can someone make a video game where there's no goal but you can walk around the entire campus of the 1893 chicago worlds fair and look at absolutely everything in great detail and maybe chat with the vendors and performers from all over the world

like EVERYTHING tho, the taxidermy polar bears and the windsor castle carved from soap and the perfume fountain and all the dolls and the japanese pavilion on the wooded island and the fairy light walks at night and the observation deck overlooking the replica spanish monastery

maybe there could be some little quests like you have to help the electrical engineers keep the white city lit by checking all the gas lines and finding idk a sparkplug but they're really low stakes and no time frame and they're exploration based

they had a recreation of an entire cairo bazaar on the midway and one of the most popular things at the fair for writers was to just sit and people watch from the fake egyptian sidewalk cafe. i'd do that today i'd do that right this minute

i want to go to the CYCLORAMA and see the VOLCANO SHOW

i will leave it to a real historian or a moral philosopher to determine how the game will deal with the extremely fucking racist stuff

maybe we'll leave out this part about people jumping to their deaths from the roof of the burning ice building in front of all the horrified fair goers as the firefighters stand around helpless that i've just learned about

i'm watching a really great documentary on this. it's narrated by gene wilder! you never see him tho, or anyone else, it's just a slideshow of maps and old photos of the fair, and he just walks you through all the amazing things on display, with characteristic understated humor

archduke franz ferdinand visited! you could bump into him in the line for cocoa or sit next to him to see the javanese orchestra

to answer everyone's question yes i read devil in the white city when it came out years and years ago but don't remember a word of it because my brain is a soup