(very) mild tadc spoilers below
both TADC and ASTRONEER deal with something of the same concept- the characters are composed of files. they're digital, and thus subject to corruption. they can be lost, mangled beyond recognition- just like how i lost all my spore creatures as a kid.
i love both TADC and ASTRONEER because they're indie projects, one made by someone i've been following for years (gooseworx) and the other being one full of childhood memories. but the thing is, they both have something in common, something that hits very deep in my heart.
when i was younger, the hard drive of my computer corrupted itself. the encryption system died and took everything with it- and when i went to recover the data, i found my spore creatures- but in place of their little pictures was corrupted heaps of garbled text.
i witnessed the corpses of what i made.
i miss my old critters. i know they'll never come back, and it's not the same to recreate them. just like how many of the characters of ASTRONEER can never leave the simulation. just like how the abstracteds in TADC can never return to who they used to be.
but they weren't forgotten. we remember them, and they live on that way.
