by Harley Vex
"Okay. Get oriented, Wattleman," I tell myself, tapping myself on the chest. My chest plate, leather in this world, makes a faint thud.
I'm rewarded with four status bars in rows of two, which appear at the bottom of my vision, floating in midair. The top left bar is green, with a red heart beside it. Health. The one in the lower left corner is yellow with a sandwich beside it. A food bar. The bar on the upper right is empty but has a gray, cartoon helmet. Armor. And despite my leather plates, I have none. Apparently this brown uniform doesn't provide any armor. And the bottom right bar is blue, full, and features a set of three bubbles. Oxygen, maybe. So drowning must be a thing here.
I tap my chest again, dismissing the status bars. "Well, that's settled."
Now it's time to explore the area and see what I can do.
Walking through the trees, I leave my spawn point behind. So far, this area seems pretty uniform, with the trees all being the same type and the pixelated grass the same bright green color. As I walk, more land renders into existence maybe two hundred feet ahead of me, chunk by chunk.
Something quacks far to my right, but the sight of a tall cliff suddenly popping into existence ahead makes me stop in my tracks.
The cliff rises a hundred feet above the forest, with more of the trees, hazy from this distance, growing from the top. The wall itself is made of light gray stone with dirt on top. The cliff's so wide that I can't see either end of it anywhere.
"That's cool." As I get closer, I notice a spot in the stone with rusty greenish splotches. Some type of ore, maybe even copper. Yeah, I've got no chance at getting it yet, though it would be cool to scale the cliff and get a view of the area or maybe even build a base there.
I eye the sun. It's the equivalent of nine in the morning by now. Scaling the cliff will have to wait.
"Stay alive, Mike." I seem safe for the moment, so I've got to test some things. I jump to test that—it seems I have a higher jump than in real life, maybe three feet, the height of each pentagon that makes up the tree trunks. Useful. Then I tap myself on the left shoulder, and a tall, narrow box appears before me with a wooden frame, a background that matches the bark texture, and a thin outline of a body. A box for equipping armor, probably. I tap again to dismiss it.
Tapping my right shoulder does nothing. Then I tap my back, feeling a deflated backpack there before another, much larger box pops into my vision, obstructing my view of the cliff.
"My inventory." This box has the same wooden frame and background as the armor one and shows an empty hotbar with six mini-boxes at the bottom. A bigger inventory with five rows of ten boxes stands empty. Generous. A 3x3 tab hangs off the right of the frame and though it's not labeled, I assume it must be for crafting. So the recipes in this game might be more complicated than in Creationist, which only gives the player a 2x2 grid in their inventory.
I dismiss the inventory by hitting my backpack again and face some leaves on a nearby tree. The unseen duck quacks again so I search for it. I glimpse what appears to be sand mixed with pink and gray pixels—probably gravel—around a pond. A duck with triangular wings jumps up and down, flapping them like a moron. The water shimmers with pixels under the sunlight.
One thing at a time. I face the leaves and hold out my hand, highlighting them. They brighten a bit, letting me know I've selected their hitbox. So one thing has carried over from Creationist. "Thank you, Salvos. That's intuitive."
Then I slug them.
The leaves rustle for a bit but don't break. Then I try again, slugging them over and over, this time maintaining the motion. The rustling continues until the polygon of leaves breaks in a mini explosion of green.
Three items rest on the ground, dropped from the leaves, lying flat against the grass and made of pixels. Two sticks, both identical with the bark texture, and a small clod of leaves. I stand over them, but they don't automatically zip into my inventory, so I tap each item and watch it vanish with a faint plork sound.
"Bingo." I can pick stuff up now.
I open my inventory (backpack tap again) to see the sticks in one slot, which have stacked and now have a number 2 in the corner of their box. The leaves are there too, with a 1, and I lift my pointed finger and highlight that box as I hover over it. A tooltip appears, rimmed in the wood texture. Common Leaves. Then Common Stick.
I like the mechanics of picking up items, so far. No more cramped inventories full of junk. Creationist's items automatically zip into a player's inventory whenever items were on the ground and I was constantly throwing stuff out. Okay, so this mechanic might be a pain when I need to pick up a ton of building blocks or in the heat of battle, but for now it works.
I collect more Common Sticks and Common Leaves until I have twenty of each. Common Sticks are probably needed for making tools and weapons. Once I've decimated the poor tree down to its trunk with my savage punches, I decide to put it out of its misery and slug the polygon trunk with my fist instead.
Pressure slams into my knuckles and grips my forearm and my view flashes with faint red at the edges. My status bars appear in my vision and I see that my green health bar has depleted a tiny sliver. Then the bars vanish.
"Fine, fine. That was stupid." I shake my hand as the pressure vanishes. Of course breaking a tree trunk by punching it doesn't make sense. What kind of game would allow that? "A hatchet, saw, or axe it is."
