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Vanity Fair: The Pursuit

Vanity Fair: The Pursuit

by 木焱工作室 · Published by Wave Games, 木焱工作室, CC_Games

★ 88%
Price $6.99
Avg Players 9
Reviews 4,608
Released Feb 19, 2024
CasualChoices MatterCinematicDrama
View on Steam ↗

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Video
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Vanity Fair: The Pursuit is a full-motion video narrative game following Lu Yuan's life from 2004 to 2024 as he navigates choices about his career as a film director and his personal relationships. Your decisions shape whether he becomes a successful filmmaker, businessman, or struggles financially, branching across twenty years of branching story paths. The game features strong production values and performances but requires caution: the English localization is notably flawed with inconsistent pronouns, mistranslations, and incomplete subtitles in later chapters, making it most accessible to

About this game

Players, last 51 days

Peak 19 · Low 3

Daily peak concurrent players, sampled once a night from Steam.

What players are saying

▲ Recommended 9 hrs
This Chinese FMV is one of the best I've played in this genre; the story, acting, and even the soundtracks are outstanding. The story is about a young man named Lu Yuan, an aspiring film director. You'll have to make huge decisions about his career and private life. The story will cover all the years between 2004 and 2024 as you watch Lu Yuan grow as a director, a businessman, or begging on the streets.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3304057903

The game has multiple endings and a huge map that allows you to jump back and forth to change a series of decisions to change the outcome. Literally, every choice leads to a different ending, and each plot branch affects the story. There are seven chapters to unlock and explore, 11 main characters to encounter and reveal their backstories, and a photo gallery to collect. The game has too many things to explore aside from the story itself, and when you get any bad ending, a hint will be dropped to avoid it in the future by changing something in the past.

I liked the female characters; one has excellent acting skills (the girl in a red dress). I don't want to spoil any of the story by saying what role they are playing; the game has many twists. I gasped multiple times and felt deceived in other scenes, but let me remind you: violence is not an option. I learned it the hard way.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3304114291

The game is too addictive not to finish, and the ending made me very emotional (the good ending). I was not expecting it, but it all worked well. The only drawback is the translation of the names; they are spelled differently every time, but I got used to it and learned who is who halfway in the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3304061728

Pros:
+Interesting story with seven chapters
+Choices and consequences.
+Good soundtracks.
+Great acting.
+Good character personality development.
+Good game length.
+Multiple endings and routes. (You can go back to any choice to change it)
+You can skip previously seen scenes.
+Steam achievements.

Cons:
- The English translations of the names are not accurate at times.

Because the game has multiple endings, they did the right thing and allow you to go back to the map any time and change your choices, and you can also skip previously seen scenes and pause whenever you want. I highly recommend this FMV; it felt like watching a good movie with good actors; the romance wasn't sticking to or shoved in our faces, and everything was well-balanced and emotional. I hope I'll find another game like this one.

𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎'𝑠 𝐶𝘩𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒

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32 found helpful Steam ↗
▼ Not recommended 16 hrs
Honestly, love the game but the English translation is criminal. I can't fathom how this company can't get a simple localization team to fix their translations. Their second game "Mandate of Heaven" has a similar problem. These games are genuinly great but ffs fix the English translations
26 found helpful Steam ↗
▲ Recommended 17 hrs
名利游戏 Game of Fame and Fortune / Vanity Fair: The Pursuit (a realistic life simulation interactive storytelling movie)

The English name of this game is Vanity Fair: The Pursuit.
Game of Fame and Fortune which was previously translated directly from Chinese.

Unlike most other interactive storytelling games where you can make your perfect story, the only perfect story you can make for this game is in the prologue only. When you enter the game Chapter 1, it actually is your first mistake, then you will face more and more mistakes and troubles in the game. This game is for you to experience the mistake and regret, then you will learn from the mistake and cherish what you already have.

东明集团是一个黑社会, 第一章是错误的开始, 不应该加入东明集团, 序章是好的, 第一章必须赶快离开, 如果没有祝你一直好运, 这是游戏的故事. 大部分好的结局在开始. 这是这个游戏的特别之处. 好戏在前面, 不是好戏在后头.

I give this game score: 11/10 (super masterpieces) - a realistic life simulation interactive storytelling movie that lets you learn some life and love lessons. You will learn that no one is perfect, we have positive and negative thoughts and we need both (I will explain this later in characters personality). We need to cherish what we already have and not to greedy.

Love is All Around : 10/10 (masterpieces) - nice love stories and the girls in the game are actually teaching you how to chase someone if you realize it.

This game is like a gambling game, it is best not to gamble. The longer you gamble, the more you lose in the end. So the best ending is in the prologue. The second best ending is in Chapter 1 and after that more and more bad things to happen, so you better stop than going further. Game of fame and fortune, just by looking at the name of this game, it sound like a game to test of greediness. How can greedy end well?

