Mask of the Rose
A marvellous romance with a hint of murder, where every playthrough is different! Seek love, friendship, or more... intimate encounters. Help a murdered man find justice. And watch out for the bats.
Mask of the Rose is a visual novel, dating sim and detective game
developed and published by Failbetter Games.
Released on June 08th 2023 is available in English on Windows, MacOS and Linux.
It has received 338 reviews of which 264 were positive and 74 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.3 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Mask of the Rose into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Mask of the Rose through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7 64 bit and Windows 10 64 bit
- Processor: Intel Pentium 2GHZ or AMD equivalent
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: DX10, DX11, DX12 capable
- Storage: 3 GB available space
- Sound Card: DX10, DX11, DX12 compatible
MacOS
- OS: High Sierra 10.13+
- Processor: x64 architecture with SSE2
- Memory: 3 GB RAM
- Graphics: Metal capable Intel and AMD GPUs.
- Storage: <8 GB available space
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 20.04+, ArchLinux
- Processor: Intel Pentium 2GHZ or AMD equivalent
- Memory: 3 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL 3.2+, Vulkan capable
- Storage: <8 GB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
I am on my fourth play through and still discovering fully artworked characters behind fetch quests. The soundtrack is incredible, and each of the cast is well fleshed out. I do wish the relationship/friendship/romance mechanic was a little more fleshed out, and some signposting for the story would have been nice but I've had a lot of fun failing and starting again.
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I love Failbetter games, and I admire them for making an ambitious, highly branching, relationship-based experiment like this. Unfortunately, I find the plot, the characters and the choices to be lacklustre. This is in part due to the procedural dialogue, which at times ruins the suspension of disbelief by giving you weird or boring responses that don't really match up with the flow of the conversation. There's a lot of potential here. I wish the devs would make an expansion or add some DLC to flesh out the game. Definitely worth a try, but temper your expectations. This isn't as polished as Sunless Seas/Skies. Recommended with caveats.
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Really good. I have difficulty with it because games that give specific objectives but a large field-of-play are difficult for me to complete. In other words, there are pretty specific (though not always obvious) objectives for you to complete. But the world is big, there are lots of characters, and plenty to explore. My ADHD brain has me going around doing all the "ooh piece of candy" stuff only for me to get to the eleventh hour and go "oh fuck I have a game to play." By then, I've wasted too much time exploring and looking around and not actually planning and taking specific steps to achieve an objective. Another way of putting it: I get a lot of things done but nothing gets completed. Can't really fault the devs for that. It's very well written and the characters are cool. I had my doubts about the setting, but after a bit of narration, it sold me. The romance is black screened, so, you know, if that effects your opinion. I don't care for it as a narrative strategy (be brave enough to go all the way or don't go there), but it's hardly a breaking point.
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I've just completed my first run of the game, and I do intend on replaying it but I wanted to share my thoughts on it here. Overall, I would recommend the game because of its wonderfully unique setting, visual, and writing style, especially to those who, like me, are really into gothic horror. It's got a wonderful atmosphere, characters, and secrets for you to uncover. However, I do have to say - I have already played most other Failbetter games out there, and this one does fall significantly flatter than the other ones. It's gorgeous, it's charming but I feel it lacks the density and depth of its cousin installments. I don't want it to be longer and more tedious, I want it to be more 'meaty' for lack of a better word, like others were. I can't really point my finger onto what specifically is different but it doesn't have quite the same feeling. So, if you're coming here from other Fallen Universe games, I'd advise adjusting your expectations slightly.
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It took me a couple tries to get into it, but once I did I found it extremely engaging. I've played through three times and am thinking about what I want to do in a fourth playthrough right now. Now that I understand it better and know what I'm doing, it's a fun and fascinating experience. I feel like the "dating sim" aspect of Mask of the Rose sells it a little short. Like most Failbetter games, there's a lot beneath the surface, and I was consistently surprised about the things I could get up to and the secrets I could learn if I looked in the right places. There are a lot of really interesting mysteries in this game that eclipse the romance aspect - Mr. Pages, whatever is going on with Horatia, the murder - I found focusing on those routes and pulling out their secrets to be incredibly exciting and rewarding. The mechanics can also take a bit of figuring out and there are still a few things that are unclear to me. That's not a criticism (it's even a compliment in a way), but it can definitely be a hurdle to getting engaged with it. I thought it was a great puzzle figuring out the way clothes affect your choices and trying to plot out the best outfit for a given interaction (just like in real life!). I also did like the way that the storyboarding system worked and how it allowed you to open up mysteries by asking questions - but that one definitely took more getting used to. Overall, I liked those mechanics quite a bit but I do wish they had been fleshed out a little more deeply and that there was deeper power in what you could do with them. I think they're great tools though and would love to see them iterated on in future Failbetter games. For the game overall, I think the story and mechanics are really engaging once you're comfortable with them. My biggest wish is that they had extended it a little more deeply, with more depth to the mechanics and deeper mysteries and secrets to uncover (but I understand that may not have been the goal for this project). That said I really like what's there and am excited to see what's next from this team!
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 21 November 2024 19:07 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 17 January 2025 15:18 |
| Steam price | 22 January 2025 20:23 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 15:57 |
Online players
3
Developer
Failbetter Games
Publisher
Failbetter Games
Release
08 Jun 2023
Platforms