Fallen London
2009
- adventure
- fantasy
- horror
- historical
- single player
The story
Fallen London is a browser-based choose-your-own-adventure game set in "Fallen London", an alternative Victorian London with gothic overtones.
What it’s like
Fallen London is a text-led browser game, so its look lives almost entirely in the prose and in the small illustrated cards that accompany each scene: sepia and ink-dark engravings, gaslit streets, smoke-stained brick and the sheen of wet cobbles. Its Victorian-gothic city feels lamplit and claustrophobic, full of fog, brass instruments, underground markets and strange rooftops, and the writing carries a dry, witty, slightly melancholy voice that makes even mundane errands feel like rumours overheard in a pub. Reading happens in short, self-contained bursts: each choice resolves in a few lines, so the rhythm is unhurried but never slow, and the game is easy to dip into for a few minutes while the kettle boils or on a late evening with the lamp low. Its register is eerie and curious rather than frightening, with cosmic horror and body-horror touches, grim bargains and occasional bleak outcomes, but violence is mostly implied and brief, with no graphic gore and little explicit sexual content. Some scenes carry unsettling imagery or a sense of dread. Players who enjoy atmospheric, character-driven storytelling, gothic mood and the pleasure of making idiosyncratic choices in an odd, shadowed world will find it most rewarding, especially those who like long-running, ever-expanding stories they can return to at their own pace.
More games like Fallen London
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Fallen Londonand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
