Books! by Chinchilla

[raw]
made by Chinchilla for Ludum Dare 37 (COMPO)
A near-infinite VR "Library of Babel", inspired by Jorge Luis Borges​' short story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel
Requires Oculus Rift + Oculus Touch Controllers.
Push in the left stick to teleport around the library (switching rooms may be slow)
There should be a book in there entitled "Instructions" which will tell you what to do. If you find it, please let me know where it is.
Built in Unity, with NewtonVR
https://github.com/TomorrowTodayLabs/NewtonVR
Music by
Artist name: Shady Dave
abstract (ambient loop)
https://www.freesound.org/people/ShadyDave/sounds/345838/
Other SFX
https://www.freesound.org/people/dobroide/sounds/46283/
https://www.freesound.org/people/Pieguy360/sounds/346835/

Feedback

Palarus
13. Dec 2016 · 14:36 UTC
Really interesting VR experiment, how did you come up with the idea?
Billion Bits
13. Dec 2016 · 14:50 UTC
Wow what an amazing idea! I really love Borges so no need to say that i loved the context
Uliana Galich
13. Dec 2016 · 16:52 UTC
Music and graphics are really cool
Pierrec
13. Dec 2016 · 17:35 UTC
This looks so great! I wish I could play it! :(
Peach Pie Productions
13. Dec 2016 · 17:46 UTC
Wow that was such a ride. I love librarys so dont get me started haha
jamioflan
13. Dec 2016 · 21:08 UTC
Would it be possible to do a Vive version? I'd love to give it a go (also, I doubt there are that many Touch users at the moment since it has just released)
Big Cow
13. Dec 2016 · 21:37 UTC
It loaded up but I was stuck and couldn't move. Just wanted to say how cool the demo looked on youtube. Ever since I saw https://libraryofbabel.info/ on a vsauce video the concept of every possible phrase being searchable on that website is kinda cool and kinda spooky. You seem to have captured that and added some cool physics. Nice work. -RS
neon
17. Dec 2016 · 18:55 UTC
I find the idea of this to be really cool, but I can't try it since it doesn't seem to open up in VR on the Vive.
DOXM
18. Dec 2016 · 09:45 UTC
It seems great, but it is not working :(
At least the graphics are cool!
Naca
20. Dec 2016 · 22:52 UTC
"There should be a book in there entitled "Instructions" which will tell you what to do. If you find it, please let me know where it is." Hahahahaha sooo good man! You really understand what this library is :D
I love this one! I've always found Borges' Library of Babel a super mind-blowing concept. And it was in my plan to make a digital version someday. But you (and someone else) have been faster than me :D In case you didn't noticed yet, there's another game in this jam about this topic, but it's not in full 3D:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-37/?action=preview&uid=38743
I'm glad to see this kind of fresh ideas come to surface. To take worlds from other media and to implement them as "games" or "simulations" is so interesting for me.
Now, I want to ask you the same questions I've asked to the other developer, in order to see how accurate is the game respect to the novel: are the books' contents randomly generated? In the novel they were not. There was a limited number of books, not infinite, and each one was unique and different from the rest. If you generate them randomly, there could be two or more identical books. If they're not randomly generated... then how did you do it?? :D It's impossible to load all the variations of 410 pages x 40 lines x 80 characters. So you have to load them room by room. Then, they cannot be randomly generated, because that way could be repeated books. So in order to generate them, you have to sort them in some way. But then you have to "unsort" them. How?
ijona
22. Dec 2016 · 21:52 UTC
Unfortunately, I can't check it out (don't have the equipment), but the idea is cool!
Sarge3v
25. Dec 2016 · 19:45 UTC
This is pretty good idea, art museums or libraries in virtual reality may be a part of life in future.