the slowest games you know

[bvanevery]

Every time I play Freeciv (http://www.freeciv.org) I end up taking gobs of time at it. Even when I say I'm going to play a "quick" game of it, I'll be at it for 5 hours before I give up out of boredom. A game of Freeciv can and usually does go indefinitely. How long I play is limited more by my stamina than any reasonable notion of finishability. I know a lot about why Civ-style games take as long as they do.

I'm curious what other kinds of games you've run into, besides the Civ genre, that are slooooooooooow and take forever. I suppose it would also be worth mentioning games that seem to take forever, even if the absolute amount of time expended isn't as steep. For instance, a Casual game that ends up taking 3 hours to get anywhere when most take 30 minutes.

I suppose I'm after ultimate notions of boredom, timewasting, and extraneous "fat" in games.

[Desktop Gaming]

Stone of Destiny, for me. Not that I play a vast amount of games.

Aside from it having a really poor framerate on a PC that was far above the supposed minimum spec, there were subgame puzzles that seemed completely and utterly pointless.

My partner normally plays more of this stuff than I do, and even she was fed up with it before the hour's free trial was up.

[Dylan McCall]

In terms of "slow", I guess Freeciv "Longturn (www.longturn.org)" fits in. (24-hour turns).
It sure isn't boring, though!


An actually boring, slow game, hm...

Fable is one that I got a bit tired of. It was really open, which is good, but it never really gave me a direction. I just wandered for a while, but lost attention because it hadn't hooked me in.

[mot]

What is the name of that game where in one part you had to drive a bus across a desert for HOURS of REAL TIME? The road was straight but the bus had a bad wheel or something and was turning to one side so you had to compensate all the time - couldn't just put a weight on the pedal...

[bvanevery]

In terms of "slow", I guess Freeciv "Longturn (www.longturn.org)" fits in. (24-hour turns).
It sure isn't boring, though!

Does anyone ever finish? I have trouble imagining it, unless the worlds are teeny weeny.

[GolfHacker]

The first Microsoft flight simulator. No way to speed up time or jump ahead. Anywhere you wanted to go, you had to fly in real-time. And for the most part, there was no scenery - just a flat green plane for the ground and blue sky (or black sky if you wanted to fly at night). That got so boooooooooooooring... and when you finally got to where you wanted to go, most cities and destinations had no scenery to look at. UgH!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5f/Sublogic_Flight_Simulator_II.png/300px-Sublogic_Flight_Simulator_II.png

The only fun we had with that program was turning off collision and nose-diving into the ground to see the plane right itself as it "landed".

[Drake]

What is the name of that game where in one part you had to drive a bus across a desert for HOURS of REAL TIME? The road was straight but the bus had a bad wheel or something and was turning to one side so you had to compensate all the time - couldn't just put a weight on the pedal...Penn & Teller's Smoke & Mirrors (http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/03/penn_jillette_discusses_unrele.php)

[Fry Crayola]

Football Manager. It has no end, it's exceptionally repetitive, and yet it can grab you and have you playing a single for months.

And then, one day, you just don't want to.