Failbetter Games | Wishlist Mandrake on Steam!

@failbettergames.com

9195 Followers 1129 Following

Posts by @itshannahflynn.bluesky.com, communications director. Mandrake is a narrative rural life sim, coming to Steam Early Access. Also Fallen London, Sunless Sea, etc. Press: press at failbettergames.com

The key art for Mandrake, surrounded by the frame indicating that we're going to Gamescom
What's happening in Fallen London Image of a university student in silhouette. Text reads: Dispute noise complaints against your laboratory, test your students in the Correspondence, and impress other departments with the notes from your scientific voyages. Image of a cricket ball hitting a wicket. Text reads: Not to mention the traditional University activities: Wine-tasting at Summerset ‘Fun’ with the Stoats! An eternal and ill-understood game of something called ‘cricket’! Background image of a darkened London skyline.
A cute little image showing the logo and frame of Brilliant Indie Treasures, which is like a gem popping out of a sandy bank, and within it, the hero art for Mandrake looking all lush and green. Very nice. Text reads: July 15th, 4pm.
a screengrab from fallen london that says "small blessings. you are not dead. that is about all that can be said for the current state of affairs."
A shadowy hand pulls the strings of a small figure in top hat and flared coat. Text reads: AGENTS.
A young-looking person with a pale, open face clasps a book in their hands. They're talking about their role in the village, including preparation of the dead.
A friendly creature with antlers, wings, a tail, an owl face, and ratty little hands and feet. He's wearing a neat little capelet.
Eseld, from Mandrake, describing that she's from the house of Roses, who ruled on Oleas.
A serious, slender, slightly grizzled white man in a green hooded jacket, rugged brown leather gloves, red scarf and white jerkin stares down the camera. He's holding an ornately decorated gun, and surrounded by dense greenery. Text reads: Folklore in Mandrake.
A sad poet with drooping eyes. He holds a peacock feather quill and looks miserably artistic.
The Mandrake hero art featuring Morgan Mandrake, an ambiguously gendered person in a red cape. The text reads Witches, Wizards and Warlocks, hosted by Weekend Games, indicating that Mandrake is in a Steam event by that name. There's also a Mandrake logo.
a lovely underwater scene with barely any threat in it. within the scene, a box describes a different kind of ocean: green-black and lonely, with a single buoy illuminating it. text reads: steam ocean fest, may 18 - 25 10am pacific. sunless sea. lose your mind, eat your crew. -66%, £13.99 becomes £4.75.
A great big grey rock castle turret with crenelations and everything.
A dirigible with flaming engines flies through a storm through giant stalactites to one which is seemingly populated. Tiny glowing windows pock its mass. Text reads: Fallen London. Firmament.
An older woman with white hair in a lab coat coolly regards the device in her hand: is it a billy club? With electricity crackling at the tip? The frame is dark save for its light. She also wears an additional device on a chain around her neck.
A promotional image for the Backed by Backers festival. The festival is on Steam from the 14th to the 21st of April.
A game with truly immaculate vibes. Never before have I felt so transported so suddenly into a world that is both intensely real and unfathomably alien. Though minimal in complex mechanics and skill based gameplay, it offers up an incredibly deep and fascinating world to explore. Its horror is matched by its mystery and beauty, and beckons you in like a disembodied hand emerging from the darkness. As you explore the Unterzee, your perspective of the world and what you witness are told from journal entries on a lower portion of the screen. You'll be told stories from this little page that will provide levity as well as chill you to your core. You'll be told of impossible constructs, aberrations, monstrous creatures and fates far, FAR worse than death. It will also describe beauty that borders on ethereal. Grand crystal structures and seaside cities of light, the quiet of the Neath and vast jungle islands. All these things you see are so strange and alien that they function as a form of currency, to be given to the powers that be of your choosing as insight in exchange for reward. Secrets and horrors and your standardized port reports all come together to both prove your mettle and earn your keep. The game further rewards knowledge more than skill by making the means of progress incredibly unclear to the lay person. I understand why a lot of people fall off after a few hours, I really do. You're told very little from the start, and you're expected to learn a whole world before you feel truly safe traversing it. But it pays to get out there and see the unknown. You learn about things like combining your stories to create information of real value, establishing reputation with powerful people, what goods sell well at what ports, where to find cheap fuel. While you seek to solve complicated quests that feel way more like riddles most of the time, you pick up bits and pieces of a nigh incomprehensible world and use it to survive another day. Your zailors might be rippe…
Mandrake's Steam page, showing a banner for London Games Festival.
