What's the largest/longest IF?
Aaron A. Reed
or "largest" IF, but I have no idea if this is actually true.
Blue Lacuna stats:
-- 385,000 words of I7 source code
-- about 250,000 words of actual printed prose. (~3 average novels)
-- 138 rooms (not breaking any records here, I expect)
-- An average (non-rushed) playthrough is about 2000-3000 moves and
takes maybe 18-25 hours.
-- The gblorb file (stripped of any multimedia) is 5.2 megabytes.
Does anyone know of any IF (from any era) that surpasses these stats?
Would it be fair for me to call Blue Lacuna "the largest interactive
fiction ever created" or would some other phrase be more appropriate?
Thanks all,
--Aaron
Ron Newcomb
Paul O'Brien just reviewed Peter Nepstad's _1893: A World's Fair
Mystery_. It was huge. Maybe email and ask?
-R
Al
1893 weighs in at 74.1 Megs
Since I mapped it I believe it has as many rooms as yours. t
Al
Ron Newcomb
It had 200+ rooms, but I dunno about story minus multimedia.
Ah hell with with. Just call it the largest, Aaron. If you're wrong,
some tight-anused internet pedant will be along within hours to call
you a liar, an idiot, or both. Then we'll know. :-)
-R
Aaron A. Reed
Ooh, I'd forgotten about 1893.
I just checked my CD and it looks like 1893's source code weighs in at
2.1 MB. I tallied up Blue Lacuna's (as raw text stripped from the
Inform 7 files) and it comes to.... 2.4 MB. Sorry, Nepstad. ;-)
Anyone else want a piece of me?
--Aaron
Jim Aikin
(not Infocom) did in the '80s for a game by boasting that it had,
like, 25,000 rooms or something. Most of the rooms turned out to be a
large, boring maze.
Personally, I don't find claims of extraordinary size very beguiling.
There's something peculiarly ... male about taking that line, isn't
there? Not to undercut your enthusiasm for your game, or anyone
else's. I'm looking forward to playing it! But sheer overall size is
not a guarantee of pleasure. As someone once said, "It ain't the meat,
it's the motion."
--JA
James Jolley
I do agree with this, but it's certainly great fun. I was a tester for
both the preview and the newer release here, and the work is long. So
long in fact that I didn't even finish it and tested specific portions.
Now it's out, I intend to finnish it as the story is so different.
Aaron A. Reed
Maybe I should avoid the term "longest."
;-)
--Aaron
S. John Ross
> Personally, I don't find claims of extraordinary size very beguiling.
> There's something peculiarly ... male about taking that line, isn't
> there? Not to undercut your enthusiasm for your game, or anyone
> else's. I'm looking forward to playing it! But sheer overall size is
> not a guarantee of pleasure. As someone once said, "It ain't the meat,
> it's the motion."
Wordcount of the prose, in particular, is never anything to go by,
since what one writer can do elegantly and powerfully in 500 words
another writer can drone on about for 5,000 ... and I for one have a
powerful allergy to bloated prose, since it usually indulges the
author a lot more than the reader.
Which is not intended as commentary in any way on Blue Lacuna, which I
very much look forward to giving a spin when time allows ... Just on
the general "Biggest/Longest" thing.
At least he didn't ALSO claim it was the "Hardest" :)
Rowan Lipkovits
> I seem to recall reading a story about a promotion that some company
> (not Infocom) did in the '80s for a game by boasting that it had,
> like, 25,000 rooms or something. Most of the rooms turned out to be a
> large, boring maze.
Puts me in mind of Sierra's Time Zone (1982), boasting some 1500
locations... most of which were, of course, featureless. Quantity is
something, but I think we've all also learned something about quality
over the past quarter century. Heck, some of my favorite works of IF
take place in a single room! 8)
Jerome West
> Personally, I don't find claims of extraordinary size very beguiling.
> There's something peculiarly ... male about taking that line, isn't
> there? Not to undercut your enthusiasm for your game, or anyone
> else's. I'm looking forward to playing it! But sheer overall size is
> not a guarantee of pleasure. As someone once said, "It ain't the meat,
> it's the motion."
You're totally right of course, size alone doesn't mean a thing. But
personally, I find the whole concept of epic IF strangely compelling.
That's why my WIP is perpetually IP. That's why I always look forward to
Spring Thing more than the IFComp. And that's why I'm entranced by Blue
Lacuna (which I have just begun to play), and hoping it lives up to all
of its promises.
