Ratings and Reviews by Rui Pires

The story lives and dies by its atmosphere, its mood; so whether or not you like it will depend on whether or not you feel the atmopshere.

Gameplay is on the basic side; implementation is a bit south of "solid"; the story itself seems a bit too outrageous. The question is, will the game's mood make you buy into that outrageous story?

For me, it did. Hook, line and sinker, this is stuff I love.

I was impressed with the pacing; after a strange introduction (wonderfully, delightfully, strange) you begin the game in an apartment, and your quest is to get coffee. If your first command, like mine, is >X ME, you get the default inform answer. So, first looks are likely to be underwhelming, and you seem primed for a basic quest in a mundane setting.

It is as you examine the things around you (I don't think this is worth being in a spoiler, is it? Examining everything is the bread and butter of an IF player, and we're talking about the very first rooms) that you realise things are off; this is not as straightforward as you thought, and your impressions are challenged a few times until you grok onto what's happening. You also realise that the game uses descriptions to give you bits and pieces of the overall background plot, so you'll have to examine everything you come across. Is this a chore or a delight? Again, it depends on how much you buy into the game's premise and plot. I found it to be a low-key apocalyptic body horror that really spoke to me. You will have to piece for yourself who/what, exactly, the PC is; there are enough hints for you to have a broad idea. And it's rather satisfying when you see confirmation of your hyphothesis.

The implementation gets a little bit sketchier. A few too many paragraph lines when I don't think there were supposed to be; using "him/her" pronouns to refer to people didn't work (that was quite unfortunate); "USE" is a verb that is going to be your friend. Clearly the focus was on writing and world-building. I seem to remember there was even a room description that included an action - you know, the sort of situation that's a classical no-no, because it gives the illusion that the action is repeated every time you type "look". Also, stuff like "car" not being recognised but "cars" being. A character whose default ASK ABOUT response is to say she wasn't paying attention because she was looking at the lake... but if you then X LAKE the game tells you that's not there at the moment.

Conversation is done almost exclusively via "TALK TO", with one notable exception - which is expressly spelled out for you. There are many possible keywords these characters could reasonably respond to, storywise; but apart from the one that's spelled out, I only found one other, and really, it's not worth looking for any. It's a TALK TO conversation system; best to stick to it. (After writing this review, I checked the game's itch.io page where the author recommends that you do ASK people ABOUT stuff. Sadly, if this was the author's intent... it failed utterly. I recommend you don't; if you do, frustration awaits you. The game is very enjoyable with just TALK TO and the one keyword that is expressily given to you for you to try.)

The writing serves the worldbuiling very well, so it's very jarring when you come across a default Inform stock response. Very jarring. The effort to rewrite these would have made a significant difference.

I don't think I want to talk about the story much, because I love its lack of definition. It's got so many things going on - it's a veritable stew of elements. I can hardly credit how well they go together; I think they only do because the focus was not on making a credible, plot-hole-less coherent story. I think the focus was instead on making an atmospheric story, with bits and pieces thrown at you, for you to make sense of and put in a coherent whole.

With that last sentence I may have given the impression that the game is of the style "throw every nonsensical thing at the player and let them find a story in there somewhere". No. Absolutely not. There are very clearly defined elements in this story; it is not random haphazard stuff. But there's so many different elements put together that I find it somewhat difficult to put them all in a completely cohesive, history-book-style narrative in my mind.

And - I can't stress this enough - I don't think you have to do that, anyway. This is a piece to be experienced, rather than to be completely understood. At least, that's what it felt like to me, and in this context I found it deliciously enjoyable. In a dark way. I was often reminded of (Spoiler - click to show)that Parasyte manga/anime.

I'm afraid I intensely dislike the cover image for this game. Its cartoonishness is at complete odds with the experience I went through.

To sum up, I believe the game is very enjoyable - if you are willing to buy into its universe, and if you like the game's way of doing things (examine everything, take it all in, accept that conversation will be limited and the game will make things a bit more difficult for you than it should by not always implementing everything in a way that is comfortable and sensible). If you want your fiction to be a bit more realistic/grounded, a bit more straightforward; if you very much want a solid, robust gameplay experience; or even if you are not comfortable with the themes this game touches on; you probably will feel differently.

Personally, I will be very interested in playing more games from this author.

The reviews of this game speak of it so glowingly that certain players may feel that it's their fault if they don't enjoy the experience. It's called a hidden gem, it's spoken of with high regard, ratings are generally very high (deservedly, in the sense that this is a colossal, monumental piece of work that deserves, at the very least, utmost respect and even some reverence).

