brokensynth:

@mercuriusfm s @nomansskyoffical Spotify Playlist for cyberpunk blade running and off world space trucking.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5LvQWxSh5oxyGLHH2Jg17N?si=up2VKmoWTse84JYF2kvkLg

D E A D M I N D

(Warning for spoilers to No Man’s Sky)

Today I left my traveller to float for eternity in their cute little space ship a mere 146,933.2 light years from the center of the Euclid Galaxy. From the get go we were told that the goal of No Man’s Sky was to reach the centre of the Galaxy. For the first 60 or so hours of playing the game I ignored this and spent much time exploring every single planet in so much detail other people were probably laughing at me. 

I fell in love with space creatures of all kinds. I was seemingly much more lucky than other people that were playing the game - I started on a very lush planet, in a system of lush and beautiful planets and it was probably 3 hyper jumps before I found myself in an ugly and seemingly desolate system.

Some of the space creatures seemed more like space monsters and I was okay with that. It seemed plausible at first. Again, I was lucky that it was many planets until I found myself creatures who’s animation was so weird and ridiculous that it was just ugly.

I fell in love with vista after vista. My favourite part of this early play time was traversing on foot and cresting hills to have my breath taken away from what was revealed beyond. I adored using my jetpack to soar above lakes and throw myself in, plummeting to their beautiful depths.

I watched sunrise after sunrise on a multitude of landscapes and it took me quite a while to feel like this was repetitive or old.

Being a sucker for science fiction and space ships I just couldn’t get enough of this world that was full of them! Space ships and trading hubs everywhere!

I tweeted my experience of No Man’s Sky as I do with many games and you can see all the images and little video clips under the twitter tag #crSky . You’ll probably notice that I went through an entire gamut of emotions and frustrations, from the lack of accessibility, to pure joy, to frustration and finally, boredom. 

The longer I played No Man’s Sky the more I got increasingly mad at it. If you play video games you may have even seen all of the controversy over this game. As with anything to do with video games on the internet it all got a bit out of hand and over the top, but as I played I did begin to see where that spark of anger first came to life. 

At first I loved it. It was beautiful (not the most beautiful, but with its own charm), it felt close to what I wanted from exploring space - especially finding, naming, cataloguing animals and flying around in a space ship. But then I got so dismayed at the game that all I could fathom was that this game was simply incomplete - that the developers had all of these big ideas but that they just didn’t get any of them finished and that some serious content was lacking. Now I’ve finished* the game I’m not so sure. *walked away from.

The biggest disappointment for me came with the lack of conclusion to following the path of the Atlas. The biggest frustration was the complete lack of instruction or feedback on what was needed from me as a traveller in my journey. 

As an example, I’ll tell you about the Atlas Path - the Atlas are a mysterious being or force (you never find out what exactly) that may or may not be the benevolent creators of the universe. Whatever they are or were, they’re long gone, but they’ve left behind a trail for a mysterious group of sentient beings* to follow by visiting interfaces they’ve left behind. *The Travellers - that’s you. 

You receive Atlas Stones for each Atlas interface you visit, and in order to ‘complete’ that quest you need pretty much every one. Except you don’t know this and they can also be sold at trade terminals and to aliens for a veryattractive price at a time when earning cash can be a slog. So, I sold most of mine and I got to the end of the Atlas path and I couldn’t complete the quest (!!). A quick internet search revealed that it was okay and I didn’t miss anything anyways, not even any animation… just a little bit of text and no proof that anything actually happened.

This brings me to what made me wary when I first started playing the game - there’s very little animation or real action in the game. Nearly everything is a text based description of what is happening, or simple lore. My initial reaction was what the fuck? did I just pay $80 for space dungeons and dragons with an invisible DM describing everything to me?

To answer this question after who knows how many near-infinite hours of gameplay - yes I did. But I’m not mad about it anymore. In my final two hours of playing the game I had an epiphany and I forgave the creators of No Man’s Sky for most of their transgressions. 

I forgave them for forcing me into a colonialist journey of claiming places I discovered that were already settled. 

I forgave them for the weirdly uncomfortable mix of sheer beauty, majesty, silliness and total ugliness of the procedurally generated worlds and creatures. 

I forgave them for making me feel like I had to spend countless hours searching for a rare random drop of the Atlas Pass v2 only to discover there was literally nothing but some new furniture behind those doors. 

I forgave them for not ‘finishing’ the intriguing stories they had begun to weave through this expansive galaxy. 

I forgave them for not giving me enough of an opportunity to learn the Atlas language so that I had no idea what the Atlas was saying to me, even though I worked hard and spent days searching for monoliths.

I forgave them for boring me out of my own mind scouring for resources, building up my equipment and cataloguing space monsters. 

I forgave them for making me hate entire alien races; I forgave them for making me love another but giving me no substance too.

I forgave them for making the journey to the centre of the galaxy so horrifically arduous and never ending that I simply gave up and left my traveller to float for eons in the vast emptiness of space.

