— A literary-historical simulation —
Vectorian
Late Victorian London · 1875–1895
Vectorian returns the reader to the London of gas-light and printer's-ink, of Fleet Street presses thundering through the small hours and of lives recorded in parish registers, penny-papers, and the pages of novels. At its heart sits a vector database of places, characters, organisations, items, events, and primary-source excerpts — curated by domain experts, enriched from the period's books, and ready to be inhabited.
The first surface is a chatbot on Telegram. Step into a warren of low-ceilinged tavern rooms; slip down an alley to see where it leads; talk to the taciturn publican who keeps the cellar in good order and his opinions to himself. Beneath the prose runs a careful and extensible model of Victorian London, meant to outlast any single product built on top of it.
The Companion
Step inside
A chatbot on Telegram, admitting its guests at any hour. Type freely, or tap a proffered action; the narrator will attend to you.
@vectorian_london_botThe Newspaper
Read the news
A weekly editorial dispatch from the years 1875 to 1895. Each issue presents three events; tap any headline to enter London at that precise day and place.
@vectorian_newsThe Parlour
Join the company
The regulars' table: talk of the project, suggestions for the steward, a bit of news from the readers themselves.
@vectorian_londonWhat is being built
- A canonical, versioned knowledge base of Victorian London — locations, characters, organisations, items, historical events — curated wiki-style by domain experts.
- A book-powered enrichment pipeline that turns public-domain Victorian literature into searchable, curated excerpts tied to the places and people they describe.
- A Telegram companion that transports the player into the London of the late Victorian years for free-form, atmospheric exploration — open to visitors now; quests, life simulation, and a shared multi-player world upon the road-map.
- A weekly newspaper channel covering 1875–1895 as chronological editorial dispatches, with each headline a doorway into the game at that exact day and place.
- An open foundation other games and interactive products may be built upon, with later eras (Georgian, Edwardian) inheriting the same engine.
For domain experts
If the Victorian era is a subject of your study — social history, the literature of the period, public health, journalism, industry, any of the innumerable threads that compose nineteenth-century life — Vectorian is being built with your contributions in mind. Entries will be versioned, cited, and stewarded like Wikipedia articles, and credited in every product that uses them. The parlour is the place for conversation.
The next world
Vectorian begins with late Victorian London, but the foundation is built to hold more than one era. Belle Époque Paris, Renaissance Florence, the Jazz Age, somewhere else entirely: the later worlds will sit alongside this one, not replace it. Which should we open next? Tell us what draws you.