Adversaria

Have you ever been a stranger in a strange city? Wander the moody streets of 1890s literary London in this quirky, meditation on the plight of the aspiring artist. Adversaria is an experimental point-and-click game slowed down to evoke the moody experience of seeking success in an exclusive world where all doors seem closed.

Adversaria lands you in the publishing world of late-nineteenth-century London, a time of woe and intrigue, of “sellouts” versus “pure artists.” Players enter a slowly unfolding society of dandies, bluestockings, romantics and cynics on a choose-your-own-adventure-style journey based on the novel “New Grubb Street,” by George Gissing.

Crowded city streets are alienating places of surreal isolation as time is slowed and the world is frozen and inaccessible. The player is like a evesdropper on overhead conversations, and their progress through the world is determined by how they manage to inject comments into these seemingly closed circles.

Hand-drawn animations, intricate scenes from period newspapers, and a score by DJ Spooky set an atmospheric mood as you roam lamp-lit alleys and famous sites from the British Museum to the docks of the Thames. Along the way, a “literary machine” at the heart of the narrative lets you read and edit authentic detective, sci-fi and romance stories from the nineteenth century.

Part game, part art project, Adversaria plumbs the moment in literary history that spawned the concept of striking it rich with a “bestseller,” a world of talent, luck, intrigue and jealousy that mirrors themes of celebrity today.