"Faerie's Bargain: The Price of Business"—Amass a goblin hoard of treasure and wonders!


We’re proud to announce that Faerie’s Bargain: The Price of Business , the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for Steam, Android, and on iOS in the “Choice of Games” app. It’s 33% off until December 9th!

Amass a goblin hoard of priceless treasures! Will you corner the market on memories and dreams? What will you pay for true love, and what is it worth?

Faerie’s Bargain: The Price of Business is a 300,000-word interactive fantasy novel by Trip Galey where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

You are one of the goblin merchants in the Untermarkt: a magical bazaar beneath Victorian London that trades in memories, wishes, secrets, and more. The Untermarkt has been a mainstay of London Faerie life since High Queen Elizabeth first forged the Treaty with Titania, Queen of Faerie. As merchant, you are skilled in dealing in all manner of impossibilities: new faces and voices, silks spun of starlight, bottled time, twists of fate, and even stranger things. Here, anything can be bought and sold for the right price. Will you line your pockets, or are the rewards of your trade more valuable than money?

When a mysterious business opportunity takes you by surprise, you have the chance to deal in something new: political intrigue! High Queen Victoria sits upon the Throne, but there are many who would prefer to rule in her place. Who is plotting against her, and what will it take to stop them? And where has the princess gone? To find out, you will have to learn the deepest secrets of the most powerful people in the Untermarkt: noble knights, fabulously wealthy merchants, dispossessed royalty, and more. Will you defend the High Queen, or use your newfound wealth to fund a little revolution?

Your fellow merchants certainly won’t allow an opportunity for profit to slip away. Will you undercut their efforts at the Merchant Conclave, or ignore all the politicking in favor of growing your wealth? And then there’s love—which could come at a greater cost than you ever imagined. Whatever you decide, one thing is certain: It’s time to get down to business!

• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual; asexual and/or aromantic.
• Play as mostly-human, mostly-faery, or an even balance between the two, and shift the levels between the two extremes as the story progresses.
• Buy yourself new eyes, skin, or a whole new body!
• Gain mystical power from your supernatural ally: Mirrors, Roses, or the Fog of London itself.
• Wear hair made of stormclouds, sing with the voice of a Siren, drink from a wineskin of luck, sell dragon scales and flowers from a glass mountain.
• Romance—or betray!—a socialite, a Lord, a Lady, maybe even your Supernatural Ally!
• Make deals with creatures both fae and mortal; trade in favors, memories, magic, bottled time, twists of fate, and more!
• Attend society balls and grand galas, investigate scheming nobles, and defend (or betray) the Empire from threats without and within!
• Rise to a seat on the High Council and rule the Untermarkt along with the highest of goblin and fae elite—or just build up enough wealth to dig yourself out of debt
• Advocate for the rights of children trapped in factories and labor contracts, or exploit their plight for your own gain.
• Play politics to bolster or break the relationship between the Empire and Faerie, to make your own fortune, or to put a puppet on the Throne!

We hope you enjoy playing Faerie’s Bargain: The Price of Business . We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

31 Likes

Congrats on the release! I can’t wait to try it out.

Congrats for writing a fun romp within a magical England that is well built and fleshed out!

That’s my weekend planned, then! :slightly_smiling_face:

Congratulations on the release, it’s fantasy time…

There appears to be a bug with how relationship values are calculated or maybe the links. I kept getting shunted into the Ambassador’s scenes even when I barely talked with them. At one point I explicitly chose to have a meeting with someone else, directly after talking with the ambassador, and it took me to another ambassador scene instead.

Sent in my bug to the support email. Hopefully it can get fixed soon. I thought it was great until then. But the sequence break pulled me right out of the game.

3 Likes

The writing in this game is great. It’s been a while since I was pulled into a game so immediately, and invested so fast.

I hope the author continues to make games or hell, write books. I’d be interested in reading what they write.

3 Likes

I am pretty sure in chapter 13, the Fae/Mortal achievements are bugged, as well as the flavor text after them.

*if (fey_mortal <= 20)
*achieve hooman
*if (fey_mortal >= 80)
*achieve faerie
*if (wealth >= 150)
*achieve kaching

The sounds of the Untermarkt crash and flow around you, a pleasing cacophony. It is good to be home, again, immersed in the simple work of commerce once more.
*if (wealth >= 150)
Or perhaps not so simple. You are currently one of the richest merchants the Untermarkt has ever seen, after all.
*if (fey_mortal <= 20)
Though you are much changed by your experiences. You flex your fingers. You are so very nearly entirely mortal, right now.
*if (fey_mortal >= 80)
Though you are much changed by your experiences. You run a tongue over your teeth. There is very little of mortal salt left in you, at present.

It looks like the conditionals are swapped. It’s in another spot as well. I doubt it’s intended as it’s the opposite of all other uses of those variables.

1 Like

Did you see the interview that came out a few days ago? He’s actually working on a book set in the same world. :blush:

I love the writing style and the setting, but I found the stats to be incredibly frustrating. I was attempting to make a character strong in Wisdom, Straightforwardness and Compassion. I made selections that I felt applied to those (primarily due to synonyms in the choices themselves), but after five restarts I still haven’t succeeded in making that character.

Very few of the choices seemed to raise the stats I expected them to, and some choices appear to raise one stat while lowering another, (and I’m not referring to opposed attributes here.) I closed the game feeling that I had little control over who my character became, and I no longer trusted the game mechanics as a result.

As I mentioned, I do feel that the writing is very good and the setting immediately grabbed my attention, but the stat system felt to me like it needed more revision.

Sorry. :disappointed_relieved:

13 Likes

Is our supernatural Ally could be a Ro?

3 Likes

Technically yes, but really no.

It’s like the last 2 pages of the game. It’s barely anything.

3 Likes

If you’re finding bugs, please send them to support@cog with as much detail as possible about where they’re occurring and what the bug is.

We’re sorry that these bugs are causing problems! Unfortunately, they do sometimes creep in.

2 Likes

I did not!! Thank you for the heads up, I’m definitely going to be keeping a look out for that.

1 Like

You’re very welcome.

This game feels like one of those works of art that’s advertised as an “experience”. It’s fun and fascinating, but at the same time I’m wandering around in a daze, not sure who is doing what, or why half the things going on are happening. Quite appropriate for a game set partially in the world of Faerie, though.

9 Likes

I love this one! It is brilliantly written with interesting plot and characters. Truly a great job :smiley:
My only complaint is perhaps more romance scenes with the Fog of London XD

3 Likes

I’m sorry, but this has got to be the buggiest first release COG I’ve ever played. The story and worldbuilding were great, and I didn’t mind the confusing and inconsistent stats (i just gave up trying to understand them), and I tried to ignore the rare typos (I’ll be honest tho, I don’t think I’ve ever seen typos in published COG/HOG until now. Or maybe I’m just very good at not seeing them lol) but the bugs. Dear lord the bugs, especially near the end. Way, way too game-breaking for me to ignore.

I’ll try to send an email when I can, but until then, I’ll wait for the patches before seriously replaying.

9 Likes

I’m only one chapter in, and this just might be a new favorite. The worldbuilding is amazing and the writing is utterly glorious. I am definitely going to buy “War of the Roses” when it’s published.

1 Like

I can’t seem to figure out how to romance Lord A after I’ve gotten rid of M. It seems once I take them down and put Lord A on the throne he marries someone else.

1 Like