I only bought this game yesterday, and I’ve played it twice. The first time I picked Vega, romance-wise. I’m not sure why I chose Vega over Ash, but there you go. I’m going to have to try to work out how to hook up with him the other time, because I only hooked up with him the once. Anyway, I didn’t pay off my debt, and I ended up as a skeleton, which didn’t seem to put Vega off too much. <3
Second play, I paid off my debt (yay), was in love with Ash, didn’t become a skeleton, and became partner. Hells yeah. Obviously, I didn’t work for Ash’s firm because we couldn’t be together.
Question - Is there a way to not fail when you’re doing the goddess thing?
I was so shocked when I got the skeleton ending. I chose the power of friendship ending because I had (I suppose mistakenly) assumed that it would all end up alright.
The game was really, really good though. I found I liked Vega’s character a lot and could really relate to him. Called him out on his bullshit straight up in a professional manner and then offered him a helping hand later on; the fact that he and the main character are always so drained was amusing to me.
The only real problem I had was that it was difficult to understand what was going on because of all the jargon, but the imagery–and writing style–were both fantastic. Really caught my attention when it opened up by allowing me to essentially punch God in the face.
Tagerlilly–if you have a casual relationship and high friendship with Vega, confiding in him and asking for his help, it will lead to the scene in the bar and the train. If you kiss him you will either ask to go back to his apartment or he’ll ask you, I’m not certain. Then you can let him down, because your poor Lawyer is already running so low on sleep
I know this topic is really old, but I’ve recently read the Craft Sequence novels, and they were very awesome!
Spoilers below for Four Roads Cross
So Ashleigh Wakefield makes an appearance in this book, and the narration goes out of the way to describe them without using pronouns! Is this confirmation that Ashleigh is actually canonically nonbinary? (or genderfluid or bigender?)
I started reading the Craft Sequence recently too, I just finished Two Serpents Rise. I wish I wasn’t such a slow reader because I need to get to Four Roads Cross soon, I love Wakefield And plus the next book is coming out in a few months. Is it just a cameo or is it a bigger part? Also that is possible but it could also just avoiding the subject of gender? Max Gladstone is really active on twitter though so you could ask
It’s a fairly big part! Wakefield has lines and does some cool stuff. Plus, interesting implications for game/book interactions. Vega gets a cameo, but it’s just a brief mention that he exists.
Yeah, I know it could just be avoiding the subject, but Gladstone has done a lot with trans characters before; Kai, a main character from Full Fathom Five, for example, is a trans woman, there’s a trans man in Last First Snow, and I might be misremembering, but I think there’s a genderfluid deathless king mentioned in one of his works. Something about armor and different skeletons they can wear? I don’t have a twitter, though, so I can’t actually ask.
I just. Love the craft sequence so much? It’s so good. Only way it would be better is if we had more nonbinary characters and some aces up in there–and as a corollary, nonbinary options in future games, and more ace-friendly games. For example: in Deathless, reject the kiss without rejecting the company. In City’s thirst, be able to offer verbal comfort to Verity without her sending you away. Be able to go on vacation with someone you aren’t necessarily romancing. That sort of thing.
I think it’s more the author not wanting to make Ashleigh’s gender canon, so the player can imagine them the gender they were when the player played the game.
[quote=“hallofmirrors, post:73, topic:1999”]
Be able to go on vacation with someone you aren’t necessarily romancin[/quote]
That’s one of the things I liked about City’s Thirst. I romanced Jesse (wasn’t too impressed, mostly because he was my only option in that game, and not the type I normally go for) and went on vacation with The King in Red. That was way more interesting.
Um. What I mean is, if you look in the code, if you don’t like_men, you can’t take Kopil on vacation. So there are some implications there. The exception is, of course, Dunestrider. I just think it’s kind of dumb that you can’t take a friend on vacation unless you’re attracted to their gender.
As far as I’m aware, saving them from John Smith without hurting them is the only requirement and then they’ll ask to see you before you go to the demon realm at the end. However, in the bar scene right before that when the narration asks what you and Wakefield are to each other you can get an option that more or less says “you guys like each other but won’t admit it” if you get their rel up when they ask you to dinner at the beginning of the game. You can do that by going to dinner with them and telling them you want to make partner, or you can invite them to come to dinner with you and your friends. They’ll decline, but you’ll get the same high rel boost.