So I stuck with it, and I stuck with it, and eventually I went "this just isn't for me", and that decision brought me tremendous relief. So I came here purposefully to say:

It's ok not to like this game. It's ok if it doesn't do it for you. You don't have to force yourself to like this thing that so many people rave about.

The historical depth of the game has been spoken about at length; it is well known that is is a masterfully-researched simulation of the 1893 World's Fair Expo. And if you approach it in that vein, and stroll around, and don't really worry much about puzzles or mapping, you're likely to have a pretty good time. Although you'll find that most locations have somewhat sparse depth; there may be two or three scenery items at most exhibit rooms, or one or two, that you can examine and generally not do much with. I mean, this is not unreasonable, considering the sheer size of the game; I don't think anyone expects rooms with thirty individually implemented unique items. But, the result is that eventually things start to feel a bit empty; pretty, but shallow. You walk around, examine two or three things that the room description describes, and move on to the next room.

In fairness; this is not exactly a problem. It also prevents the player being overwhelmed. It keeps things going. Keeps them moving. Keeps them light. Crucially, it makes it more obvious when you are in a room that actually has something you can manipulate.

All the same, you may find that the game sometimes will tell you that it can't see something it just referenced in the description. In my experience, every time I tried something with a non-standard verb, the game didn't understand me. In one particular case, "enter basin" was met with "If you want to jump into the basin, just say so", which annoys me to no end, because, game, if you know what I want to do, then just go ahead and let me do it; you've shown me that you don't do well with non-standard verbs, so I'm keeping it simple for your sake.

Mapping is another thing... yes, you don't need to map the whole thing, in the sense that you can use the map that the game came with for the overall grounds of the fair. You'll need to mark it, make notes on it. Now... to each their own, but if I don't map every single place myself, then I don't really have a notion of how it all fits, and more importantly, what is where; what objects are where, what events. For me, making the whole map is a necessity. I was, in fact, trying to map out the Government Plaza when I went "I'm this close to officially not having fun anymore and just giving up."

The puzzles are... well, I liked them, those that I saw before giving up, but they can be really finicky. Certain puzzles have you in rooms with, like, 10 hieroglyphs, or 8 pedestals and eight display cases (the Smithsonian is where I actually went "That's it, I'm done. I'm outta here"), or a number of totems. Or you may be balancing a sliver of bauxite, a hunk of the same, a large piece of the same, and a chunk of coal, weighing stuff on a scale. Typing the necessary disambiguation each and every time gets really old really faaaaaaast. It's not the type of puzzle that IF excels at, this is a puzzle that's best used in graphic adventures. Sure, IF has done them before, IF got there before the graphic adventures, but even so... it's cumbersome to solve these puzzles.

But by themselves, in a smaller map, without the micromanagement, it would probably be acceptable.

The micromanagement, yes... Have to eat, have to sleep, have to manage your inventory. I'm sighing deeply even as I write this. Again, nothing untowards; nothing that IF hasn't had us do time and again.

In fact, that's the whole thing. 1893 is a sum of a lot of things that are either good or, at worst, standard fare for IF and text adventures; point at each other individually, and it won't be so bad. Large map with sometimes shallow navigation? But I loved that in A Mind Forever Voyaging. Sprawling puzzlefest? Mulldoon Legacy remains one of my favourite games, that I remember very fondly (and Hadean Lands, not quite sprawling but very puzzly, is a gem). Time limits and food management? Well, one needs only to save the game, explore around, then reload and optimize moves.

But when you put them all together in a single game?

It's exhaaaaaausting!

And as for the plot? Apparently it picks up, but it's an object hunt (plotwise. Each object is hidden behind multi-step riddles). It's really not very motivating.

No one seems to say any of these things, so when I was playing I kept telling myself "Come on, give the game a fair shake. It's got things you admire, the puzzles you did solve were enjoyable (if finicky), and there's nothing here you haven't seen already a thousand times".

Yes, but rarely were they all in the same place, served by a plot that I was really not interested in. I perked up when I saw an indication of a puzzle, but some of them were so finicky that even that drained my excitement.

I was feeling guilty because I wasn't liking this game.

Now, that's just not right.

So I'm writing this review expressly to share my experience, and to say:

"If you also are not enjoying this game, it's ok. It's not you, it's just a bad fit. You're not missing out on what everyone seems to rave about. It's not worth it to push it when you realise you're not having fun. Admire the breadth of the work, which really is awe-inspiring; shed that weight; and move on."

(My rating reflects the dichotomy between my respect and admiration for the work itself... and my complete lack of enjoyment.)