But my problem is, how?
"Mike, you can solve this issue." If this game is like Creationist, the first step will be to make tools and something useful for defending myself. Then I can worry about inventions. "Common Sticks can make a handle. But unless you want an axe with a leaf blade, look around."
Blade, blade. My mind goes to the gravel sand I saw back at that pond, so I head back that way. The duck has de-spawned. "I need something I can get with my bare hands. Some crappy first tier material. Die, sand!"
And I start punching.
At least the sand is soft, even though I can feel the gravel in it, and it breaks without much effort, dropping small sprites of itself. But my hope that it'll drop a flint or arrowhead is dashed after I pick it all up and check my inventory.
Rocky Sand. That really helps.
"I should be getting something," I mutter, breaking a few more of the Rocky Sand and earning a small waterfall from the pond. The pixelated, cold water pushes me back and into the hole I've made, and as I watch, the whole pond lowers as water fills my hole. A chill wraps around my torso as I stand waist-deep in it. I pull myself out, and a brief storm of water particles bursts to life around me before vanishing.
"So water is realistic in this game," I mutter. Not useful for mob traps, then. Back in Creationist, I could place blocks of water that flowed but never ran out.
I eye the pentagon in the sky. Mike Wattles stands under the high noon sun, with Rocky Sand and Common Sticks to his name. That'll sure intimidate a monster.
I've got to get a move on.
Running back towards my spawn point, I leave the cliff behind and scan the ground for more resources. Everything looks the same in this area. I punch to death some tall grass, which breaks with a loud rustle. My prize? A tan squiggly thing lying on the ground.
I pick it up.
And hallelujah—it's a Plant Strand.
"Okay. That might be useful," I say, hope filling my chest. "Break the tall grass." So I move on to killing the lawn for a bit. But I get some Plant Strands, twenty of them.
"Achievement get," I mutter even though I have no audience. "Primitive Lawnmower."
Now what?
I spot a few polygon flowers scattered around the trees, mostly in clusters, a few orange and yellow ones. I break them too, and earn a few more Plant Strands. What use flowers have other than decoration, I don't know yet, but I'll keep them for now.
I open my inventory and realize that like in Creationist, I can use my finger to slide the items around. I try a few combinations of Common Sticks and Plant Strands in my 3 x 3 Crafting Tab, but get nothing in the out
put box I realize is just underneath the tab for the first time. Then I try combining just Plant Strands on the grid to see what I get, and it turns out that combining four, in any arrangement, gets me a single Plant Twine, a thick-looking greenish tan rope. I make a bunch more until I have six. Yes. Tool-making material for sure. At least the start of this game is intuitive without walking you through every step, like later versions of Creationist did once it got popular.
Now, to find the final tool ingredient. Because unless I want a butterfly net, I can't make anything else with what I've got.
"And there aren't even any butterflies," I mutter.
I keep walking, circling around spawn. This whole biome looks to be a forest with the trees growing pretty far apart. Pretty uniform. I spot a few big holes that seem to lead into caves or underground tunnels. I find nothing more promising than Rocky Sand, of which there are a few random, flat patches here and there.
But finally, after I've gone some distance from the cliff, the ground slopes downward in a series of diagonal lines and polygons, and down the hill stand trees with whitish tan trunks and barely any leaves. More water stretches out, but unlike the happy little pond I found a few minutes ago, this water is greenish and dark.
"A swamp biome. This looks welcoming," I say, eyeing the dead trees, some of which are growing out of the water.
The air chills as I walk downhill, eyeing the dark grass and listening to the squishing sound my footsteps make. Collecting a few of the ground blocks here yields me Damp Soil, which is dark and seems laced with green moss, judging from the faint green pixels both the sprites and the boxes themselves have. I keep digging downward with my fist, forming disorganized steps, hoping to find some stone shards or something I can harvest. Hey, I can't walk in circles forever.
Underneath a few Damp Soil layers, I find a new material, something darker than the Damp Soil that has black and gray spots.
"What the heck is this?"
I start hitting it with my hand, and it feels dry to my shock, but the mystery material remains in place even though I don't take damage. It makes a sound like breaking dirt, not stone, and I give up after ten seconds. I can't harvest this by hand, so I'll leave it for now.
"Frustrating," I mutter, pulling up my inventory again. I eye my prizes so far. There must be one more component needed to make some kind of tool. I'm guessing a shovel and hatchet are my next steps. The first two steps make sense. The third? No beans.
I'm missing something.
Then with my inventory still floating in front of me, I lift my hand and highlight each item with my finger. Nothing appears as I hover over Common Dirt. I tap it once, and my inventory vanishes. A full pentagon of Common Dirt has appeared in my right hand.
"Yay. I've just equipped the ultimate noob weapon."
