#game journal

I had previously started it but knew nothing, and had no clue what was going on. Some might argue that's a good way to play but it was frustrating to me. I made it halfway through day 1 before starting again.

I had originally picked Thinker - this time I picked Sensitive. I think Thinker may have been better, just for the lore, but Sensitive is good fun - lots of very strange interactions with inanimate objects, and bewildering Kim with my talk of "para-natural" abilities!

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to journal it as if I was Harry. I imagine Kim to be a bit of a stationery dweeb so he'd buy notebooks on notebooks on notebooks. He gave this one to Harry because it's not one of the nicer ones and he got it on sale 😂 (I made it out of an old ice cream box and tea stained printer paper).

Because Kim thinks in his notebook, he gave it to Harry to try and think and get his head on right. Especially since he's gazing off into the night sky, believing Kim when he talks about the Remote Viewers Division...

Anyway I finally started it today and I even made the photograph (acrylic on a cardboard wrapper with a sticker frame on top) to be tucked into the front cover:

Thoughout the years I've seen people complain about how short the in-game days are, but I feel that it's fast pacing works so well for it's simpler mechanics. And as someone who doesn't have as much time to dedicate to sitting down and playing, it's refreshing to not have a day take 45 minutes.

The social element is also something that I have adored and don't feel that games in later titles have done as effectively. The characters are very simple, but they all feel so connected to eachother and alive. There's also such a layer of grief and yearning in the writing of the cast.

I think fields of mistria scratches a similar itch with its social focus, simpler mechanics, and fast pacing. I don't know if the devs took Insperation from it, but it's innovations on the hm64 formula make it a spiritual successor in many ways to me.

I arrived tonight in Gridania and made my way to a huge building called the Carline Canopy. I got signed up to the adventurer's guild just as it started to rain. The travel time here was longer than I hoped, and it's not the comfiest by carriage.

I'll spend the night here tonight, there's an inn called the Roost and I can get freshened up and then get something to eat before sleeping. That way I can explore the town for the full day tomorrow and hopefully the bad weather will also have passed over.

This is surreal. I’ve finally done it. I’ve built a rocket; I’ve cured myself. I’ve disabled the quarantine platform. Just one week ago I didn’t even think I would survive. And just two months ago I didn’t even know I was carrying a deadly infection.

I’ve been spending some time at Lifepod 5; contemplating how lucky I had to have been to end up in one of the few life pods still floating and end up in the shallows too. It was a rough start, but the PDA did a good job of keeping me alive early on. There’s only so much it can do on a planet like this though and with a bacteria like Kharaa. It’s been luck and in large part the Sea Emperor that got me this far.

I don’t really know where I go from here. I mean, obviously back to “civilization” for now. Someone has to tell their stories. To tell the galaxy about Bart and Ozzy and Captain Quinn and all the rest. And the Kharaa and the cure as well. I worry about what Alterra may do once they find out what is here. But they will clearly send a ship out here eventually. The Aurora already had a mission to find the Degasi. And with the Aurora and the Sunbeam downed as well, it’s only a matter of time until they send someone else out here to find out what happened. As funny as it would be to let Alterra spend all their money crashing into 4546B; it’s not fair to the people on those ships. I just wish I could do something to stop Alterra from coming back. The Precursors weren’t great for the Sea Emperor and the rest of the environment here; I suspect Alterra will be much worse.

Still; there’s no way I’m letting Alterra claim that I’m trillions in debt to them. It’s their fault I was here in the first place. If that’s how they want to treat me; I’ll just leave. Maybe I’ll come back here. Unfortunately, it’s time for me to go now. I probably won’t be able to use my PDA much while I’m on the Neptune. Or maybe I’ll be awake the whole time and have nothing to do but sit in contemplation and stare at the stars. I’ve never been great with predicting interstellar travel times — especially with these new ion drives, so I don’t really know how long I’ll be stuck on here. I suspect it will be long enough I’ll be desperate for real ground and water. Until then… well, there’s always the view.