Game Review: Fallen London

 

Three decades ago, London was stolen by bats. Dragged deep into the earth by the Echo Bazaar. The sun is gone. All we have is the gas-light of Mr Fires. But Londoners can get used to anything. And it's quiet down here with the devils and the darkness and the mushroom wine. Peaceful.

But then YOU arrived.

Welcome to Fallen London.

You may choose to sign up or use either Twitter or Facebook accounts to log in to the game.

Fallen London is a browser-based card game where you choose your own path and work up your own preferred qualities.

The 4 main qualities are Dangerous, Watchful, Persuasive and Shadowy.

You can travel around Fallen London building on your qualities and following story lines or you can shop in the bizzare for items that enhance your qualities and your standing with the citizens of Fallen London.

Oh yes, the citizens.. well you are rather close to Hell, so expect to deal with some Devils at some point (and they will try to buy your soul). From Urchins to Rubbery Men to Revolutionaries and Prfessors there are many people in Fallen London to meet your acquantence.

Storylines come from actions you can play in the different parts of town, or you can play the random cards from your deck. Each provide many stories and choices for you to make.

 

 To begin, you will choose a cameo of your character, I chose the Pirate Woman.

You then bust out of jail with only ragged clothes and manicles as attire.

Complete the actions and shop in the Bizzare for clothes, accessories, goods, curiosities and pets.

All items add to your qualities.

Play cards to get housing options and find yourself somewhere nice to live, you can't stay on the street forever.

 As well as the overall game Fallen London has other add on games that help you build your character; like the Knife and Candle Game (highly illegal and completely underground), where you can stab your friends and steal their tokens to play again.

Fallen London also has its own seasons, hosted by the Masters of the Bizzare (Mr Wines, Mr Cups, Mr Pages, just to name a few) Including Mr Sacks deliveries in December and The Feast of the Exceptional Rose in February.

 

"What's so special about Fallen London?

Fallen London: once capital of the British Empire, now home of the Bazaar. Deep. Dark. Expensive. Marvellous. Here you can find everything from immortality to unnervingly good mushroom wine."

So come and join us down in Fallen London have yourself a glass of mushroom wine and take a load off in Veilgarden, hang out with the urchin gangs in the Flint, play some games at Mrs Plentifuls Carnival or come say hi to me at Wolfstack Docks.

We can't wait to meet you delicious friend.



Movie Review: City of Ember

City of Ember, based on a book of the same name by Jeanne DuPrau, opens at the end of the world.

Scientists and "builders" have created a city underground to house a few people and keep them safe until the earth heals itself and they can live on the surface once again.

The instructions on how to leave the city are placed in a box with a timer so that the box can not be opened till the 200 years is up, this box is handed from Mayor to Mayor who are the only people that know of the importance of the box. Unfortunatley with only 47 years left before they can leave the current and 7th Mayor dies unexpectadley without having passed on the information of the box.

The box is swept aside by the grieving family and after the 200 years has passed it opens without notice waiting, forgotten.

 

Now it is year 247 and Ember is falling apart and food supplies are running short.

Lina and Doon strike up a friendship on their mutual assignment day, where graduates are assigned their future jobs. Doon switches his assigned job with Lina and Lina rushes home to tell her granny and comes home to quite a debarcle. Rescuing some old paper from her little sister Poppy, Lina discovers the old box that her grandmother tells her is important though she can't remember why.

Lina sets on an adventure of deciphering the meaning of the box and its contents enlisting Doons' help.

 

A sweet little tale of desperation and survival.

The world building is wonderful, though the world isn't that big as the occupants of the city have never set foot outside the city. They live on canned goods and reply on old technology. Fresh food is rare as they are miles under the ground and no one has seen the sun in over 200 years.

Staring Bill Murray as the present day Mayor, Tim Robbins as Doons father with Saoirse Ronan as Lina and Harry Treadaway as Doon.

Very enjoyable movie even in its pradictable moments.

★★★★

 

 

Movie Review : The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec

 The story opens with a 136 million year-old pterosaur egg hatching in a museum and results in the death of a Paris official. Meanwhile Adèle Blanc-Sec, a journalist and travel writer of some fame is uncovering the mummy of King Ramesses physician to help her sisters unfortunate condition. Adèle returns home with the mummy (on a train in her luggage) only to find out that the man who was to revive the mummy, Professor Espérandieu, is on death row for the incident with the dinosaur.

 

This is a french film and as such the hijinx is plentiful, and the whole thing is corny and silly in a great way.

The movie is in french with english subtitles and is loosly based on a french comic book series based on Miss Adèle Blanc-Sec's adventures. Set in circa 1910 its a great laugh, which I completely enjoyed.

★★★★★

STARRING:

Louise Bourgoin as Adèle Blanc-Sec

Gilles Lellouche as Inspecteur Léonce Caponi

Jacky Nercessian as Professeur Espérandieu

Philippe Nahon as Professeur Ménard

Jean-Paul Rouve as Justin de Saint-Hubert

Mathieu Amalric as Dieuleveult

Nicolas Giraud as Andrej Zborowski

Book Review : Spider Wars

Spider Wars by Angela Carlie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poor Jess, if only she would listen for once, she would know what was going on.
Jess is a typical 17 year old girl, at least she is until she completes the ceremony that will grant her eteranal life. Spending summer holidays with her grandma Jess in introdcuced to three girls, that just happen to be spider-shifters. Throughout the story we are given snippets of a larger story going on though seeing it all through Jess's eyes we don't see too much seeing as she is oblivious to anything else but her own issues. She is a rough girl who can hold her own and gives as good as she gets.
This story runs along-side the first in the series and gives another perspective on the going-ons, which is an interesting way of writing a series and gives the reader a much better understanding (I think anyway) of what is actually taking place.
The story is pretty fast paced and was incredibly difficult to put down once I started reading it.

View all my reviews

Free Comic Book Day / Star Wars Day

So today is Star Wars day
May the force be with you all
and also
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY
This year we spent free comic book day at All Star Comics in Melbourne
Yes, I said we!
Free comic book day is about getting new comic readers into comics, so who better to bring along than the love of my life, who hasn't read a comic book in years?
So we arrived late, deciding to have brunch first at a cozy little cafe and waited in line for (I don't know, lets say: ) an hour. During that time the lovely staff at All Star Comics came around with a basket 3 times. The first two times it had extra bonus comics in them, I got Ultimate X-Men and Thor. The third time they brought around gorgeous and delicious star shaped sandwich cookies (you see one of the lovely ladies that works there can bake).

We were allowed to choose 6 comics from the list, they preferred us to have already decided so I brought a list with prefrences on it. Despite being late I got all 6 of my first picks. Delightful!

I got Steam Engines of Oz, Endangered Weapon B, 10 Years of Aspen, Grimm, Walking Dead and Tales from the Crypt.

My love got; Star Wars (very appropriate, being star wars day) Judge Dredd and issues 1-4 of Dark Axis.

We then made a few purchases (he got right into this), then headed out to Artist Alley.

 

Artist alley was set up with a few tables where comic artists would sit and do free sketches for everyone, there was also another stall set up with comic books from local indy artists.

We skipped waiting forever in line for a free sketch and instead I got this print of the cutest little zombie girl selling lemonade and my beloved bought some comics (yes!more! I told you he was getting into the spirit) and since he got a few from the same artist he got a free sketch that the artist had left for them to hand out.

With our load of freebies and purchases we headed off.

What a fantastic day ☃