I think that I understand absolutely every position on No Man’s Sky, regardless of what my avatar might have related in the strip. I said that it was a personality test, but I didn’t say exactly what I meant by that.

There is a type of game called a Walking Simulator, it’s not an ennobling term. Functionally what it means from a rhetorical perspective is a “non-game.” The fissure that terminology exposes is substantial: there are people who do, and who do not, perceive exploration as gameplay.

There’s some context here, too. I think there may be a further bifurcation, potentially, where the same game experienced in virtual reality or on a regular, human monitor might be materially different in terms of emotional texture. But that’s not the important part. The way you intersect as a player-entity in the worlds of No Man’s Sky don’t parse sufficiently as a long-term form of gameplay for many people. If you came up with Minecraft, you can slide laterally to No Man’s Sky as Gabriel’s sons have done. They’ll never get tired of it. Even by the end of the first world, though, I Saw The Matrix - I beheld the numeric curtain draped over everything. It didn’t stop me from enjoying it, because this is literally a game where one of the primary reward mechanisms comes in the form of alien words. But the game can’t get by purely on Wonder anymore. Some measure of that magic has been perforated.

With PAX West fast approaching, we’re nearing the end of the first season of Acquisitions Incorporated: The Series. You may be thinking, “Well, certainly, I crave adventure. But perhaps this episode may be safely avoided.” You could not be more wrong:

Gaze ye into the feral visage of Patrick Rothfuss, who is also Viari. Do you want to contend with this mad eyed brute? No ward can contain him. Try to imagine what this slavering hate-beast would do if he found out you hadn’t subscribed to the channel. The only safe course of action is to gaze into our pearly Subscrorb, and drink deep of its secrets. Of course, there are other avenues to this arcane knowledge:

iTunes AcqInc / PA DLC

Stitcher AcqInc / PA DLC

Overcast AcqInc / PA DLC

Google Play AcqInc / PA DLC



You know, if you’re into that kind of shit.

(CW)TB out.