Fantasy Opera: Mischief at the Masquerade
Written in Ink (I thought it was Choicescript but a lot of work’s been put into the interface).
You’re a PI hired to help solve a mystery. Police think something’s about to go down at an upcoming performance at the opera house, and you have to interview people and figure out what the suspects might have planned before they strike and ruin opening night. There’s an earnest evocation of the time period and setting throughout, inspired by 17th century Venice.
You pick some specialties at the start (maybe you’re a music expert, or you can recognize a lot of the powerful people in the city). These specialties will help you recognize and pick up on certain things during your investigation, and also bring up some special dialogue options, though I think this is aiming to have things be completely balanced no matter what you pick here.There’s also a dice roll mechanic which also depends on some of the customizations you choose to give you better odds at succeeding at certain actions (you can pick to be more observant for example), but the player is told that there’s no penalty for failing a roll. All of this stuff feels like its more like lightly customizing your story more than a huge strategy component, and it works fine on that front.
There’s a good focus on a handful of potential victims/suspects/witnesses, including performers, crew members, and even some shop owners that could know something. Dialogue mostly, and it’s solid dialogue, a solid sense of personalities, and the mystery setup and various details that emerge is actually a really well put together little puzzle in itself. You can start making deductions on what happened at the end of day one, and to solve it, you need to choose the right suspect, motive, and targets before they strike. A good range of possibilities, and though my sus-o-meter was ringing for a few of the details I saw (this thing that can only can be given over on the day of the performance? hmm!), it wasn’t immediately obvious what the entire solution would be.
Now even though this is called Fantasy Opera and the characters you talk to are orcs and stuff, I didn’t really think about this being a fantasy world too much, and. I mainly just regarded the characters as stylized humans. Was magic actually mentioned elsewhere because I didn’t notice if it was, and since I didn’t know fantasy magic was on the table this threw my deductions a bit off. I had the correct main suspect at the end of day one but not the target or motive yet, and I needed to think a bit bigger.
I think I missed an important dice roll on day 2, as a character ran in later and basically announced a clue I hadn’t gotten, to me. Once I had that clue, I was able to solve the whole thing after that. Day one–when the mystery was still wide open so anyone could’ve still been a suspect and I was still really poring over details–felt slightly more engaging than day 2, when the interviewees are a bit less central and the details start to get filled in more emphatically. It was a solid mystery overall! Though catching the suspects after the solve did feel semi-perfunctory; the whole dice roll system, I dunno, you can’t really strategize or role play around the results exactly, but I rooted for the rolls to hit of course, so I suppose it did do its job.
There’s an optional romance, and it wasn’t as if I was that invested from the few lines I said to them in the… I think they were a makeup person, but the date scene was fun and cute anyhow, and at times more high stakes than the central mystery! (that’s not a knock on the mystery, but oh wow those questions, I felt the pressure!).
Final Score
The Investigation
The correct suspect (Lord Vulpetti): 20 points
The correct target (the audience): 20 points
The correct motive (revenge against Angelo): 20 points
Helped to catch Lord Vulpetti’s accomplices (2 out of 2): 20 out of 20 points
Extra Credit
Uncovered the Valfiore family conflict over the oceanfront estate: 0 points
Summoned the City Guard within five or fewer pitches to Francesca: 0 points
Points Deducted
Missed bouquet clue during visit to Filippo’s: -10 points
Total Score: 70 out of 100
The End
Match at the Masquerade
Plan a romantic date with a member of the Teatro della Fantasia.