The streets of Echo Bazaar

[winter]

People who follow me on Twitter are intimately familiar with the fact I play Echo Bazaar. What can I say - tweeting about it gives me more actions :>

It's a fantastic Gothic Victorian Horror narrative adventure that goes on by the strength of its writing, to the point where I feel as excited to get at a new storylet as at a book by a favourite author. And for weeks now, my character (an individual of mysterious and indistinct gender, thank you very much) has been hyperventilating in the very presence of the Summerset Provost at the University of Fallen London, to the point where I went through endless repetitions of the University Term storylet sequence just to get a chance for my character to seduce him. The University book ends with an exceedingly long storylet in which choices I made before about what kind of person my character is, forced hir to do something drastic to the Provost this morning.

Those pages of text have stayed with me for the whole day. Damn, this is good writing. Meta-narrative. Something.

So, who else is playing?

Comments

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

I went through endless repetitions of the University Term storylet sequence just to get a chance for my character to seduce him.

You just made my day. :)

[winter]

*flails* There was only one chance per term and at first I didn't know about it and didn't work on the required quality, then I failed the test at what should have been a sure thing like five times!

The things I do for my characters...

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

The Starveling Cat! The Starveling Cat! It knows what we think -- and we don't like that!

[winter]

...apparently during Pass the Cat, you can get a Starveling Cat. I want one!

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Normally I'm incredibly nice to the cats, but lately I've been playing the occasional round of Pass the Cat, just to see if I can get one. I think it's something that you get when you're really unfortunate, though, so I think I'm exclusively driven by curiosity here. And the sheer awesomeness of maybe having one, of course.

There's a lot in that game one does just for the awesomeness (http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/5098/narrative.jpg), I find.

[winter]

Are you playing with Twitter? Because I need someone to play Pass the Cat with ;)

(And hee! I spend far too much time ingnoring the cheerful gentleman in the stovepipe hat...)

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Indeedy. I'm under the handle "Spidertamer".

Let's pass some cats!

[hawkwolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love EB! It was my distraction of choice during NaNo and Yuletide this year. Then other things took over. I should start playing again.

Can I follow you on Twitter? I need more EB people

[winter]

Please :) Same ID as on LJ.

[ruderal-species.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of this, but now I'll have to try it out (except I don't have twitter, so will have to try the FB version...)

[muffin-song.livejournal.com]

I'd actually recommend making a Twitter account, if only to sign into the game. The thing is that whenever you "echo" (something you need to do in order to boost your number of actions per day), it reflects on your social media site. And it may be better to do that on an Echo Bazaar-only Twitter account than on your Facebook.

In any case, it's a fabulous, very atmospheric game and I highly recommend it.

[ruderal-species.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see how you run out of actions quickly if you actually play for more than minute or two...

I've successfully avoided a Twitter acct for so long, though, that I think I'll wait and see if I truly get addicted to this before I do anything drastic. ;)

[winter]

Just note that if you're playing via Facebook, you may have to start from scratch on Twitter or link your Twitter and Facebook accounts (and Facebook, I assume, has your real name).

Good luck :>

[ruderal-species.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that. :/

Is there anything that absolutely requires me to "Echo" things or is it just for more actions? It's one thing to be patient, it's another to be stuck. ;)

[winter]

I haven't encountered any must-echo ones yet, and I'm at the very edge of available content. However, there are things that are 10,000 times easier when you have "friends" playing the game - and they have to be friends on the social network you're using for the game. I bother muffin_song and penknife for chess games all the time :> This is one reason I'd recommend Twitter; a lot of people have EchoBazaar-only accounts, and mine is about 50% EchoBazaar.

[winter]

I agree with Becca, get Twitter for it so that you don't annoy everyone. You don't even have to visit Twitter at all afterwards, the tweeting's done from within EB.

(And it won me from the off from allowing people to play otokoyaku invididuals of mysterious and indeterminate gender.)

[ruderal-species.livejournal.com]

I picked individual of mysterious and indeterminate gender JUST because I liked the text about the squid in the character creation bit. ;)

[arabwel.livejournal.com]

omg you slattern the provost is miiiiiiiine!!!! *ahem* right, trying to seduce the provost here too!

[winter]

As I said, I'm done with him, so good luck ;)

[of-carabas.livejournal.com]

...That is awesome. Thanks for the new addiction.

[winter]

I thought it'd be relevant to your interests :D It's like Neverwhere only more Victorian!

[dbalthasar.livejournal.com]

I'm still trying to raise Watchful to a point where I can get meaningful access to the University.... The writing is just so good!

May I follow you? I'm willing to Pass Cats. :-)

[winter]

Please :) And oh, the University's brilliant, especially the second half. My second favourite after the Cheesemonger storyline.