This summer I started playing a web-based, fairly casual game called Fallen London. I think you should play it, too (not least because I need more friends to help me reduce my menaces when I've done too many dangerous or scandalous deeds) and here's why!

You can start playing Fallen London by going to the website from your phone or desktop browser. There's no app to install; it's all in the browser, the whole time. You don't need a beefy GPU or a ton of data available; the gameplay is mostly reading text, making choices, and then clicking the thing you want to do and seeing if you succeeded or failed at it. The game was first created in 2009, and has been receiving continuous updates since -- it's fully responsive and the story and lore are sprawling, with so many different areas and mysteries to uncover.

It's simple, but I'm totally hooked.

It has cool gothic horror vibes (but not too over the top imo, I'm not really a horror/action fiend) and good gender vibes running through the background (like how NPCs address me as "Hello sir- er, uh mada- er uh, anyways!", at my choice.)

Gameplay is pretty much reading text of the story & clicking on stuff m- it was created in 2009 and still has some of that old school feel but the UI is nice and responsive. It's one of those games where you get a certain number of actions to use that then refresh in real time, 1 refreshed action every 10 minutes up to a max of 20, so you can't really play it for like 2 hours at a time ever, but it has kept me coming back for more for months now. And you can pay them money for more stuff/extra things like more actions or special stories, but the game isn't pushy about it and you can enjoy it fully without that.

There was a seasonal event in July in-game that was really good, both for high level players (a couple people I know have been playing for a year or more; one is fully end-game basically) and lower level people like me. I was totally hooked on the story and the mechanics of the story loop were pretty good too. I ignored the event for the first several weeks because moving, but even catching up towards the end and playing out the end of the event's story was really enjoyable.

Right now there's a zee (aka sea but sea stuff always starts with Z in Fallen London) seasonal event going on that I'm rushing to try to get my first zteamer boat in time for, so I can get an even better boat and go zailing across the Unterzee uncovering more mysteries and getting up to possibly dastardly or financially rewarding deeds.

Don't be too scared off by the dastardly part - there is a certain level of violence in many storylines/actions you can take, and there are shadowy Masters of the Bazaar who form a sort of shadow government, ruling commerce and much of the crime underworld etc., but a player has many paths through Fallen London. Your character can be motivated by adventure, or by pursuit of the truth about the many mysteries, by the arts (writing poems and ingratiating yourself with the Bohemians), or by seeking raw power. Or, maybe you'll choose to support the Revolutionary Faction, or help some unionized rats work their factory collective.

There is just so much to explore in Fallen London. It was cool how even pretty early on, when I and a couple other friends had only been playing for a couple weeks, we were all already experiencing totally different parts of the story/world because of where we'd chosen to start or continue our explorations.

If you decide to play, and we at least internet-know each other, send me a message and I'll let you know my username so we can swap mutually beneficial (or detrimental, later when our friendship & game goals are at that point) in-game letters!