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Number of Ratings: 18
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3 people found the following review helpful:
Playful thievery, February 11, 2024This is an intricate heist story where the player navigates branch-and-bottleneck structures to conduct a series of thefts. Strong writing supports the narrative while disguising the code running behind the scenes, and it feels like there are multiple ways to achieve your objectives.
Most of the player’s time is spent Getting People to Do What You Want — the main character flinches at describing it with a crass term like “manipulation.” It feels like a combat system for conversation (Convat? Combersation?), and success reveals useful information. In the evenings, that information helps the next heist run smoothly.
Lady Thalia is confronted with a few puzzles during her adventures, but players who find them too difficult can use alternate solutions. I especially liked the scoring mechanism, which is embedded in playful banter between friends.
Additional excitement comes from the interactions with Thalia’s nemesis, a consultant with Scotland Yard.
The overall enjoyment of this work is going to depend on personal preference; I may not be the world’s biggest fan of cucumber sandwiches, high tea, or drawing room repartee. However, those sequences were nicely offset by nighttime skullduggery and daring escapes from the law.
- aluminumoxynitride, August 13, 2023
- Ms. Woods, July 23, 2023
- elysee, May 18, 2023
4 of
4 people found the following review helpful:
Another heist for the highlight reel, April 30, 2023Playing Lady Thalia is an all-around good time. I'll start off by saying that I love its style of writing; a lot of Lady Thalia's observations on snooty, upper-class lifestyles made me laugh. A favorite would be this at the art museum: "As the group strolls along towards yet another picture of a basket of fruit; you've never really understood the point of these, [...]". I also really appreciated the game's avoidance of info-dumps, preferring to let me take in information naturally through the conversations I had and the places I went. Despite this, I never felt like I was uninformed. If I was unable to truly pull something off, it was solely due to my own mistakes. I'd also like to praise the game's presentation: it's a royal purple-and-gold combination that looks visually striking without being distracting.
The game's main feature is three heists against the obnoxiously uptight Lady Satterthwaite. In each one, you get a daytime period to sneak around and get a sense of the layout, search for design flaws that will help you in your heist, or talk to others in your daytime-civilian persona to extract information. Then comes the nighttime, where you have to pull off your heist with as much stealth as you can. A newspaper article recaps your actions for the day, and your partner Gwen will tell you how you did and give you an idea of if you're on the right track. You also get a bit of planning for what to do the next day.
Three heists feels like just the right amount for the concept; just two would have left me wanting more, but four in one game would have overstayed its welcome a bit. Each of them grows in intensity and difficulty, too. I definitely performed the best on the first, where my only slip-up was not figuring out the combination to the safe and opting to pick the lock instead. The second and third didn't go as well, but that's mostly because I became accustomed to picking the most rude and sarcastic dialogue options. Yes, I wanted to still do my best with the heists, and yes, they're rarely helpful, but I very much appreciated the fact that I could make Lady Thalia say exactly what I was thinking at the moment. I jumped at the chance to tell Mel to go to hell.
I'd had my eye on this game for a while, and I'm glad I decided to give it a try. There are two sequels, which I'm looking forward to checking out; I hear one even has a romance system included. Maybe I'll give Lady Thalia a bit more reserve there. Maybe.
- dgtziea, February 28, 2023
- thesleuthacademy, February 19, 2023
- Jaded Pangolin, February 5, 2023
- xkia, August 7, 2022
- Kinetic Mouse Car, July 31, 2022
- Cryptic Puffin, November 12, 2021
- Greg Frost (Seattle, Washington), September 14, 2021
- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), April 24, 2021
- autumnc, April 15, 2021
8 of
8 people found the following review helpful:
A delightful heist-fest, April 11, 2021Thalia is the Greek muse of comedy, and she’s an apt namesake for what’s the most purely fun game I’ve yet hit in the festival. It felt like LTSS was grown in a lab to plaster a grin to my face – I’m a sucker for anything involving British twits, heists, libraries, and museums, and here we’ve got the eponymous burglar planning not one but three heists (at a library, a museum, and a British manor), all to tweak the nose of a supercilious society doyenne. Oh, and there’s an extended game of cat and mouse played against a sexy art-theft consultant to Scotland Yard. Still, even if these particular tropes aren’t your specific cup of tea, the breezy, clever LTSS is a rewarding gem of a game.
Admittedly, I went into this one expecting to like it – one half of the authoring duo, E. Joyce, previously wrote What the Bus? for the 2020 Comp and Social Lycanthropy Disorder for last year’s EctoComp, both of which I’d played and really enjoyed. And the gauntlet thrown down by the ABOUT text got me even more excited:
"[The game] has been lovingly researched; much of this research was subsequently thrown out the window for reasons including plot convenience, genre convention, wanting to have female characters do things that women shouldn’t historically have been doing, and things just being funnier that way."
Happily, LTSS lives up to this initial promise. The opening does a great job of establishing the milieu, the antagonist, and the player character, who’s a social climber with a masked alter-ego and a fondness for relieving snobs of their possessions. Hearing her stuck-up hostess brag about the gems she’s about to parade at a fancy party, our heroine takes it upon herself to lift not just the jewels, but also a rare book and valuable painting in the lady’s possession.
