Total Library
A replica of the library from Jorge Luis Borges' story The Library of Babel. Every single book in one massive library, all crammed into a 15MB download. No render distance limit, gaze off into infinity. Everything is generated in real-time.
Minimum specs:
- Resolution = 720p
- Computer = Updated at least once in the last 5 years.
(If things are slow, turn off shadows)
Made in Godot
See the source on Github
And a writeup of some of the tech
Some related projects:
- https://libraryofbabel.info/
- Library of Babel by Keiwan, another game with source code available
Download
Development log
- Version 1.1.081 days ago
- Total Library now supports running in the Browser!Nov 22, 2022
Comments
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Hi, I love your game and have some questions, suggestions, and bug reports.
Questions:
1. It seems that the game resets itself every time it launches. Is that correct?
2. What happens if you somehow reach the ground (lowest point) of the library?
3. Will you bring this game to Steam? I just want to see how much time I spend with this lovely game (without needing to use external tracking software).
Suggestions:
1. Since everything looks EXACTLY the same, it is very easy to get completely lost. It would be nice to have some coardinations (like: floor x; hexagon x; facing (north, east, south or west)) or like the coardinations in Minecraft (x, y, z)
2. The book pages should be numbered (finding a word after closing a book is very frustrating).
3. It would be nice to give some sort of (optional) save/load option.
Bugs:
1. If you close a book facing a bookshelf or wall (while the book sticks through said object), it clips through it and disappears.
2. If you run over a lot of books that lay on the ground (I threw ons a whole bookshelf on the ground), some of the books may fall to the ground on the lower floor.
If you want, you can contact me via email, under: M.Funk03@web.de
Appreciate the feedback and glad you like the game!
The game should save/load automatically but looks like that’s not working with the web build. Should be working on the downloadable versions.
Page numbers aren’t a bad idea and shouldn’t be too tricky to add.
I’ll take a look at the physics glitches but I think it’s always going to be a bit jank.
Not opposed to putting it on steam but I’d probably touch it up a bit more first.
For me, adding coordinates, a search feature, or explaining too much works against the atmosphere of the library. A big part of it are the unanswered/unanswerable questions. Is each book in there exactly once, is it completely random, is there some kind of pattern? Is there an edge, does it go on forever, does it repeat? Can you ever prove any of those questions one way or the other?
How is this possible! This is amazing, my brain is boggled. I have always loved the idea of the library of babel, and you brought it to life perfectly. Really well done. It ran surprisingly well for being never ending. Has anybody else actually found legible words and sentences yet? I'd be interested to find out. Anyway, awesome game 10/10, this is sick!
words definitely, words like do, ram and others
Cool, I have found a couple like ran, stun, and cat
I tried to run it on an old Linux laptop (Debian 8, can't use newer because of old ATi graphics and fglrx driver) and it failed with the following output: https://pastebin.com/6nsZRKkn
Thanks for the report! Do you know what version of libstdc++ you have? Looks like the game's engine needs v6. I don't think I can do much other than suggest you update if that's an option. You could also try running it from the source linked in the description.
Does the web version work?
I will check it soon. Upgrade is not an option since fglrx is dropped in newer distros and open source AMD driver is suboptimal with old GPUs. Also the web version isn't working on that specific device because it's too weak for that.
Relaxing and interesting, I'm wondering if you can do something similar with the "Pool-rooms"
Really coooool
Good Job bro
Would it at all be possible to have an app like this where it can access all of my ebooks from a folder and allow me to browse my library in a virtual 3d library.
Sure, it would take a decent amount of work but you could probably reuse some of the components from this. There's a link to the source in the description for anyone sufficiently motivated.
It would be really nice if there was a search function like on the website. But I'm very happy with what you were able to accomplish here.
Really cool and eerie!
No Mac? :(
Unfortunately I don't have a mac to build or test it out on.
Just got it working in-browser if you still want to give it a try!
Tried the web version on my Macbook Air (2015 model, i5, 8 GB, macOS Monterey). With Safari the page crashed and reloads, with Firefox the loading screen freezes at a certain stage. I can't see any unusual CPU or RAM usage spikes prior to crash.
Do you see anything in the developer console? Should be Cmd + Option + C
There are two error outputs (with a bunch of warnings) in the console that might be relevant:
Error: Promised response from onMessage listener went out of scope 3 background.js:931:170
and
Cross-Origin request blocked
i liked there was no "backrooms monster" trope that i've seen in a lot of liminal space video games. it was still successful in making me feel unease. only issue i had was that i got stuck on the stairs a few times and had to reset
Yeah, sorry about that. It's really difficult to get the collisions right on spiral staircases. There are a few invisible boxes to stop you getting wedged, and I'm not quite sure what else I can do.
Thanks for taking a look!