I love text adventures. That's my dad's fault. He installed Zork, Zork Zero, and Planetfall on our Amiga, and along with The Secret of Monkey Island and Worms, they made up approximately three quarters of grade school. (Planetfall, Floyd in particular, taught me more about characterization and emotional impact than all the English classes I ever attended.) Later, he bought me the old Activision "Lost Treasures of Infocom II" collection. We picked it out of a bargain bin at an office supply store, alongside the budget predecessors of Deer Hunter and Extreme Paintbrawl. That was my initial impression of text adventures in stores: lost, obsolete, and unwanted.

I kept thinking that for years, even after I'd rediscovered IF through the still-growing hobbyist community on USENET. Sure, there were a lot of excellent games being created and distributed on rec.games.int-fiction, but none of them had the slightest chance in stores against Unreal Tournament or Quake 3.

Imagine my surprise when I found out about 1893, A World's Fair Mystery. Written by Peter Nepstad and published in 2004, it revolves around a diamond theft from the Chicago World's Fair. It's sold at various retail outlets and by institutions like The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. It's also sold online at illuminatedlantern.com for $20. Here's part of the teaser on the website:

"A diamond theft has taken place on the sprawling grounds of the Columbian Exposition! As theft turns to kidnapping, and kidnapping to murder, you must match wits with a criminal mastermind to prevent the crime of the century."

How exciting is that? I couldn't wait to play this game - it promised an involving plot, exciting events, and a gigantic setting. I contacted Mr. Nepstad and he graciously agreed to send me a review copy.

Before I start into the review, let's get one thing straight: this game is not for everybody. You will need a lot of patience to play 1893. It's massive, for one thing: as far as I can tell, the entire exposition is recreated faithfully. I don't know how many hours of playtime are potentially contained within this game, but it's likely as much or more than Oblivion, with a similar level of freedom of decision-making. There are massive amounts of text thrown at you right from the beginning, necessitating both patience and a long, long attention span. It's certainly not an easy game, and you'll need to take notes, make maps, and save often.

It's also got the best presentation I've ever seen in a text adventure. Nepstad utilizes the relatively advanced rendering capabilities of the TADS language to create a clean interface in the style of the time. Scrollwork adorns the title screen, often-beautiful archival images illustrate every location, and a conveniently clickable compass rose doubles as both navigation and save/load menu.

1893 is very much in the same style as Zork: the player character has only the most superficial identity as a nameless detective, and he travels through a puzzle-based world to collect treasure. Nearly every one of the locations in the game will shine light on the diamond theft in some way, and most of them have puzzles to solve with interesting solutions. This game will keep the logician in you busy for a long, long time.

Oddly, 1893 shares Zork's barren feeling as well. Though almost every description mentions crowds, there is little atmospheric text (such as "A boy chasing a balloon brushes rudely past you.") to reinforce the idea of a busy fair. Location descriptions tend to be sparse and academically worded; in one instance, the player character notes that the dome of a building is 187 feet in diameter. If he were consulting a guidebook, this outburst of exacting measurement would be understandable, but he's supposed to be a detective, not an architect. Little historically accurate touches like that are very interesting by themselves, and I appreciate Peter Nepstad's going to the extreme lengths of research necessary to portray the fair so completely, but their diction and exacting nature tend to make the game read more like a history textbook then an exciting crime adventure in Chicago.

Fortunately, this game does make an excellent history teacher's companion. Every location has an accompanying archival photograph, and most of them are quite beautiful. There is a walking tour available which highlights the historical significance of most every location in the fair, and the location descriptions provide many hooks on which the history teacher may lecture. Nepstad includes a visitor's guide and authentic map of the fair on the CD, and both are entertaining and informative. 1893 is an excellent game for one interested in the history of Chicago, thanks to Mr. Nepstad's determination to recreate it faithfully.

So it's great if you like puzzle-based text adventures of the old school, but what if you aren't a big fan of puzzle-driven games? There's not a lot here for you, I'm afraid. I actually found that there were too many puzzles for my taste, and it eventually made me extremely frustrated. Playing casually, this game will take a long time to finish. Although the included hint system makes it very easy to solve the puzzles, gaining the components needed to solve them requires a large time commitment devoted to wandering the fair and figuring out where everything is. Added to this are the need to sleep and eat - one of the oft-lamented hallmarks of traditional games like Planetfall, and one which I honestly never feared I'd see again. It's not too much of a hassle, as your detective only becomes hungry a few times a day and there are many restaurants throughout the fair, but it is still a major annoyance which draws the player out of the current puzzle and into the task of finding food.

Although the plot has an interesting premise, the execution seemed a bit lacking. The characters which I interacted with either served as sentient locks, keeping me away from quest items, or gregarious orators who dropped info-dumps on my head as often as possible. Now, because of both 1893's dense structure and limited time availability on my part, I did not advance very far into the game's plot after playing it for a few weeks, so it's possible that these flaws disappear as more characters show their faces. I did enjoy the characterization of a few "extras" - the Zulu warrior found in the diamond exhibit, for example, has a very casual and oddly friendly attitude.

Overall, I enjoyed playing 1893. It's engaging when one is in the right mood, and it's certainly entertaining and informative. You get more substance than anyone has a right to expect from a price tag like this. It's a great value at $20, and it will keep you occupied for months.

Jun 6, 2007 | 0 comments
Karl Parakenings