Hello, delicious friends,

Sunless Sea is turning 10 years old on the 6th of February, if you can believe it. Sunless Skies is already 6! My, they grow up so fast. We're having a celebratory sale in honour of the milestone, so a good chance to pick up any of the Fallen London Universe games at lifetime best prices.

The game that originated the universe - the Zee, the High Wilderness, and every dreadful thing in them - Fallen London[www.fallenlondon.com], is now 15! (Anyone making calculations about how old that makes us should probably just let that thought wink out like a false-star.)

In celebration, Fallen London is getting a major adaptation for tabletop roleplaying, developed by Magpie Games. Magpie are the team behind Root, Avatar Legends, Urban Shadows, Bluebeard's Bride and many more wonderful games.

We hope this development will excite those of you who have asked us down the years if we could create a TTRPG system for this world. The initial project is to create the core rulebook and a supplement for London, with the dream being to follow that up with a Sunless Sea module, should everything work out well.

We hope you'll take a look, and that this will enable you to have further adventures in the Neath, this time working together with your friends in pursuit of a grand, world-changing ambition. Cannibalism is not guaranteed, but can never be fully discounted when improvising a story with friends!

The Kickstarter starts on the 11th of February, and you can follow it now to get a notification when it goes live.

Platform: PC (Windows/Linux/MacOS)

Build Version: 2.0.5.6e8c8ff

Release Date: 27/06/2024



Sunless Skies is now available on the Epic Games Store. There are a number of narrative fixes that have been included and we are updating the Steam and GOG builds with those fixes so there is parity across all versions.

• The icon for the Dominant in the Reach quality has been changed to prevent confusion over the quality requirements for prospects.
  
  
• Your skill qualities will now adjust accordingly when altering a Facet of your past when incarcerated at Piranesi.
  
  
• Quality requirements for prospects linked with the Devil's secondment at the Avid Horizon are now visible on the Bazaar interface.
  
  
• Many typos and inconsistencies have been fixed.

Today it’s been exactly a year since Mask of the Rose was funded on Kickstarter, and we've just released a demo of the first act, available right now on Steam!

Get the free demo on Steam, for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Offering a condensed version of Act I of Mask of the Rose, you’ll be able to explore select locations across Fallen London, introduce yourself to some key characters and encounter Mr Pages, one of the mysterious new Masters who have recently taken over London, in its office at the Bazaar.

At the opening of Mask of the Rose, Mr Pages has employed your housemate, Griz, who has in turn found a few pennies’ work for you as census taker. The census goes some way beyond the expected (Surface census forms never did ask if anyone in the residence was in love), so you’ll need to approach conversations with care to find out all you need to know.

Demo Feedback

We're really excited to know what you think about exploring Fallen London from this perspective for the first time. The very best places to talk about it will be the Steam discussion forums for Mask of the Rose, or if you want to join one of our community spaces, there's Discord[discord.gg], our forums[community.failbettergames.com], and the Fallen London subreddit.

There are a few things it’ll be useful to know before you send feedback:

• In the final game there will be a text log, so you can scroll back through conversations
  
• There will also be audio sliders under Settings
  
• And of course, there will be saving in the finished game (the final version of Act I will be fleshed out from this version, so carrying choices over wouldn’t be possible).

Spotted a bug?

The demo has been through our internal testing, but if you see any bugs or typos we missed, please let us know by emailing mask@failbettergames.com, attaching your player log. Here are some instructions to help you find your player log.

We will probably only update the demo if something pretty bad has slipped through, but this will let us fix everything before we release the full game. Thank you!

Release Date News

We have also announced that Mask of the Rose will release in Oct/Nov this year. Hopefully this taste will keep you going until then!

As ever, your friends,
Failbetter Games

You may have seen that we Kickstarted a new game in the same universe as Sunless Skies in February this year. Now we're pleased to announce that it has a shiny Steam page!

Mask of the Rose is a romantic visual novel, so somewhat different to Sunless Skies and Sunless Sea. However, it's set in the same universe, and brings all of our expertise in writing deep, surprising, meaningful stories, this time on a more personal level.

Thanks to an unknown bargain, London now resides in a vast cavern under the earth. Down here, the sun doesn't shine, and Parliament has sunk into the Thames. Queen Victoria never emerges from her palace. Cats spy on their owners and whisper their secrets abroad. The fabric of strait-laced Victorian society has begun to fray.