A woman with brown hair in a bun, wearing a high-necked dusky pink blouse, in a dark environment. She is holding a lizard that's the size of a large cat. It's glowing, and the edges of its body are dithered into multiple colours.
a sigil from the game fallen london which means "the vexing improbability which, nevertheless, is the result you got"
A cosy pub with a silhouetted group of people (and a tiger) at its warm yellow window. The shingle is a candle shaped like a question mark. Text reads: The Candlefinder Society, The Case of the Clay Kidnapper!
A victorian style banknote which reads: Mercantile Bank of the Bazaar. I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of One Echo for the Masters of the Echo Bazaar. 1888 April 6 London April 6 1888. Signed by 'Chimes' and stamped with a carnivorous hat.
A tiny ship with a searchlight sailing over a giant, watchful eye.
A newspaper front page: CITY BESET BY DRACONIAN DREAMS! Saint George Absent from Parabola. Next to it, a big dragon opens its awful mouth.
a screengrab from fallen london that reads Every Good Boy Deserves Fun: An Invitation It slides through your letterbox like a knife through your ribs...
a horrendous ventriloquist's dummy with a bloody eye.
A cloaked figure stands at a wide window, grey weather outside, rain beating down on the panes. The desk is strewn with blueprints and notes.
a painterly illustration of a very big dog's face pushed very close to the viewer, tongue out
The hero art for Mandrake, a rural life sim, showing the main character in a big cape, harvesting veg. Mandrake logo appears above the laurels for the London Games Festival Official Selection.
A selection of gender options from Fallen London: Lady, Gentleman, Individual, etc
A concierge of sorts offers you a calling card. Their hair is short and slicked-back, their three piece suit is frog green. In a photo frame: a masked face with blooming flowers and a large ruff, and a rat in a pirate hat.
AI Transparency Statement We do not use generative AI in the creation of any of our games. When we say Fallen London contains over 4.5 million words, please imagine fifteen-plus years of graft by a team of writers around the world: their calloused typing-fingers, their candles low and guttering, their hair and clothing rent over the use of an em-dash. Also if you see artwork in Fallen London with too many eyes or fingers, rest assured that those are there on purpose.
A beautiful woodland on a sunny day in our game Mandrake, and some social media person has put a big thing on top that says THANK YOU FOR 100,000 WISHLISTS.
A dirigible, twin engines ablaze, thunders towards a hanging stalactite through a storm. The stalactite is peppered with buildings and illuminated windows.
A screengrab showing the Switch store has our games on sale, with Sunless Skies reduced to £7.59 and Sunless Sea down to £7.19.
A festive sprinkle of colourful lights on an otherwise dark and dreary London skyline, with the House of Chimes - Big Ben - front and centre, only slightly skew-whiff, like it's had a few too many.
Glam sat astride a roof beating it furiously with his hands, an illustration by John Vernon Lord from the 'Grettir's Saga' in Icelandic Sagas, Volume 2, The Folio Society, 2002. A dreadful revenant, sitting on the roof of a small cottage in a snowy environment. His face gurns and he waves his arms and legs.
A few hardback books on a shelf: Feudal Society, Medieval Civilisation, Europe's House Divided, and prominently: Vampires, Burial and Death - Folklore and Reality, by Paul Barber
A screenshot of Vampire Survivors, showing the protagonist beset with undead foes.
An illustration of a strong young man with dark hair. His belt carries carpenter's tools, and he has an axe over his shoulder. Text reads: The Living and the Dead.
Metheven in her high backed, ornate rocking chair, her hair wild and free, holding up a candle and her walking cane in the other hand. The moon shines above her and she's surrounded by flowers.
A lovely open plan home interior illustration. A big dining table, hearth with huge iron pots. A station for making beeswax. A large, open kitchen with a big recipe book. A rocking chair by the hearth.
Capsule art for Flamecraft, Vampyre Story, Bashful Adoration and Outclaw, next to our game, Mandrake.
