Romance in Mask of the Rose
Playing Mask of the Rose
Mask of the Rose is the 2023 visual novel dating simulator from Failbetter Games. It’s rather different from their previous games, but that’s something I like. It is set in the world of Fallen London, which I have been putting off discussing outside of Sunless Sea because it’s a dense topic to introduce a reader to. Fortunately Mask is set less than a year after London falls, and before too much of the weirdness of the Neath has been normalised by its inhabitants. This makes it great for new players, and great for talking about the setting.
I won’t go into too much detail on the setting of Neath and Fallen London, as discovering it for yourself is a major draw of the games. London was stolen away from the surface of the earth, winding up shattered and broken in a vast underground cavern called the Neath on the shore of the Unterzee. At the centre of London sits the Bazaar, home to the Masters that are responsible for the Fall of London. The laws of nature that us surface-dwellers abide by don’t always apply in the Neath, and I find that fascinating. There’s really too much to go into, so a few highlights; Hell is real, and is London’s new neighbour; the animals can talk (cats are real gossips); London is the fifth city stolen by the Bazaar, and the fourth now lies crushed below London’s cobblestones. All of this is mixed with and seen through the lens of Victorian England, making for a weird and wonderful place to explore and learn about.
A hurdle that always made recommending the previous games difficult was the particular writing style, generally tending to obfuscate information. The best example is the names for characters. In Fallen London or Sunless Sea you would deal with the Tireless Mechanic or the Sigil-Ridden Navigator; everyone and everything had a descriptive, mysterious epithet that hinted at greater context in the world. I loved this as it really puts the emphasis on the world the story takes place in, but I can understand it might turn some people off. In Mask of the Rose, you deal with Griz and Archie, Phoebe and Ivy; a subtle change, but showing that Mask is a more intimate story, shifting the focus from the city to its inhabitants. It also has the advantage of giving newcomers a fighting chance to understand what is going on.
Mask of the Rose is narrative-driven, the goal is to follow story thread to completion and influence their outcome. Failbetter’s previous games have all had light RPG mechanics; the mechanics of Mask of the Rose are what you would expect from a visual novel. You have conversations with people to get to know them better. The form this takes is you can visit two locations per day and talk with the characters found there (with a few exceptions), and with new locations opening up as the game progresses. Conversations are influenced by the clothes you wear, the backstory you pick at the start of the game, and your relationships develop with the characters. What passes for a main quest is a murder mystery (that you can choose to ignore, at the cost of condemning the accused to hang), with various other stories you can choose to pursue – perhaps the baptism of a rat. I found the time very generous for the amount of content, and was able to complete essentially everything I wanted to in each play-through. The real main draw of Mask is getting to know the characters, which I will pick up later.
The art style of Mask of the Rose is recognisably Fallen London. Previous entries have emphasised the melancholy aspects of the world through the character portraits, but in Mask of the Rose there has been a shift to make the characters feel warmer and more welcoming. The portraits also convey a lot of character, moving between poses and facial expressions to match the content of the conversations. This is another departure from form, as in previous games the content of a scene was mostly described in third person to the player; now it is acted out in real time, with a lively and lifelike cast. Chalk their enthusiasm up to only having spent a short time in the Neath I suppose. I do like this new approach as it makes the story feel more immediate and personal, where events like the arrest of a friend for murder become that much more serious for the stark portrayal.
I don’t know much about music, although I can whistle really loudly, and I don’t usually enjoy classical music – I love the Mask of the Rose OST. Composed by Laurence Chapman, I want to call it orchestral but I don’t have the musical vocabulary to do it justice. The notes unwind smoothly like rain dripping from stalactites onto the streets of Fallen London. Harjit’s Theme is a standout, where violin and clarinet take turns to meander over a road paved with piano. A dark, subdued tone is maintained while bursts of light glimpsed through like candles in Londoner’s windows. There’s also plenty of variety, with the cheeky Menance Eradication evoking the rats and spiders that erstwhile eradicator Ferret targets. I am shocked there’s only 50 minutes of music, as I didn’t get bored over ten hours of game-time. The soundtrack really, deeply, suits the game.
