now playing: "Echo Bazaar"

Echo Bazaar
Genre(s): Social/MMO, Text adventure

Credits: Failbetter Games, 2009-present

Awards: 2009 “Best Browser-Based Game” award from The Escapist

I’d bet all my Game Informer magazine clippings (yes, even the adorable Blob cutout) that you winced when you saw “text adventure” just now. And you wouldn’t be alone either. Although they’ve faded from the mainstream, text-based games have quite a bit of negative stigma left from their 80s and 90s glory years when titles like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1984) earned their infamy from their 99.99% impossibility of success. North, south, open the door, pick up the cup, try kicking the chair, eat the moldy crust, and just when you realize how much more awaits you out there, something hits your head and you fade to black.

So why am I reviewing a piece of “text-based crap” according to the sentiments of gamers raised in the graphical generation? Because Echo Bazaar reinvents the text adventure by placing it in a traditional MMO context—dripping with an overabundance of missions and quests (labeled “storylets”) to keep the player from ever feeling stuck in the dark, while preserving the wonderful openness and bewilderment of a world you have to learn about in bits and pieces. The lack of a pre-defined storyline creates a truly liberating experience for the player, allowed to literally choose his/her own path.

Ironically, EB's opening sequence, through which all players must pass, parodies the classic text-adventure entry scene that occurs in the depths of a dungeon. No explanation is offered as to how the player got there to begin with, only that she or he must start out there. After they escape (for once, a brainless task), players are free to explore the realm of Fallen London, divided into four main areas dedicated to raising their experience levels in one of four qualities: Dangerous, Persuasive, Shadowy, and Watchful. By leveling up in these various areas (specialization in one or two qualities is encouraged), you gain connections with various NPC social classes, collect money and possessions, and learn more about the secrets and origin of Fallen London. Nearly every quest, mission, or single action affects the progress of one of these statistics. And if you’re ever banished, killed, or declared insane, you’re simply sent to more exclusive areas of the ever-expanding game world, still in “beta.” 

One of many possible "storylets" that you can choose to do—or not.

Echo Bazaar is very much a “literary” game, more likely to appeal to those of you who read for fun and are skilled at using your imagination. Although its interactivity as an MMO is limited to your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and the simple point-and-click of your mouse (storylines and interactions are entirely text-and-still-image based), its post-apocalyptic, steampunk, through-the-looking-glass Victorian London setting and sardonically witty writing create an enchanting, arcane, and yet attractive atmosphere that feels nothing like your typical text adventure and everything like a saga from a galaxy far, far away. Part of its appeal comes from the fact that it’s not a “hunter-gatherer” society in typical MMO fashion: it’s a fully-developed civilization (although its level of humanity and morality are highly debatable). Typical activities include gathering leads for shady journalists, seducing artists, attending Tim-Burton-esque circuses, and dealing with nightmares. Once, I dissuaded a crowd from hanging a homicidal maniac:

My Persuasive quality was high enough that a die roll predicted my ease of success. If I hadn't been so fortunate... well, let's not think about that.

In theme, EB is highly misanthropic, preferring the company of “tomb-colonists” and “Rubbery Men” as more reliable and innocuous acquaintances compared to the average human. Although an entire game area (the Veilgarden, for Persuasive leveling up) is particularly dedicated to advancing oneself in society by pursuing beneficial romances with celebrities and incurring good public opinion, there lies a general undertone that “other people” are not to be trusted. In cases where an in-game character does you a favor or a kindness, the game persists in hinting that ulterior motives may be involved; furthermore, if you successfully rob an old dying woman of her will, you are congratulated on your cunning manipulation. Although the player’s expectations for the game’s outcome may vary wildly during the opening prison escape sequence, it becomes apparent quickly that “happiness” is a nonexistent term in most of Fallen London—and where the word is used, it has only a hedonist’s eat-drink-and-be-merry connotation. Adding to the moody misanthropy, many "storylets" hint at or address issues like racism, sexual orientation, and corruption in politics and religion, lending a striking, dark realism. If you pay attention to recurring motifs and "read between the lines," you might be surprised at how much Fallen London parallels our world the way popular classic literature has done before.

In conclusion, Echo Bazaar resembles someone’s design document for an intensively immersive holographic world à la Star Trek. With only still images and text, it promises an environment that could never be fully realized in an FPS-graphical system of this generation. Maybe text adventures are outdated and barely palatable to most gamers' tastes, but for now, it's the best technology capable of rendering this wonderful world.

Next time: A game with an NPC so emo, Cloud Strife could be his psychiatrist. No offense to Chocobo-Head intended.