Blue Lacuna

Blue Lacuna is one of those pieces of IF that will take it's rightful place in the history of the art. My own experience of any IF is one of lesser or greater interaction with the fictional setting. Upon walking down the street, I don't for one moment think, ah! a tree, 'x tree'. I simply think 'tree', and there with all the glory of my senses, I see the beauty of the tree. This is the methodology of Blue Lacuna, and it is one which I believe will become more and more prevalent in the future. It may seem like a minor detour from the traditional and accepted 'x tree' to Blue Lacuna's 'tree', but it does undoubtedly make a very significant difference in the way the interactive experience plays out.

The world of the title is large and expansive, allowing interaction with much of what you see around you to the extent that you are able to taste the berries growing on bushes and smell the flowers etc.

In many ways Blue Lacuna is one of the few pieces of IF that could be described as a novel in the truest sense of the word. That's not to say it's the perfect example of IF of course; I'm not a great lover of the idea that we might choose the sex of our character for example. It reminds me too much of the old RPGs, and I think that it sometimes leads to a dilution of the character that invariably adds little or nothing to the work as a whole or the experience of the reader, no matter what sex they themselves may be.

My overall opinion of this work is one of great hope for the medium of IF in coming years, particularly since so many notables are investing so much of their time to push the boundaries of what is at present a wonderful and exciting area of fiction, and hints at so much more in the relatively near future.

And a very impressive and expressive future it may prove to be if Blue Lacuna is anything to go by.

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