Fantasy Opera: Mischief at the Masquerade by Lamp Post Projects
Onto this choice-based (written in Ink) mystery game, set in a fantasy version of 17th century Venice. You’re an investigator, solving a mystery at a theatre and an upcoming opera performance. With lots of NPCs to talk to and a conspiracy to unmask.
I enjoyed so much about this. The worldbuilding of the fantasy style Venice is very well done, especially in the writing, but the character artwork also adds to it. The mystery is fun to investigate, with lots of lines to pursue. And I was gripped playing through to the very end, thoroughly invested in the investigation, and extremely happily working my way towards the solution. Which I managed all but one part of without hints.
The game uses stats and random dice rolls for some of its clue finding, providing a fun random element. You are invited at the start of the game to decide which areas your character has particular strengths in. You then have more chance of succeeding at dice rolls for clues in those areas of enquiry than others. And you may also just pick up extra clues as you go along. For example my character had special skills in music, so was automatically picking up lots of clues along the way about the opera and some of the specialised musical elements within it.
The game just feels rock solid. You can save and load, which works fine. Better than some choice games. And I didn’t run into any problems with the interface or mechanism. There’s also a quite superb in-game note taking system that you can refer to that keeps track of the clues and information you discover, as well as further leads that you can pursue. An extremely smooth playing experience.
I’m not doing the best job probably at selling this. I don’t really want to give away spoilers. But, safe to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend this game to any fans of IF, opera, Venice, or a good mystery.
I also appreciated the behind the game notes that you can read at the end. As I’ve said a few times, I always like touches like that. And there’s a walkthrough if you need it, as well as in game hints. I used the latter which is why I ended up with 90/100 points by the end (-10 for using the hints!).
Great stuff!