Reviews near the time broadly appreciate the writing and visuals of the game but were lukewarm on the mechanics. [1-3] There is also a subset that don’t seem to get the game; that’s fine, it’s not for everyone. I do agree with the broad statement that the story crafting system is somewhat underused as a mechanic, interesting but frustrating to use, but as creative director Emily Short outlines in their blog I also appreciate it exists as a way to reconcile the difference between what the player knows and what the player-character knows (the eternal bane of mystery and puzzle games). I also broadly agree that the game encourages multiple playthroughs by limiting the player to two actions per day – I don’t mind this, although I can appreciate why it might grate the gears of a reviewer trying to see as much of the game as possible quickly in order to turn around an article. I want to mention Mask of The Rose is About Love and Belonging in Fallen London in particular, [4] as it is a well-written article and the only one I found that mentions how the game touches on ethnicity in the context of Victorian England. [5, 6]
Overall I really enjoyed playing Mask of the Rose, and think it’s a great Fallen London setting game for people to start out on. It’s also got plenty of new Neath-y content for fans to devour, and as a play-through that only takes about four to five hours there’s no reason not to give it a shot.
Romance in Mask
Really, everything aside from the romance is secondary in Mask of the Rose. Creative director Emily Short casually dropped in a blog post that “...Mask is fundamentally a game about relationships...”, which really vindicates me writing this essay (thanks!). [7] As you are uncovering the mysteries of the Neath, solving a murder case, baptising a rat and so on, you’re constantly building your connections with the characters involved. This process is split into friendship, romance, and physical intimacy – you can decide if you want to pursue any or all of these. You can also be a match-maker and try to organise hook-ups, which is a nice addition. The titular Mask of the Rose is Fallen London’s equivalent of Valentines Day – the game is building to this festival throughout, where it tests the strength of the bonds you have formed. The ending of the game is ultimately decided by your relationships, and who you choose to spend the Mask with.
The development of these relationships is a result of whether you are a nice to people, and if the character you are talking to reciprocates your advances. As far as I can tell without cracking the game open and peering at the code inside, this applies to each of the three relationship categories. I expected this to be overly skewed towards the player, as the only person in the game with real agency. Characters cannot come and speak to you, but wait in their appointed locations for you to choose to arrive. However, unexpectedly, in my second play-through my romantic advances to Barqujin were spurned; as far as I can make out, she’ll never be more than friends with the player. I was also unable to become friends with the haughty devil Virginia at all, who would deign to speak to me but made it clear I was not welcome. I was pleased to discover this, as it implied that the desires of the characters were being accounted for in their ability to shrug off the player, or take the first steps to deepen relationships – in my first run Harjit very solemnly asked me if I would be his best friend (I said yes and shook his hand). I think this aspect could cause friction from players expecting an easy love-life, judging by a review in RockPaperShotgun that lamented “Many of romantic pursuits in the Neath totally fizzled out.” [2] I adopt a different view, clearly presented by Mask and by life: interpersonal relationships don’t always work.
An interesting aspect of relationships in Mask of the Rose is their mechanical basis. Relationships are developed through dialogue, and dialogue options are affected by whether your character is interested in friendship, romance, intimacy, or a mixture thereof. In my first play-though my character was only interested in friendship and physical intimacy; i.e., they were aromantic. On my second play-through they were asexual, forming romantic attachments and friendships only. You can also be mechanically aro-ace, seeking only friendship (and you could also choose to make no friends at all, although I don’t know what the gameplay experience would be if you did).
The reader may then expect that Mask of the Rose has the player choose a gender and sexuality, thus subdividing who they can and cannot romance or seduce in a given run. This is incorrect; the aro and ace spectra are coded in, but no other elements of gender or sexuality are treated in the same way. Long-time players may recognise this ethos from picking your characters mode of address at the start of Fallen London.1 This is a far more subtle way to include relationships in a game where you decide what kind of relationships you want to have and with whom, then are left to your own to make those dreams come true. Like real life the heart is not bound by categories defined by society, or by game developers. The end result is that everyone can attempt to romance anyone - mechanically speaking, everyone is pansexual. I even stumbled across a trace of an in-setting explanation of this concept in conversation with Mr Pages, a supernatural entity and Master of the Bazaar, who revealed that since the Fall “The laws of marriage are rewritten; inhibitions of affection vigorously countermanded.” Has love been unshackled from Victorian gender expectations? It seems so. The player is free to fall in love with whomever crosses their path, regardless of gender, sexuality, or social station.