This is it, this game give a lots of lessons to the player, about personality, to choose a simple or a better life, face with reality, etc.
Lastly is the characters in this game and their personality in horoscope viewpoint :

[table]
[tr][th]Character[/th][th]Sun[/th][th]Rising[/th][th]Other[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Lu Yuan[/td][td]Scorpio[/td][td] you [/td][td] you [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]He Xiaomeng[/td][td]Capricorn[/td][td]Pisces[/td][td]Scorpio[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Guan Haiyue[/td][td]Sagittarius[/td][td]Pisces[/td][td]Capricorn[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Gao Tingyu[/td][td]Leo[/td][td]Scorpio[/td][td]Cancer[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]He Mu[/td][td]Aries[/td][td]Cancer[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Nina[/td][td]Leo[/td][td]Cancer[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Zhang Peng[/td][td]Aries here[/td][td] or Aries here[/td][td] [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Liao Siyang[/td][td]Leo[/td][td]Gemini[/td][td]Capricorn[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Shi Daqiang[/td][td]Scorpio[/td][td]Sagittarius[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[/table]

Lu Yuan have to be a person that are very careful (Scorpio sun sign), if not he will get killed, so his personality must have Scorpio characteristic. Whether he is Aquarius, Leo, Scorpio, Capricorn or Cancer rising and other sign, this is depend on the option you (the player) pick in the game.

He Xiaomeng is a girl that have high ambition on career (Capricorn sun sign, found at Prologue) and is a very nice and simple girl (Pisces rising sign). She do have some Scorpio thinking (found a bit at Prologue and very clearly at Chapter 1) which she are not easily trust someone and are very angry when someone betray her. Her Scorpio and Capricorn is to protect and help her to succeed but anyhow this time it caused her fail the most (in Prologue and Chapter 1). If only purely Pisces, she would be very fool on trusting everyone and everything (only luck that can help her). But because of greedy she make the first mistake (at Prologue).

Guan Haiyue (Sagittarius sun sign, Pisces rising sign) is a cheerful, fantasy, nice and simple girl (found at Prologue). On Chapter 1, found she also have realistic thinking and plan (Capricorn sign) and this help her a lot. Without the Capricorn sign she would be very fool on her job which everything are depend on luck (without any plan), the Capricorn sign hold her back to realistic.

More detail about horoscope (if you didn't know much about horoscope like Sun sign, Rising sign, etc.) :

Sun sign (life objective, inner self, like a CEO)
Rising/1st House sign (action, behavior, outer self, like a COO)
Others signs (the 9 Planets and 2nd to 12th Houses signs) - here are multiple horoscope signs represent different aspect, for simplify we just pick a/few signs that found it play important role

Horoscope is like a spirit (music) in out mind, when we think our thinking are influenced with the spirit of the music. With multiple horoscope signs in ourselves, sometimes we have multiple ideas, like the choice between angels and demons. Angels tell us to be positive, trust and help others, demons tell us to be careful, get some benefits and avoid helping others to avoid getting into trouble ourselves. Sometime the demons idea is a good one and sometime it is a bad idea and same as the angels. For example, demons told you to be careful and angels told you to trust, it could be in real danger situation or it is fine to trust it.

A person could not be a perfect person, we need the demons to protect self and to be realistic, and the angels to make friends. You can make a perfect story for a game but you can't make a perfect story for your entire life unless you live in heaven.

This English translation of the game was released on April 26, 2024. This is a machine translation, so may not be very correct in some content, mostly still understandable.

You can try this game free demo (Prologue chapter) to see the quality of this interactive storytelling movie. From my experience, the prologue seems to be a good quality interactive storytelling movie and is very different from Love is All Around, but still not so sure about this game yet. When entering the game Chapter 1, I found this is a game that teaches you some lessons about life, personality and reality (this is very meaningful and interesting). After completing every chapter of this game, you found the best part of this game is the Prologue. This is the uniqueness of this movie's story, after regret, looking back at the past and then you learned to cherish what you have now.
18 found helpful Steam ↗

Reviews are by Steam users, hosted on Steam.

Latest updates

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" Vanity Fair: The Pursuit" Mac Version Officially Released!

536 days ago
"Vanity Fair: The Pursuit" is now officially available on Mac! Will you stay true to yourself, or fall into darkness? Vanity Fair: The Pursuit invites you to uncover the complexities of human nature amidst the glitz and schemes of the entertainment industry. Download the Mac version now and begin your journey as a director! If you encounter any technical issues or have suggestions, both new and returning players are welcome to contact us.

Best rewards. Major update: multilingual version launched

900 days ago
Update content: 1. Mainly optimized for compatibility issues with A card 2. A multilingual trial version has been updated, without any updates to the storyline content. It only replaces the video without subtitles and cheats multilingual subtitle files. Due to translation cost limitations, we have adopted Chat Gpt for translation in multiple languages, which may result in inaccurate translations. The production team will optimize the translation based on their own foreign language learning situation in the future. 3. The list of production personnel thanks the first batch of players who participated in the second creation (it is your participation that gave us greater confidence! Thank you for coming and giving us the warmest beam of light in the long night!)

Posts come from Steam's official announcements feed.

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