New Masters are in charge. Why are they so… tall? And always cloaked? And why are they so interested in love stories?

Even death itself has a twist here: the first murder victim since the Fall is feeling much better, and keen to see justice done. Unfortunately, as the doctor who treated him immediately before he expired, your housemate Archie is the prime suspect...

• (Re)invent yourself: who were you before the Fall? Who will you be now?
  
• Create outfits from a selection of clothing and unusual accessories to unlock different story options
  
• Fall in love with a cast of diverse Londoners, each with their own secrets
  
• Matchmake among your friends, or seek love for yourself (by any definition you like)
  
• Write love stories in a delightful minigame, and use them to impress the new Masters
  
• Pick up odd jobs to earn money and gather resources. How are you at rat catching?
  
• Solve the first murder since the Fall, with the assistance of the victim
  
• Discover cosy, mysterious and magnificent locations in a dark and delicious version of Victorian London
  
• Seek deeper and deeper secrets over multiple playthroughs

We hope you'll take a look at Mask of the Rose, and wishlist to find out more about romancing bats!

We’ve been unable to fully resolve the outstanding bug with the locomotive headlight which is seen on some OSX devices. However there is a workaround; using -force-glcore or alternatively -force-opengl as a launch command will resolve the issue. Full steps can be found in our troubleshooting guide.

• The screen will no longer shake when docking, though the locomotive itself may judder slightly.
  
• After erupting from host locomotives, Guest tentacles will continue to writhe.
  
• Dreadnought Guest damage and death animations have returned.
  
• The animations on Chorister Bee’s wings should no longer freeze.
  
• Agent headlight intensity has been lowered slightly so it is easier to see their bullets on smaller screens.
  
• The chart label for the Eleutheria transit relay in Worlebury is no longer blank.
  
• Tutorial ambient messages and control prompts now have a background layer so they are easier to read.
  
• Gamepad exclusive fields have been removed from the Controls menu.

• The Researcher’s Crusade quest is now displayed in the journal rather than on the status panel.
  
• All references of Ministry-Approved Permits have been replaced with Ministry-Stamped Permits.
  
• The Poetic Forged Companion will no longer be mentioned when speaking to The Pugilistic Forged Companion.
  
• You will now always gain Terror when failing to climb the mountain at Lustrum.
  
• The Patchwork Devil quest will now update in the journal once you’ve captured a live Chorister Bee.
  
• If the Incognito Princess is on secondment you cannot forge a ring for her at Carillon, or help her meet the Measurer's demands at Crossroads.
  
• The safer and riskier options on prospect opportunities at Lustrum and Prosper now display the correct chance of success.
  
• Peculiarities on the status panel will now display a level description where appropriate.
  
• Several typos have been fixed.

We’re still looking into the docking stutter and some pesky issues on Mac builds, including issues with the headlights. We’ll get these fixes out ASAP.

As always thank you for your patience and support.

• It should no longer be possible to get stuck while speaking to the Phlegmatic Researcher about their requests.
  
• The need to collect a passenger for the New Street Line before going to the drop off point should now be signalled a little more clearly.
  
• Searching Elsewhere at the Sun-Shattered Dome will now degrade your suit.
  
• Captains with Past: A Bell Tolls will no longer see two options to dispose of their death at the Nurseries.
  
• Once you've dealt with the Vagabond at Old Tom's Well, there will no longer be a conversation option with the Minister which suggests you don't know what became of him.
  
• Captains participating in the Rochester Race in Albion will no longer be falsely told that they have 30 days to win, when in fact they have 15.
  
• Various duplicate occurrences of 'the' have been removed from the Court of Mules
  
• While stepping out of a circle at the Regent's Grave, it will no longer be suggested that you are, in fact, stepping in to it.
  
• Transporting a Workworld Runaway will no longer cause the amount of cargo in your hold to go out of sync.
  
• Captains will now be directed to the correct auction house when they receive a Prospect Opportunity.
  
• Several typos have been fixed.

• We believe we have fixed the issue with avatars not generating correctly on Mac devices. If you still see a blank avatar when creating a new captain then please let us know via the in-game bug reporter. We'd also appreciate reports to confirm the fix is working - thank you in advance.
  
