Lady Thalia and the Case of Clephan
This is number four now in a series of fun Twine games involving lady thief Thalia. I’ve played the first entry in this series and also started a bit of either the second or third one without finishing it. The exploits of Lady Thalia have always been high quality, with well-written repartee between the characters, action sequences, and some excellent observation-based and dialogue-based puzzles, as you bluff your way through restricted areas, case joints, break locks, and escape with your loot.
Apparently quite a lot’s happened in Thalia’s life since I last checked in, as she’s hung up her thief’s gloves and instead defected to the other side of the law to join a detective agency started up by Mel, the rival cop that’s been chasing after her for so long–and also someone who she was lightly flirting with in the first entry (and I presume since, but I don’t know) during their various cat and mouse encounters. Their dynamic was a joyous highlight (I nominated Mel for the XYZZY awards best NPC from that first game for that year) so I was really interested to see where this change in status quo would go.
Thalia hasn’t quite adjusted merrily into her detective career yet. It seemed that Mel has only been assigning her to desk duty and menial paperwork. What a comedown from the thrill of the heist! Thalia finds herself a bit restless.
But things pick up, as soon a copycat Lady Thalia emerges in the night, running around and committing crimes. Mel and Thalia are on the case to catch the counterfeit cat burglar, which gives them all the excuse needed to start breaking into various places themselves in order to catch the wannabe thief in the act.
Gameplay wise, the game proceeds similarly enough with some of the already well designed systems as in the first entry and with a few new wrinkles added at times (a section where either of them can intervene during a conversation if it isn’t going well, for example). Thrilling as always, with the best sequence involving having to hide and retrieve some tools. There’s more action sequences and I did vaguely miss having one more stop-and-think puzzle section during later break-ins; there’s some riddle type things during what is basically the tutorial heist but none really after that. But the action sequences are thrilling as ever. As always, I like how this series challenges the reader to pay attention to text descriptions: to say the right thing depending on how other characters act and react, to really look at the description of rooms and doors when figuring out where to go during a break-in.
I think having missed entries 2 and 3, I made some assumptions and misjudged the central relationship between Thalia and Mel a bit. My vague recollection was that they’d confirmed at least a bit of genuine romantic interest with each other by the end of the first game. I thought they’d perhaps agreed to start up a detective agency with each other with at least some understanding that they were trying to have a relationship with each other, and that was part of the draw for Thalia. That maybe turns out to not be the case! There’s more tension between the two more than just Thalia resenting the rather more mundane detective life than she’d perhaps expected, or after their first investigation, Mel holding some suspicion about whether Thalia herself is involved in the copycat crimes, which sows distrust between the two. I thought they were primarily a bit distant because of those two things, but it slowly comes out that Thalia herself might also be part of the issue. There’s a nice moment in their relationship between them later, a heart-to-heart, as they both take some hopeful steps forward.
What should a sequel aim for? Do you want the same thing, something reliable and familiar, or do you want to see something different, something grow? I did miss the breezy lightness between Mel and Thalia from the first game, and this is true for one of Thalia’s other constants as well, in the after-heist conversations. Relationships and headspaces have changed, and the scenes with both Mel and Gwen (and Gwen’s replacement) are generally a bit more frigid, as Thalia’s struggles with her job and her relationships color this entry a bit greyer. I felt some of that missing levity, but I did still like seeing this go for something different; Thalia isn’t content to just ride out her days doing the exact same thing, she’s willing to put herself somewhere new, and seems willing to finally accept and learn from her missteps and faults by the end. I’m eager to see what’s next on her journey.
scores I got
6/9 (messed up all the convos except the man who was eager to tell ghost stories… got lost a bit with the doors, lost time to nightwatchman, threw myself out the window)
9/9
6/10
(I think I missed noting down a score somewhere since it doesn’t add up to the final one below)
Thank you for playing Lady Thalia and the Case of Clephan!
Your final Finesse score, demonstrating your ability to break into buildings and locked rooms with panache (but only for the most virtuous of reasons, usually), was 26 out of a total of 33, earning you a rank of skilful thief-detective.
We hope you have enjoyed the show!