No Man's Sky (Linux Proton)

Fixing the broken ship is one of the first tasks

With Proton, I could get No Man's Sky to work easily on Linux/Steam. And no wonder, it's about eight years old and a major release. Back then it got lukewarm reviews at best, but famously the game got a lot of upgrades and now it's supposedly very good. But is it?

After some 10 hours of play, I feel a little uncertain if I will continue far with it.

Coming from 8-bit Elite and 16-bit Frontier, at first I have to say the focus is of course much more on planetary exploration.

Here, docking isn't difficult. Or even necessary.

The basic game play is smooth, I have had no problems or crashes. WASD and mouse your way around, use the raygun to mine away rocks and plants and receive raw materials. Then craft and research and craft and build some more. And then you get past the initial survivalist and tutorial-like phases, and you can choose to fly elsewhere and trade with aliens and build bases and whatnot.

There are occasional reminders of past games. Apart from the obvious Elite comparisons, flying in space reminded me of the hilariously compact universe in Starglider 2. I had some vague Ultima/Space Rogue vibes especially when visiting the space station. But if this was Ultima, I'd already have a more coherent idea of the world and its purposes. I don't expect a linear story—best Ultimas really didn't—but there is some kind of heart missing.

Gaming went through a phase where crafting, upgrading and building had to be added to nearly all games. No Man's Sky is practically built on the entire premise. I'm guessing many are now sick of the excessive crafting and tinkering, and want more straightforward experiences. I know I do.

One of the numerous alien creatures you'll encounter

This is not to say the game doesn't have its moments. But the exceptional events also often amount to nothing, or result in the same humdrum actions you can do anyway. For example, after I built a base a trader landed with its ship to the premises, enabling me to discuss and trade. This felt nice, but I actually had very little to gain from this encounter.

The same could be said with the sudden discovery of a trading post on the planet I was exploring. It was refreshing after the rather repetitive landscapes. A bustle of activity, ships landing and taking off, persons to meet, language to learn, items to trade and ships to buy.

Yet, in the end the characters don't have even the dimensions of the hand-written short keyword dialogues of, say, Ultima IV. Granted, I've not yet learnt much of the Gek language, but it already looks like they have little to say.

Guess we're now spoiled, in 1990s small events such as these would have felt mega.

A trader appears. The Teleport in the background.

I could perhaps look even past all this vagueness, if the game's relation to space was more disciplined. And with this I mean the teleportation, and some details concerning with terrain manipulation.

The game encourages you to build a base and a teleport. After the teleport is built, you can visit the space station you have previously found, and teleport between them. Not only do you teleport, but your spaceship teleports too.

And I'm then left wondering what is the point of the spaceship logistics after all. Ok, after finding more planets you don't immediately have a teleport and a base, but discovering space stations does produce new teleport locations.

This also means the trading and upgrades aren't a minor satisfying prize after a successful journey (like in Elite). You teleport to the station, find you didn't grind enough materials on the surface, then teleport back.

Gee whizz, yet another planet and some crystals to mine

Secondly, the planets mostly provide a repetitive sandbox where everything you materially need is usually found within reasonable distance.

Well, some planets have a decent amount of macro-structure, such as oceans and subterranean caverns. Yet large wrecks, outposts, settlements tend to be the similar and also offer similar activities.

Another thing is the landscape. On first sight it offers obstacles to overcome, but if you insist you can dig a staircase through a mountain with the mining beam. The same item that enables Minecraft-esque manipulation of environment, also tends to trivialize the whole idea of the "landscape". If there's nothing that blocks your way, are you really in a credible environment?

Some happenings in the obligatory all-too-dense asteroid field

I sort of get that if the player can't move fast and teleport between systems, it could make traveling boring. But it's a game design and scale issue to solve. The exploration would be more meaningful and memorable, if it was a little more grounded.

After hitting on something that looks like might be some kind of major quest in the game, things might  begin to improve. The game is also quite good at hinting at future possibilities, such as a wheeled vehicle and different types of spaceships.

It's just sometimes there appears to be so much to do and so many threads to follow, I feel like I can't be bothered with any of them.

