Onwards!
How do we know the dirigible can be trusted? Oh well, keep calm and carry on.
This must have been the fastest prison escape ever known to man?
Because the description of Veilgarden bolds Persuasive, I will choose to go there next. You should choose whichever option you prefer for your character. We will visit all four locations briefly in the next Chapter of this guide.
You should get into the habit of reading through these things, even when you don't understand their meaning.
This is the main way the game will communicate advances and news to you after you complete an action. We'll explain what these particular ones mean in more detail later on in the guide.
Welcome...time traveler?
We seem to have landed on an expired welcoming screen from August (at the time of writing, it is Christmas). Let's click on the "Let Me Explore on My Own" -button to continue.
Hello World!
Thousand choices await...in the next Chapter.
If your character chose to go into some place other than Veilgarden, do not worry. We will cover traveling in Chapter 3, once we have finished going through
Chapter 2a: Actions - Opportunities