making good on the loading screen art!
There you sit, staring at the same menu screen that you’ve stared at hundreds of times. This is the first time you’ve logged in since the last major update. You see the weird, gilded dude who looks like a classic mega-man villain standing there; swilling his wine and giving you the stank eye. Just as he always has. You notice that he stands proudly in front of a space scene that captures the imagination! You see a planet off in the distance, shadowed and mysterious, beckoning you to come explore and farm rice!
Then you see them, floating all over the screen. You feel a sense of childish wonder as you see the space debris, you imagine the vastness and depth of a world that is teeming with enough interstellar activity to merit a ring of waste…. In space.
Then anger overcomes you as you remember the cold ugly truth, that you’ve been abused.
Abused by a bitter and uncaring game that plays with your emotions by promises of orbiting junk and then just discards them as quickly as an incident generated map…
It’s not right…
It’s WRONG!
In a rage, you start a game! Fresh! You click hellishly through the section screens hoping, praying that they will be there! Generating… They will be there! They must be! This will prove that the promises were true and that the game does indeed care about your emotional wellbeing.
The world gen ends, and there you sit… floating out in the vast, empty, void of space, looking down on the procedurally generated super continent that you’ve come to love and think is normal. You’re alone, there are no spaceships or asteroids; no mega-man villains…. Just empty space and broken promises… You are truly alone.
But then, on the horizon you see it. It must be a mirage you think, surely it would have to be an illusion. No, it’s a glitch! Or perhaps I have some stuff crusted to my monitor. Your head swims, your body enters a heightened state as it begins releasing adrenaline and dopamine in response to the situation.
There it is, like a shining beacon in an otherwise bleak and vacuous landscape. There it is, just like you’ve been promised, just like you’ve dreamed. Waste in space… in all of its broken glory! Orbiting around the planet in a ring of satisfaction.
You relax. Falling back into chair with a sigh of indescribable relief. It’s over, it is finally over. You begin to weep as you select a starting tile and begin the map gen in a tranquil and enlightened state. You continue your game in perfect existential bliss, knowing that as you farm your rice, someone, somewhere is looking out for you. Enjoy :)