Despite all the missions, trading, quests, expeditions, activities and building, I can't somehow shake the feeling this is some kind of gigantic, glorified Farmville, where my next task is simply defined by what I happened to activate previously.

My base, resembling a 1970s detached house. Soon to extend underground.

I can't say the old games always solved these things much better. How Elite got around this was the fact the planets were not genuinely that different, so it didn't matter much where in the universe you were. But it at least used a simple but effective RPG fight/reward structures. 

With Frontier I felt it would be genuinely interesting to visit some distant star system, and you needed to make at least some effort to get there.

Maybe I'm envisioning a perfect space exploration game somewhere in the middle of a triangle made up from Elite Dangerous, Everspace and No Man's Sky:

From Elite Dangerous, I'd take something of the realistic nature of the universe. No instant teleports between star systems, unless as a very rare stargate-type event.

I'm not sure 3rd person walking elements should be part of the game. At least visiting space stations is exciting enough to justify it. No Man's Sky planetary exploration is I guess almost good enough as it is, but as said it could benefit more from planetary macro-structures, unevenly distributed resources and less options for manipulating the environment.

Everspace provided an enjoyable combat system and ship upgrades. Fighting against larger ships was an interesting challenge and sometimes even tremendous fun. Also the derelict ships, space stations and large asteroids were nice environments for exploring.

Exploring an underground cavern

Granted, I haven't yet seen much of what No Man's Sky has to offer, but it quite doesn't yet have the pull on me. It's a little weird that I got most Elite-vibes from Everspace, even if it's not very open. Or perhaps just because.

Thumbs up to No Man's Sky as a huge Proton-enabled game.

Dex part 2

The exploration of the Samsung Dex desk environment warranted a second look, as I purchased yet one more Bluetooth keyboard and a mouse to go with it. 

Moving the windows around certainly improved and text editing in Google Docs became easier. 

Even if I admit the mouse button has some slippy quality, it looks like the environment is not as well designed as it first appeared to be. Tiny glitches are not uncommon, and there is maybe some vestige of the touch screen interface in the way the UI buttons work.

Apps generally play more nicely with the large screen format than I expected, although it's not universal.

Sublime Text mobile version didn't quite convince me on the small screen and didn't quite win me over on the full screen either.

The focused writing app Iawriter was nice, but I find it hard to justify it as Docs works now so well. It could work better on the small screen, as there's less clutter.

When using mostly one application, such as the Docs, the system works nicely.

I didn't do a huge survey of mice and keyboards, but did some quick choices based on size, weight and portability.

The mouse is Jlab GO Charge, which can be recharged with USB-C style connector. The mouse can be set with 2.4GHz or Bluetooth interface, and there's a dongle for the 2.4-style connection. The dongle can be carried in a slot within the mouse, so it's unlikely to get lost if stored this way.

The keyboard is Logitech Keys-to-Go 2, a relatively new and not too cheap keyboard. It felt light enough with normal size keys and a standard layout.

The keyboard is powered by CR2032 batteries, which is not a huge plus, but contributes to the flatness and lightness. The 36 month battery life sounds like the usual bogus, but let's hope I don't have to switch them more than once a year. (I'm looking at you Apple Mini BT keyboard!)

At least there is a power switch to prevent accidental current draw. The Keys-to-Go 2 doesn't even weigh much more than my earlier Voxicon foldable block, 222 grams against Voxicon's 166. The shape is better for sliding into a bag compartment.

The arrow keys are tiny and the presence of the function key row might be questioned, but all in all the layout is a proper one and not a compromise like in the Voxicon. The ; : _ - are where they are supposed to be. The key feel is good but not quite as firm as in the Apple Mini.

The non-removable cover flap was a major attraction and feels worth it when traveling. I just couldn't bother with a separate box or bag for keyboard.

The flap is supposed to go under the keys when typing, there's even a magnet to help keep it in place. To me this didn't work well at first, as the keyboard "jumps" a little while typing on the mushy hinge. Another magnet near the back might have helped.

But it looks like the hinge part might become a little more loose over time, which should improve the situation.