Skip to main content

Pacino On Flotilla

Another post I made for the Full Glass, Empty Clip gaming blog. This has to do with the indie game Flotilla, which is a turn-based strategy space combat sand box exploration game. With no goddamn save feature.

It’s a rough galaxy out there.

You go out there, every day.

You flank and open fire and strategize because the galaxy isn’t doing you any favours. You tear at your hair, at the bulkheads, you claw your way past the militant penguins and the looming space hulks because that’s what you do.

And the Galaxy tries to shove back?

It tries to take from you what is your right?

You shove back. Maybe you get another ship, maybe your flotilla gets bigger.

You keep growing.

And you know you’ll kill for that flotilla, for every upgrade you’ve fought for, for every new ship that you’ve won.

Because that’s what you do. The Galaxy isn’t going to be explored by itself. It’s up to you, and your crew.

That’s it. That’s what the Galaxy expects from you, and, damnit, that’s what you expect from you.

Now, maybe I’m too jaded, too old, too damn tired to think differently. I’ve spent too long out in that galaxy fighting the good fight, the right fight. But you shouldn’t have to do all this in one go.

What are we? Robots? Animals? I say we are not. I say we are not that thing which can continue on for hours upon hours. We are flesh and blood. We have laundry to do, and kids to mind, and all the little things that make up a life. The little things that go on between conquests. That’s life, gentlemen, that’s living.

You remember that don’t you?

At the end of the day the Galaxy doesn’t care for your life your place in it. It’s only hungry for your ships, and for everything you’ve worked so hard at for the past 40 minutes. But you can’t give it to them. Not after all the sweat and blood it’s extracted from you, step by step, fight by fight, tooth and nail and fist and bone.

And we shouldn’t have to give it all up. Should we? Because our time is fractured. It’s cut up and divided and pulled, stretched out across the day. We shouldn’t, we can’t.

We need a save feature.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Learn A New Thing...

Man, you really do learn a new thing everyday. There have been a few shocking realizations I've had over the past month or so: -bizaare is spelled bizarre (how bizaare) -scythe is pronounced "sithe", not the phonetic way. Which is the way I've been pronouncing it in my head for my whole life. My entire youth spent reading Advanced Thresher Sci-Fi and Buckwheat Fantasy novels, for naught! -George Eliot was a woman, real name Mary Ann Evans. -Terry Gilliam is American. -Robocop is a Criterion Film. I shit you not . -Uhm, oh damn, just after I post this, I find that, this movie is a Criterion film as well . Maybe I don't know what being a Criterion film really entails.. Alright all (three) readers of my blog, post and lemme know some earth shattering facts you've learned recently.

Insults From A Senile Victorian Gentleman

You SIR, have the hygeine of an overly ripe avocado and the speaking habits of a vaguely deranged chess set. I find your manner to be unctuous and possibly libelous, and whatever standard you set for orthodontal care, it's not one I care for. Your choice in news programs is semi-literate at best and I do believe your favourite news anchor writes erotic literature for university mascots. While I'm not one to point out so obvious a failing, there has been rumour that the brunches you host every other Sunday are made with too much lard and cilantro. If you get my meaning. There is something to be said about your choice of motor-car fuel, but it is not urbane and if I were to repeat it, mothers would cover their children's ears and perhaps not a few longshoremen within earshot would blush. How you maintain that rather obscene crease in your trousers and your socks is beyond me, perhaps its also during this time that you cultivate a skin regime that I'm sure requires the dea...

Art & Crap

There's a fantastic book out there that I've been meaning to get, Art & Fear . It has great anecdotes and advice about making art, or Art. I have a few nonfiction books to work through, so I'm not overly concerned about getting it just yet, but the book certainly comes to mind now and again. Mainly when I'm writing stories. It came right to the fore when I was slogging through the 30 Days Project . Hell, or hell-like. Certainly reminiscent of brimstone and repurposed Pan imagery, anyways. Because, as you'll notice, through my thirty posts (15,000+ words(!!!)), and to be fair, through almost every other participants thirty posts, there are nearly no comments. Which, I assumed, was one of the draws of the 30 Day Project. Get feedback, support, community of artists, etc. Poor naive me of thirty plus days ago. The whole process helped me with come up with a revelation I call "Art & Crap". Which is tangentially related to the bits of Art & Fear I...