Josselin. A wind-swept woman perched on a rock, wearing a long white piece of fabric wrapped around herself and cinched with a belt. Her hair is a long black plait that fades to white at the bottom. She carries a staff with a bell atop it, and the crescent moon hangs behind her head.
Eseld Isble, an older lady of the village, sitting upright at her spinning wheel. She wears a rich red robe and holds scissors and needle in hand. Roses grow around her.
Nessa Thretheway. A tall, strong blacksmith with a striking blue tattoo on her arm. She's pictured standing beside her anvil, holding her hammer, with flame and smoke around her.
Thackeray sits at his chorophon. He's seated, holding a tool, in the middle of working on it. He's wearing his eye piece and tool belt, and a stole around his neck that is the symbol of his faith.
A slender old woman in a decorated rocking chair. Burnt-down candles surround her. Her hair is long and white. She holds a candle aloft, and a walking stick in her other hand. The moon shines through vines in the background.
A series of poses for Metheven Ivey, variously incorporating her rocking chair, candles, hearth, and the moon. Sometimes she's holding the candle, sometimes not, sometimes there's an open door behind her.
Six versions of the Mandrake character Metheven Ivey in slightly different outfits. All floor length dresses with long sleeves, but with variously green or purple skirts, and different fastenings. Metheven is a slender, older lady with long light grey hair and brown skin.
Hob Halfling, a neighbour of yours. An owl-faced, round creature, with a feathered cape, ratty feet and hands, and a long, winding white tail. He's drinking a cup of tea.
A solemn, olive-skinned woman with a sweeping white robe holds a staff and gazes into the distance. The background is lush green vegetation. Text reads: Preposterously Luscious.
A glossy red glass bauble in which you can see reflected the skyline of London. A green tree covered in neathbow lights is in the background, in soft focus.
A loose, painterly illustration of a sallow and sad-looking, hangdog man. He wears a painter's smock and carries a paintbrush and palette. He's lit from below by a sickly, yellowish light. His face is stubbled and his hair unkempt.
A full page version of the key art for the game Mandrake in Edge Magazine. Titled: Studio Profile, Failbetter Games. The industry's finest sustainable storyteller shifts towards 'fireside menace', by Jeremy Peel.
Overhauled the Journal page to let you tag and sort entries; Added more customisation options with new Cameos and Lodging-specific Profile Page Headers; Offered all non-subscribers a taste of Exceptional Friendship by making the story 'Reunion' available to everybody, for free; And undertaken a programme of small tweaks to reduce the amount of unnecessary 'clickiness' in the game, including: Increasing the maximum number of things that can be bought/sold at once at the Bazaar, for all the moneybags out there; Making storylets in Marigold Station, Jericho, and the Magistracy of the Evenlode easier to use and access; Adding new map labels for the Bone Market and the Laboratory, for easy access to economic engines; Reworking Surprise Packages to make opening them feel like a gift and not a chore; Adding the 'Equip Highest' button to automagically equip the best equipment for a given stat. Released technical quality of life changes, like the ability to log in with Apple.
A warmly lit pub window features the silhouettes of various detectives, one of whom is obviously a tiger. The pub's shingle is a candle-shaped question mark, or possibly a question mark shaped candle.
A dirigible flies through the dark and storm to a giant stalactite which looks like an inverted castle. Its twin engines blaze through the rain.
A big isometric map of Fallen London, a darkened version of the city you know, with a strange and pointy building at its heart that definitely shouldn't be there.
a text post that reads: during steam's halloween sale i got the bundle of @failbettergames' fallen london-associated games - mask of the rose, sunless skies, and sunless sea. i've been concentrating on sunless sea first, and as i slooooooooooooooooooowly chug around trying to figure out where the moveable map squares are this time and also trying not to die again (i'm only on captain 2 so i think i'm doing good?), and i want to go at the faster-but-you-still-won't-blow-up speed because i'm impatient, but then your fuel consumption is higher and that means you might not be able to get back to port, so you have to slow back down, and a creature or another boat could show up and attack me at any point while i sloooooooooooooooooooooowly crawl across the map (and use up supplies faster because it takes more time to get places), i am constantly reminded of hbomberguy's video essay about the game pathologic, where he talks about how you can only walk, and you do so much walking, and it becomes part of the horror of the game that you can only ever walk. anyway sunless sea is a good game and the horrors (tm) are well conveyed through the game mechanics!