Fantasy Opera: Mischief at the Masquerade
7th Place - 31st Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2025)
Teatro della Fantasia is the premier opera house in the fantastical city of Lyra. The artists are hard at work preparing for opening night of the season. This annual event marks the beginning of Carnival, a time of masquerades — and, invariably, mischief.
You're a private investigator who has been hired to ensure the show goes off without a hitch. Will you uncover the devious plot that threatens opening night? You must, or you won't get the chance to dance with someone special at the masquerade ball!
This humorous, character-driven roleplaying game evokes the atmosphere of 17th century Venice in a queer-positive, original cozy fantasy setting populated by elves, tieflings, bugbears, and gnomes.
• A mystery-solving game with (optional) romance scenes at the end.
• RPG-style mechanics with stats, die rolls, and skill checks.
• Illustrated with 13 original pastel drawings.
How to play
Fantasy Opera: Mischief at the Masquerade can be played for free in your web browser.*
It is choice-based interactive fiction, which means that choices you make will propel you through the narrative and affect the way in which the story unfolds. You'll get to know a cast of unique characters, explore a fun setting, and solve a mystery along the way!
This game uses some light RPG mechanics (skill and knowledge attributes, dice rolls, and character attitude ratings), which you'll learn as you play.
If you'd like guidance completing the game and don't mind SPOILERS, here is a gameplay walkthrough that tells you exactly what you need to do to complete the game. It also includes some general tips to help you get the most out of your experience.
* SAVE WARNING: This game relies on local storage in your browser to save your game. If you clear your browser's storage, you will lose your saves.
Additionally, if you are playing on itch.io, you may not be able to restore your saved games or achievements in Safari, Chrome for iPhone, or other browsers. It is highly recommended that you use Chrome (desktop) or Microsoft Edge for the best experience on itch.io. If you're using another browser, play the game at lamppostprojects.com.
Game length
Your experience will vary depending on how you play, but expect this game to take approximately one hour to complete. Save your game at any time and come back later if you prefer to play across multiple sittings.
Fantasy Opera: Mischief at the Masquerade includes a prologue, three acts, and an (optional) epilogue. The game's script is over 41k words, but you won't encounter all of that text in every playthrough.
Romance options
This game includes (optional) date scenes with the character of your choice at the end of the game. There are six romanceable characters: three female and three male, all fantasy species (an elf, half-elf, gnome, two tieflings, and a bugbear). Ages aren't specified, but most are implied to be in their 20s-40s; two of the characters (one female and one male) are implied to be over 50.
Audience
This game is intended for adults and teens, but its content is suitable for all ages. It is generally lighthearted in theme and content.
Inspirations
17th century Venice and the music, art, and culture of Italy during the Baroque era. Historically informed performances of Baroque music. RPG video games Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2. Dungeons & Dragons. Cozy fantasy novels (Legends & Lattes; The House Witch). And a piece of my childhood: the audiobook of "Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery."
Credits
Fantasy Opera: Mischief at the Masquerade is a production of Lamp Post Projects. Written, coded, & illustrated by Nell (they/she).
Coded in ink: a narrative scripting language.
Playtested by John Ayliff, Burt, Crypt-glitch, Deborah, and John R. Thank you all!
Special thanks to John R. for technical support and many hours of discussion about this project.
Please contact lamppostprojects@gmail.com with any technical issues, questions, or comments.
Development log
- IFComp Results!36 days ago
- Post-playtest revisions now live!Jul 16, 2025
Comments
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Delightful. Solved the mystery, but some bad rolls (I believe?) made me miss the clue in the flower shop, so I ended up with 90/100. Got the mystery correct on the first guess, though!
One thing I was impressed with: I am neither a theater nor a music person, personally, but the writing was accessible enough that it felt like my character was knowledgeable enough about high society theater and music to investigate the mystery even if I wasn't. There were a few terms, like the instrument names, that I ended up having to go back and remind myself which was which, but otherwise, I was able to follow along with those elements and their ramifications in the mystery despite not having the background. Well done on that.
The mystery itself felt like a good difficulty. It wasn't obvious, and the player has to pay attention to what the characters say, but the structure of how you made options for following up on specific items from interviews help the player to sift the wheat from the chaff in a way that makes it likely they will figure it out without the solution being handed to them. And the hypothesis system worked quite well as a way to establish a theory before making an accusation. Really nice mystery-solving design with some clever affordances to help the player succeed while still feeling like they're the ones solving the mystery.
I didn't read the game notes before playing, so I was a little surprised by the dating sim segment at the end. Once I realized what was going on, it was of course fine, but in the moment, it seemed odd because I expected the game to end when the mystery was solved and the perpetrators were brought to justice. In retrospect, it seems a lot more obvious that was what it was building up to, so this is probably more about my unfamiliarity with the conventions of dating sim games than any problem with the game itself. For example, I took the adjustments to the relationships as "willingness to divulge information relevant to the investigation or to step in if things go south with the villains", rather than "how into you they are". I now realize that was leading up to the dating portion, but when I was first playing the game, I thought those were investigation progress measures, not romantic measures. (A quick paragraph about what those bonuses mean might help orient people like me unfamiliar with dating sims, but honestly it's fine as is.)
Anyway, a solid offering. Engaging writing, a fun mystery, interesting characters, quick to play, easy to navigate, and no major frustrations. Great work.
Thanks so much for the feedback! So glad you enjoyed the game ☺️