On Friday, at 8:15 we are flying through galaxies, me and my son. He’s flying the ship, I enjoy the views. The deep sky is beautiful, and the game music is relaxing. Actually, the game hasn’t even started yet but I already like it.
Out of the 18 quantillion planets, our journey happens to start in Atonquosump, a fairly warm planet that not even Google has ever heard of. There are quite a few Sentinels flying around. As usual at the start, we need to fix the Launch Thruster and the Pulse Engine. Deflector Shield is alright. Photon Cannon too. We need to craft some Carite Sheets. Collecting Iron and Carbon. Need also Heridium. And to fix that scanner.
Sentinel robots flying over. Destroyed one before it could make an alarm. Hide from the next one. From this onwards, we decide not to shoot them down, just pretend we are not doing anything – and they leave us in piece.
Got Launch Thruster repaired. But don’t have Plutonium to charge it. Still stuck on this planet.
At 8:59, No Man’s Sky freezed. The first bug detected, need to restart the game.
At 9.18 we are ready to leave our first planet. Start the engine. Take off. Fly a bit around. I’d like to enjoy this planet for many more hours but the mission and the truth is somewhere out there.We leave the atmosphere. Hopefully we collected enough Plutonium for the unknown flight length.
After a long flight, our surveillance system detects a radio signal. Heading towards the beacon. Asteroids make the flight difficult – but then we realize that asteroids are nothing but supplies of raw materials such as copper and Thamium9. So let’s just mine them too.
Landing on a new planet. This one’s radioactive. The planets are always different. Some are cold, thus freezing to death is their biggest threat. Some are so hot that your body can’t stand it. Some are radioactive or toxic. Whatever environment we face, it may turn out to be deadly. If the planet is friendly enough for life, then the animals might attack you. But that’s rare. It is reliefing to realize that aliens are generally not as hostile as they are in science fiction movies. Anyway, should we look for a safer planet instead of staying here in the middle of acidic clouds? When we finally find a planet with beautiful flora, with a human-friendly temperature and atmosphere, then its terrain turns out to be more challenging than ever: there’s something interesting there but how do we get over that ravine?
Based on the first hours of space exploration, this space journey is about mining and crafting, just like in that other game dedicated to them. What I enjoy most is the tranquility. No Man’s Sky is even more pieceful than Minecraft where Creepers and Spiders may kill you on the first night. On these far-away planets there is no need to make hasty decisions. On the other hand, watching someone else play No Man’s Sky might feel less mind capturing, less emotional. It is not about the amount of action. In down-to-earth games like Metal Gear Solid, you could be crawling through grass towards a hostile outpost, and also for a viewer – not to mention to player – every second of the silence is full of emotions.No Man’s Sky is less emotional, more rational.
No Man’s Sky is about survival and finding the needed resoures. Iron, almost anywhere. Carbon, from trees and other plants. Heridium from those big purple rocks. Plutonium on the surface of planets. Isn’t it radioactive? Some minerals like Zink seem to enrich in the vegetation. That makes them easy to find. Chrysonite – for what might I use that, is it worth carrying?
The space is endless, where to head? Following radio signals help you in finding places where there is already some intelligence. Or where there has been. On many outposts there are merchants who are willing to trade the needed. If you only had what they wanted. Gradually, you learn that trading is always about winning or losing. You need to get a grip of the galactic market price levels. When and what to buy and sell – don’t be driven by just your needs but also the business logics.
Meeting an alien intelligent creature, we learn that one should try to make friends first. Giving a small gift is a good start. Tit for Tat – I mean the game theory mechanism introduced by Robert Axelrod – was defined for human interaction but it seems to apply generally in our Universe.
What wonders my son is that the traders live alone in outposts placed on desert planets. Humans wouldn’t enjoy those jobs.
A few hours later, we made a conclusion: the most critical resource of this space adventure is space. You can find a plenty of useful resources and tools but the space to carry them is limited. What might you need in the unknown future?
Slower speeds consume less fuel. Usually, you would just boost the engine to get there. I’m happy to hear my 10-year son saying: “I like this slow speed. I set the direction towards that trading post. With the current speed it will take one hour to the next . During that, I can have a break.” Which means practising some harder levels of Geometry Dash.
An hour later our ship lands perfectly on the landing deck of the trade outpost. As usual, a Gek welcomes us. Also in this world, the ultimate power seems to be the power of doing successful business. The Geks seem to have a good nose for business.
The more I look at No Man’s Sky, the more Minecraft I see. In Minecraft you collect raw materials by hitting the trees and rocks with your sword. In No Man’s Sky you do the same with your laser beam. In Minecraft you go to villages to find merchants. In No Man’s Sky you fly to space stations to do the same.
However, I sense there are some much deeper stories hidden behind the first view of No Man’s Sky. Who built those monoliths? What is Atlas? Whose interests are the Sentinels protecting?
My farther gave me a book 40 years ago, a collection of Arthur C.Clarke’s short stories. And yes, there was also “The Sentinel”, the story about a monolith. More deeply than with my child brains, that story been analysed by many, telling this monolith was “a symbol of a superior form of intelligence watching over the earth.”
While waiting for the greater intelligence to appear, we just mine some more iron, believing that it has some meaning in this vast virtual universe. Which is not much different to what we humans do in our real Universe.