This theme of love without boundaries is complemented by the a-human characters. Fallen London contains mysterious and unknowable beings that live below the surface of the earth: Milton the handsome Devil with amber eyes and fiery skin; Moss the Clay man, a living statue from across the Unterzee; Batachikhan, the Rubbery Man, who is best described as a squid-person. As with the human characters, romance can bloom anywhere given enough nurturing. The overall message seems to be one of individual love that transcends category, and in the text of the game the characters struggle far more with social class as a barrier to their relationships.
The above paragraphs would ring hollow if the Mask only contained mechanical pansexuality, and no textually queer characters. This has been noted as being common in games, such as Stardew Valley, [8, 9] as it is programatically easy to allow the player to romance any NPC yet somehow difficult to write characters as anything other than straight. In Mask queerness - used here as a catchall for “not straight and/or cis” - is not shied away from; I gather Griz to be somewhat genderfluid, and Ferret is non-binary; Harjit followed his love, a male British officer, to London from Punjab, while Archie has had close relationships with men in his past. What I like is that these characters have been written as explicitly queer, and that no one makes a big deal about it. This is just who they are. I think this is valuable, given that representation for queer people in videogame is often thin on the ground.
The flaws I can find in Mask of the Rose are absences, and I feel mean insisting that a game include radically different content from that it shipped with. I thought that a lot of the relationships lacked depth; you can be polyamorous by attempting seduce several different characters, but you can’t discuss this with your lovers to make sure they are okay with it. In the context of Mask of the Rose this is fine, as the game isn’t aiming to be a dating immersive sim and there is only so much content you can write for a game before you release it. My bigger issue is that the characters don’t seem to have particularly strong interpersonal relationships with each other, the focus having been put on their interaction with the player. This doesn’t necessarily harm the game, but can make it feel a little more like watching a stage play set in the Neath than living there.
Overall I think Mask of the Rose has a strong message of inclusivity with regards to gender and sexuality. The game tries to weave a picture of love, friendship, and intimacy as qualities pervading major life events and quiet interpersonal moments, a soft layer of pine needles carpeting a forest floor. Although it may fall flat at times, Mask can be lauded for daring to distil these heady concepts into a very enjoyable game.
References
Accessed August 2024:
[1] Mask of the Rose Review, Joshua Wolens, PC Gamer, 2023. URL: https://www.pcgamer.com/mask-of-the-rose-review/
[2] Mask Of The Rose review: a lavish gothic dating sim that’s a little light on romance, Rachel Watts, Rock Paper Shotgun, 2023. URL: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/mask-of-the-rose-review
[3] Mask of the Rose review: Love is not enough, Ronan Price, Irish Independant, 2023. URL: https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/games/mask-of-the-rose-review-love-is-not-enough/a2030233930.html
[4] Mask of the Rose is About Love and Belonging in Fallen London, Seher, The Fandomentals, 2023. URL: https://www.thefandomentals.com/mask-of-the-rose-visual-novel-review/
[5] Harjit and the South Asian Presence in Victorian London, James Chew, Failbetter Games, 2022. URL: https://www.failbettergames.com/news/harjit-and-the-south-asian-presence-in-victorian-london
[6] Rachel, David, and the Tenterground Synagogue, Stuart Young, Failbetter Games, 2021. URL: https://www.failbettergames.com/news/rachel-david-and-the-tentergrounds-synagogue
[7] Dialogue Expressiveness in Mask of the Rose, Emily Short, Emily Short’s Interactive Storytelling, 2023. URL: https://emshort.blog/
[8] How Bisexuality Changed Video Games, verilybitchie, Youtube, 2021. Link
This work is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0
Thumbnail by Leigh.
When creating a Fallen London account, the following options are presented to determine your form of address, in response to the question “May we ask whether you’re a gentleman or a lady?”:
“A lady.”
“A gentleman.”
“My dear sir, there are individuals roaming the streets of Fallen London at this very moment with the faces of squid! Squid! Do you ask them for their gender? And yet you waste our time asking me trifling and impertinent questions about mine? It is my own business, sir, and I bid you good day.”