Mike C
Also, didn't Level 9's Snowball boast over 7000 rooms but all but 150
or so of them were repetitions with different colour codes built into
the descriptions?
Mike
Paul J. Furio
> At least he didn't ALSO claim it was the "Hardest" :)
Or "Thickest".
Aaron A. Reed
OK, OK, enough with the innuendos. I think we can just say that Blue
Lacuna is by far the most tumescent interactive fiction of all time
and leave it at that.
Remember, practice safe Glulx.
--Aaron
Adam Thornton
>Lacuna is by far the most tumescent interactive fiction of all time
>and leave it at that.
For a while, we can say that.
A challenger for the title is coming.
Eventually.
Possibly in your eye.
Adam
Gene Wirchenko
Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
Or not.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
James Cunningham
Considering how long it seems to be taking, I might urge you to cut
back on the antidepressants.
Best,
James
Paul J. Furio
the alt.sex.stories crowd. Leather Goddesses was fine and good, but
it seems there could be some genuinely... randy Interactive Fiction
out there.
S. John Ross
There is, a bit ... I've been poking around into the community
dedicated to it, and it SEEMS to be almost entirely separate from the
"mainstream" IF community, with essentially no similar names involved.
I'd like to think this represents just very different interests that
has attracted two completley dissimilar groups, but I also wonder if
there aren't a few pseudonyms going on? Dunno. :/
Links to start with (NSFW due to mildly naughty images on the
webpages):
http://newsletter.aifcommunity.org/index.php
Most of the games are pretty weak, unfortunately, since most focus on
the mechanics of the naughty play at the expense of most other
elements (and, smut being smut - bless its heart - there are stories
that cater to some unpleasant tastes, but which ones are those will
depend on YOUR tastes, so ...). There are a few exceptions (some are
just as limited in scope but make up for it by being cleverly funny,
for example, and one or two really do work as adventures in their own
right).
My own thoughts on "interactive erotica" lean toward the Leather
Goddesses model, not specifically in being pseudo-pulpy comedy (though
I certainly don't mind that!), but in terms of being adventure games
in which sex scenes are a regular pacing/reward device, without much
in the way of mechanical "lick her left ear while greasing the
chihuahua's butt and inserting the butternut squash into the
vibratron" type commands. Not that I wouldn't adore a game where I
could actually type that and get a specific response :)
Greg Boettcher
> I just checked my CD and it looks like 1893's source code weighs in at
> 2.1 MB. I tallied up Blue Lacuna's (as raw text stripped from the
> Inform 7 files) and it comes to.... 2.4 MB. Sorry, Nepstad. ;-)
>
> Anyone else want a piece of me?
When I first saw the title of this thread I assumed you meant largest/
longest in terms of gameplay time. But okay, you want to talk about
bytes of source code? Prepare yourself...
[tallying my code for what seems like an hour]
I'm happy to let you hold the world record for now. But watch out. My
WIP, Nothing but Mazes, currently in beta-testing, has a full 3.2 MB.
[*]
[*] The actual source files add up to 4.9 MB, but it really isn't fair
to include my vast amounts of commented-out code, which I just found
out adds up to 1.7 MB.
On the other hand, my game is not that long in terms of gameplay time.
One of my testers said his first playthrough only took him four and a
half hours.
As far as number of rooms... well, I'd rather not tally that up right
now. No need to augment people's fears for a game called "Nothing but
Mazes."
Greg
Rikard Peterson
<9a0b1295-a4b6-4739...@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com>,
Jim Aikin <midig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally, I don't find claims of extraordinary size very beguiling.
> There's something peculiarly ... male about taking that line, isn't
> there? Not to undercut your enthusiasm for your game, or anyone
> else's. I'm looking forward to playing it! But sheer overall size is
> not a guarantee of pleasure. As someone once said, "It ain't the meat,
> it's the motion."
>
> --JA
This discussion reminds me of "the world's biggest adventure game":
http://enterthestory.com/ Chris Tolworthy is making a game
incorporating several classical stories. The first part: Les Miserables
is available now, and he's working on adding The Divine Comedy.
I haven't played it, so I can't say anything about if it works or not,
but I find the concept intriguing (and crazy, in a good way).
/ Rikard
Adam Thornton
Oh, there is.
There is.
Even outside of alt.games.xtrek.
Adam