Echo Bazaar!
Encyclopedia
Echo Bazaar is a browser-based choose-your-own-adventure game by Failbetter Games. It is set in "Fallen London", an alternative Victorian
London
with gothic
and steampunk
overtones.
The game has won The Escapist
"Best Browser-Based Game" award for the year 2009.
-based) agriculture, while Mister Iron rules industry), and is occasionally spoken of as though it were a sentient being. It is implied that someone known as the Traitor Empress – most likely Queen Victoria – sold the city to the bazaar and allowed it to be taken to spare the life of her husband Albert, Prince Consort.
London is only the latest, fifth city to be taken underground in a pattern stretching across thousands of years, although certain storylines show that it has not lost contact with the outside world.
Fallen London has also found itself much closer to Hell
, and devils appear constantly and casually in various storylines. This proximity is also given as the reason why denizens of Fallen London – including the Player Characters – frequently come back to life.
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
with gothic
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
and steampunk
Steampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
overtones.
The game has won The Escapist
The Escapist (magazine)
The Escapist is an online magazine covering video games, gamers, the gaming industry, and gaming culture. Published by the Themis Group, it was edited by Julianne Greer up to June 30, 2009, then by Russ Pitts through September 2011, and is currently edited by Steve Butts. The Escapist was first...
"Best Browser-Based Game" award for the year 2009.
Setting
The titular bazaar of the game is controlled by several masters, each with their own control over Fallen London's business (Mister Apples, for instance, controlling (mushroomMushroom
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...
-based) agriculture, while Mister Iron rules industry), and is occasionally spoken of as though it were a sentient being. It is implied that someone known as the Traitor Empress – most likely Queen Victoria – sold the city to the bazaar and allowed it to be taken to spare the life of her husband Albert, Prince Consort.
London is only the latest, fifth city to be taken underground in a pattern stretching across thousands of years, although certain storylines show that it has not lost contact with the outside world.
Fallen London has also found itself much closer to Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, and devils appear constantly and casually in various storylines. This proximity is also given as the reason why denizens of Fallen London – including the Player Characters – frequently come back to life.