The game thus plays out as a trio of heists, each proceeding according to a well-paced structure: there’s an initial planning meeting with your sidekick Gwen, who’s a seamstress and gadgeteer of no mean skill, then a sequence of casing the joint incognito, before the final nocturnal visitation to put the scheme into action. Of course, the best laid plans of mice and muses gang aft agley, so even the most meticulous preparation doesn’t save you from occasionally having to improvise. And then after each heist is done, you get to read about your exploits and get debriefed – and rated – by Gwen.
These sequences are all really well done – none wear out their welcome, and each builds momentum into the next as you’re eager to see how the groundwork you’re laying will pay off. Each works differently, too, which helps keep interest high. The briefing scenes are pure dialogue, primarily giving you a chance to add some shades to Lady Thalia’s characterization as the outlines of the plan get established. When you hit the streets, you usually get a choice of three or four leads to pursue to gather information, hide your tools of the trade in a useful spot, or recruit confederates, before time is up and it’s time for the heist. It’s possible to succeed or fail at each of these subtasks, which could make the actual burglary sections faster and easier, or more time-consuming and challenging – these bits are set up as linear gauntlets, and can be appropriately nerve-wracking, though generally you’re more in danger of making a mess of things and having to endure Gwen’s mockery than of losing life and limb.
The challenges are varied, too. Most of the social challenges use a system where you choose an approach from a menu of direct, friendly, or leading (this last meaning you’re asking leading questions aimed at getting more voluble types to share more than they ought). This is a nice framework, since it creates some structure around what could otherwise be very fuzzy social challenges, and it also prods the player to think about the personalities and desires of the other characters rather than as mechanical obstacles to circumvent (admittedly, sometimes using the direct route with servants and employees can feel a bit like bullying, though Thalia typically stays on the right side of that line). One heist largely hinges on a word puzzle; another’s all about planning ahead; and a third involves Burke’s Peerage, because of course this is that kind of game.
The writing is just as good as the puzzle design, in particular when it comes to the protagonist. Thalia herself is a joy to inhabit, and has some of the best lines. Here’s her reflecting on how her status has risen after many successful jobs:
"You are at the level of wealth where you can get people to do you favours by giving them money, but not quite at the level where people will do you favours because you said you might give them money, so you are here in disguise."
And here she’s sizing up a potential mark:
"She has the air of a spinsterish academic — which you don’t mean as an insult; you can appreciate a bluestocking. You’ve appreciated some of them quite a bit in your day."
(Yes, Thalia is unashamedly randy).
There are a few flies in the ointment: I ran into a couple of small bugs (when faking a swoon in front of one of the museum guards, I got a “cannot execute macro” error, and when chatting with Lady Satterthwaite’s maid, one of the friendly dialogue options appeared to redirect back to the same passage, so I had to choose a different approach to progress). There was one sequence that I found hard to parse –the duel of wits with Mel in the museum – where I understood what Thalia was planning but wasn’t clear on how to implement it given the options available (this was the one place where I save-scummed). Gwen also scored my performance on the first heist as a 15 out of 13, which could be an error or just an indication of how awesome Lady Thalia is, I suppose. But these minor flaws do nothing to detract from the zippy, cannily-designed pleasures on offer – LTSS is a must-play, and here’s hoping this isn’t the last we see of its dashing heroine.
6 of
6 people found the following review helpful:
Gracious theft., April 10, 2021You are quite the sophisticated art-thief, choosing to perform your particular art as stylishly as possible.
You also can't stand being talked down to by snobbish Upper Class-Ladies.
So you decide to stick it to Lady Satterthwaite, robbing her of not one but three family heirlooms without a trace of your stealthy little self.
Lady Thalia and the Seraskier Sapphires is a delightfully funny heist-game. I very much enjoyed finding out what angle to use in my conversations with the different characters to get information or favours.
In fact, these conversation-puzzles make up the most part of the obstacles. You can get quite a good feel for the kind of person you're talking to from their response to your first question, so you can tweak your approach accordingly.
I especially enjoyed talking to your Scotland Yard-nemesis. There is a real chemistry between the protagonist and the detective trying to catch her.
There is also some traditional code-breaking involved, but I believe you could circumvent that by making different choices.
The writing in Lady Thalia really sparkles. It's fast-paced, funny and engaging, with just a sprinkle of backstory involved.
As I said: Delightful!
6 of
6 people found the following review helpful:
A heist game in 3 acts with puzzles and conversational mechanics, April 9, 2021This game does a lot of good things, and really drew me in.
You play as a nouveau-riche socialite who is also a catburglar/art thief.
Gameplay revolves around two mechanics: conversation and puzzles.
The conversation consists of choosing one of three attitudes: Friendly, Direct, and Leading On (?) (I can't quite remember what they stood for). Most conversations last 2-4 choices and you have to use the feedback you get from the NPC to determine if you are making the right choices or not, so there is some allowance for mistakes.
The puzzles consist of both strategizing (often the choice is between being fast and risky or quiet and slow) and text-entry. I liked the last puzzle quite a bit.
I found the Gwen character a little annoying, but enjoyed the MC a lot. If you're a fan of Alias the Magpie, I think you'll enjoy this too.
Note: The many save files available were great. I decided not to try and get a perfect game, but I did use one save once to recall what someone had said many turns earlier.
- Zape, April 4, 2021
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