Narrative Vampire The Masquerade CYOA game #2, and this time it's all coming together! Similar to Coteries of New York you play as a young vampire making their way through their Early Nights and trying not to get tooooo caught up in the Camarilla bullshit that's going on. This time however there's only one character rather than a choice of clans, Julia the LaSombra vamp. The intro is a whole prologue of who she is before being turned - a damn good investigative journalist who is slowly having her whole life go completely to shit. Then she's attacked by a vampire and well... turns out everything tearing her apart was a hazing ritual to see if she was worth joining the clan. Then, the real game starts! A total shithead from the first game is murdered and we do get a proper sequel~ish to Coteries which is great since that story was particularly unsatisfying! Julia is also very much her own character and she is all the witty and snarky you would expect, and you have to manuever her successfully through this investigation while she's trying to decide just how much of her actual humanity to hold onto...

A vastly improved main story however means that the very intriguing side characters and plots from the first game are mostly dropped - the focus is on Julia and the cast already around her, no forging allies here. People like you or hate you already. One of the main people in her life is her former human girlfriend, whom she is still with. There's a pretty interesting look here at a vampire/human relationship and how that is kind of inherently fucked and I appreciate that its not all sunshine and roses for them, even if the 'bad ending' is about them trying to make it work. And speaking of the ending - I really love the fact that the "bad" end is the one where Julia tries to be decent to others and look out for her own mental wellbeing, whereas the "good" ending is the proper Vampire ending of "everything is fucked but at least I'm having a great time right now!"

While Shadows of New York isn't an amazing, ground breaking experience, it is a damn good whodunnit along with a compelling main character and side plots. And I'm here for more of it!