1893: A World's Fair Mystery

Release history

Prior to the retail release, there was a text-version (1.4) uploaded to the IF Archive and announced on rec.arts.int-fiction on 14th July 2002. An updated version (1.5) was available ten days later and on 17th October, a 2.0 preview release with graphics and music was shipped. Version 2.1 (28th October) fixed some bugs and starting from 2.4 (30th November), two PDF manuals were included with the game. Pictures on the history of the game can be viewed here.

Sales

As of May 2010, the author announced that sales of the game (after slightly over seven years) have exceeded 4,000 -- small fry for video games generally, but still an enormous figure for sales of text adventure games, a genre considered to be commercially defunct since the disappointing returns following the last big push by Infocom Implementor Michael Berlyn's Cascade Mountain Publishing circa 1998-99.

Awards

• XYZZY Award
  • 2002 - Best Setting

Additional information contributed by Pseudo_Intellectual and Wizo.