• Bronzewood has been reduced in size to ensure it never completely blocks the corridors in the Reach.
  
• Agents in the Blue Kingdom should no longer become trapped by Vaults or Enclaves of the Dead.
  
• The explosion SFX heard when travelling through the Albion to Eleutheria relay for the first time can now be muted.
  
• Loading at relays with mechanical problems no longer causes the heat bar to become misaligned.
  
• After suffering from mechanical problems the heat bar will return to full size after leveling up via the facet interface.
  
• Tooltips will no longer draw partially off screen, particularly when using the larger font size.
  
• The player log will no longer be spammed with errors when using a resolution with a non-16:9 aspect ratio on Macs
  
• Letterboxing on non-16:9 resolutions will no longer flicker and should now be black instead of red on Macs
  
• Storylets will no longer become frozen and prevent you from making progress.

We are still looking into the stutter that is seen when docking and a number of other bugs. We aim to address these issues and put out another build in the coming weeks, however key members of the Sunless Skies team are now on much needed annual leave and will return in just over a week’s time when work on these issues will commence.

Thank you for your patience and the help with testing the beta builds we’ve been releasing.

• Quality Result text is now visible on Mac devices.
  
• We’ve updated some blur shaders which may be causing UI transparency issues on Macs.
  
• You can now use keyboard thrust controls immediately after closing an interface, even if pressing the thrust keys with the menu was still open.
  
• We’ve made some changes to make the scout behave better when it is deployed. If it refuses to be sent out again please send an in-game bug report so we can take a look further into why they are being disobedient.
  
• Ambient messages should no longer trigger on the same frame causing the text to double up over the top of each other.
  
• We’ve made some changes to the avatar rendertexture to attempt to resolve the missing avatar in character creation that some Mac players are seeing. Since our office Macs are unaffected, we need volunteers to test this out and report back to us. Please create a new save and complete the tutorial to the point of character creation, then send an in-game bug report to us to let us know if your avatar displays correctly. N.B. If it does we recommend creating an avatar to replace the blank one in your current lineage

• If your Caged Catch escapes, the ensuing events will now always be described in correct prose.
  
• Once you have completed the Experimental Engine quest and received the Devourer of Distance, the Contriver's Collaborator will no longer incorrectly show up in your passenger list.
  
• When you are Assisting a Penitent Nurse, the journal will be less repetitious.
  
• Captains will now always be able to see some of the exploration options at Port Prosper, even if they do not currently meet the requirements for them.
  
• It is no longer possible to prematurely abandon your conversation with the Illuminated Archivist, and so become unavailable to reach the end of the associated story.
  
• It should now be clearer that the Office of Works may offer captains a task twice in a row.
  
• It should now be clearer that only one of the field samples is required to complete a quest at the Nature Reserve.
  
• Handwriting in the Abandoned Signal Box ledger is still poor, but this fact will now not be randomly repeated twice in the same passage.
  
• Paying off a Lustrum prospector will now cost exactly as much as claimed, rather than three times more.
  
• Captains who defeat a Resurrectionist will no longer be shown two different hull repair options.
  
• If passengers change their minds and ask to be returned to Port Prosper, captains can now oblige them.
  
• It is now possible to make a sacrifice to the Burrower Below while Adrift, so long as you have her attention.
  
• If you labour for Nostalgic Crockery at Worlebury-juxta-Mare, you will no longer be falsely informed that you will receive tea as a reward.
  
• It should now be clearer that a certain tea-related bargain can be available from a variety of ports.
  
• The scholars of Traitor's Wood will no longer request or receive consignments of literature if they are no longer there.
  
• Amberley Murgatroyd will now never falsely claim Midnight's Favour is more scarce than it truly is.
  
• It is no longer possible to meet Midnight through tea drinking if they have been met through the monastery.
  
• The Ministry of Public Decency has once again valiantly dispatched a number of typos.

• The micro stuttering seen on locomotives, agents and projectiles has been resolved - this has introduced a stutter when docking, we're looking into it.
  
• Prospect quality effects are once again visible.
  
• Mr Menagerie, the Inscribed Tinkerer and the Portsmouth Arsenal now state the correct level requirement for equipment and scouts.
  
• Several typos have been fixed.

We're working on more bug fixes next week so expect further builds soon. Thank you for your patience and all the help with testing the FPS issues on the beta builds.