But why? Why forgive a games developer for making a video game that seemingly failed to deliver on every promised front? My personal epiphany was that this is actually not far off what living this role in space would mean to a sentient being. Being completely alone and not even knowing who or what you are, but being told your destiny is to toil and travel and toil and travel and just do it for eternity over and over.

This idea poked into my brain several times while playing, but I kept pushing it back because I wanted more. I wanted to be entertained. I wanted an actual ending to my story; I worked HARD at this dammit, I deserve a good round, proper ending. I spent all this time barely being entertained and I don’t even get an ending? 

I read this article from Polygon and I saw what actually happens when you reach the centre of the galaxy and I couldn’t ignore that idea anymore. It’s perfect. It’s almost too perfect. You’re living an infinite loop of difficult hard work and wonder (but also boredom), continually searching for the illusive meaning to your journey. This is existentialism. This is the Franz Kafka video game I always wanted and I didn’t even know it until I finally let go of my traveller and left them to float for eternity in a beautiful expanse of stars.

Yes, this is a fertile land and I will thrive…

I was recently reminded of the awesome game No Man’s Sky, which in turn reminded me of a short bit of writing I did years ago…

~~~

10394.120.49.11

Experienced captains will warn you not to head out into the black by yourself. Most people lose their minds in a couple months, sometimes weeks. Having no one to talk to messes with your brain. You start talking to your ship, talking to the stars, talking to nobody. That’s not too much of a problem, though, is it? As long as you can keep functioning.

I’m fine by myself. I talk to things that can’t talk back, but it doesn’t seem to bother them or me, so who cares? Still, I should have been more prepared before I took off into the unknown. I had my one dinky little wreck of a ship, and I was tired of being stuck on one planet, however nice it was, so I saved up some cash, bolted a hyperdrive to my wreck, and set off.  

Did you know there are actual space pirates? I didn’t, and that should give you a clue to how naïve I was. I nearly had my tail shot off more than once, until I bought some decent armament to return fire. I wasn’t expecting that to be my introduction to the universe. I’d had all these ideas about how exciting it would be to explore empty solar systems and be the first to see glorious planetary vistas.

Well…it’s exciting, all right. You don’t know exciting until you’re a mountain range away from your ship and your exosuit calmly informs you that a storm is approaching, so you spend the next several minutes running for your life, frantically looking for caves, and trying to punch repair commands into the suit.

Those alien vistas aren’t what the travel brochures advertised. OK, the brochures were all in my head, I grant you. But I was picturing strange new creatures, towering mountains, bizarre vegetation, a brilliant moonrise over a lambent sea.

So yeah, that alien sea’s beguiling glow is because it’s radioactive, dammit. The critters are strange, alright – my favorite one so far was a thing I called the pogo jelly, since it looked and acted like a very bouncy dessert. But a good number of those critters will attack you on sight, and you usually don’t know which, until one starts trying to rip through your exosuit to get to the tasty flesh inside. You start to question your life choices when you’re standing on top of your ship like an idiot, staring down at the weird things with big teeth swarming around your landing gear.

Not to mention the Sentinel problem. When I set out, I knew about the Sentinels, but I didn’t realize they’d spread to every damn corner of the galaxy. Those little floaty buggers get ticked off and trigger-happy if you start shooting critters. Or mining. Or looking at plants. Or just standing there minding your own business, in some cases. Thank god the ship is able to analyze the transmissions they use to communicate with each other. The other day, I landed on a planet, my ship told me the local Sentinels were “very aggressive,” and I took off again and named the planet “Nope Central” as it receded behind me.

There are times when I miss my first planet, to be honest. Sonora. It was dry and didn’t have too much interesting going on, but it had its own kind of austere beauty. I actually did try to go back to it, early on, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe it’s for the best.

I feel like I’m a little less naïve now. I found an interesting planet awhile back – holy balls, that place was inhospitable. I named it Hell Is Windy. Constant heat, constant storms where it just got hotter and hotter. But man, I made BANK on that planet. I bought a new ship financed entirely by my exploits on Hell Is Windy. There are times when I think I should have stayed there. But, honestly, that kind of environment wears on me more than being alone.  It’s exhausting, being constantly keyed up, trying not to make the mistake that will leave you dead on an alien planet where no one will ever find your corpse. “He almost made enough to buy that hyperdrive upgrade” would be a dumb epitaph. So I moved on.

The new ship isn’t bad – more cargo space, more guns to discourage the pirates. I keep drooling over nicer ships, but I don’t have the cash to spring for one quite yet. Actually, I’ve gone a bit in the other direction. I found a jungle world – almost what I was envisioning when I first set out. The planet isn’t constantly trying to kill me, and it’s got pretty views and all that. I’ve built myself a base of sorts. Now that I’m putting down roots, it’s time to work smarter, instead of wandering aimlessly around the galaxy. For now, anyway.

Fall-themed gaming wallpapers to celebrate the first day of Fall -M

Fall-themed gaming wallpapers to celebrate the first day of Fall -M