I can highlight the grass pieces around me and know I can place this dirt, but I don't. At least my left hand is free to tap my backpack. I can put the dirt back in my inventory by shoving it at the desired box.
Then I figure out that I can put stuff in my six-slot hotbar with two quick taps. Now that there's stuff in it, my hotbar remains at the bottom of my vision when I close my inventory—handy—but I've still just got some dirt, Plant Twine, and Common Sticks. I can equip stuff on the fly by highlighting, though, which is nice.
Then I open my inventory again and try hovering my finger over a random item. After a few seconds, an expanded tooltip appears beside the dirt.
Common Soil
Resistance: 1
Fall Damage: -1
Gravity: 0
Speed: 0
Refinable: 0
"Aha! That's going to make things easier. We might have clues. We're in familiar territory, folks."
In Creationist, items had properties assigned in the code, which I studied in detail to make my mob farms. This game might be the same, coming from the same makers.
I'm assuming that Resistance is a regular scale that runs from 1 to whatever, with the higher numbers meaning that the resource is harder to break or requires higher tier tools. 1 must mean I can break the resource with my hand.
The -1 to Fall Damage must mean that landing on Common Soil from a good height is slightly less damaging than landing on something with a Fall Damage of 0 or higher. Good to know.
Gravity and Refinable, I'm assuming, are just yes and no answers. I'll figure out Gravity later. In cases like this, zero typically means "no" while 1 means "yes." So Common Soil probably can't be turned into anything else and might not be affected by gravity, making it a possible roof material that won't fall on me and deal suffocation damage.
I check the other resources I've found. The flowers, I'm shocked, are Refinable (1) but the Plant Strands aren't. I'm confused for a bit. Refinable must mean that an item can be turned into something else entirely rather than just being part of some crafting recipe. "Okay. I've got it."
And then I check the Rocky Sand.
And I see what I was hoping for.
Refinable: 1.
Hope surges through me but quickly dies when I see that the glowing pentagon, now on the other side of my inventory box, is sinking towards the horizon. It appears to be a few hours past noon.
I'm running out of time. Tension crawls into my shoulders.
I place the Rocky Sand into my Crafting Tab. Nothing. Seriously? Do I need another tool to refine the Rocky Sand? Maybe another block? I sigh. Rocky Sand offers the best bet for getting the last crafting ingredient for a tool. Why can't I just pull something useful out of it? Maybe my hands are considered too clumsy to sift—
Can I make something to sift the Rocky Sand?
I sit down on the dark grass of the swamp's edge, still with my inventory open...and eye my Plant Twine and Sticks.
And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of a light bulb clicking on.
I slide two sticks into my Crafting Tab and then three Plant Twine, putting them in the arrangement that makes the most sense, but nothing appears in the output. Then I try four sticks, with two columns on either side of the grid, and three Plant Twine in the top row.
And lo and behold, something that looks like, well, a pixelated sifter on four legs appears in my output. I tap it and it zooms into my inventory.
Yes. It's a Sifter. Simple as that.
I put it back in my Crafting Grid and place the Rocky Sand above it, but nothing happens. Then I equip the Sifter.
It feels big and awkward in my hand at full size. The Sifter is just four crude wooden legs and a net of Plant Twine. With my gaze I highlight a patch of flat ground, since I'm still on the slope that goes down to the swampy area. Then I place the Sifter by shoving it at where I want it to go.
With a faint thump, it appears there.
And to sift, it turns out, I just need to place my Rocky Sand on top of the Sifter. I equip the stack of it, and though one piece of Rocky Sand appears in my hand at a time, every time I place one on the Sifter, the next on in the stack appears in my hand. Convenient. And the Sifter works as fast as I can place. The sound of falling sand fills the air as each pentagon of the stuff vanishes.
And two things happen.
Blocks that look like pure sand appear under the Sifter.
And so do some shining gray shards.
Heart racing with victory and excitement, I pick them all up.
Flint Shard. Eighteen of them, and just as much Pure Sand.
Another tingle of victory surges up my spine.
"I'm figuring out this game."
And then a horrific, drawn-out sound echoes from not far below me at all.
Low and guttural, I can only describe the noise as an inhuman sclorc combined with an sucking sound. I jump, looking down, but solid, damp ground spreads out below me. The sound's coming from somewhere below the dark mystery material I can't yet break.
The sound comes again, a bit louder. I also detect faint, wet footsteps. Yes. Whatever's making it is below me, probably in some underground room or cavity. A shudder replaces m
y tingle of victory.
There are bad things in this world, things that lurk in the dark.
And the pentagon sun is getting very close to the horizon.
CHAPTER TEN
Time to hustle.
The weird sound repeats, getting fainter as whatever's below my feet moves away, probably through a cavern or tunnel. But I don't stop to track the sound. If I don't get somewhere safe, and quick, then—
"That thing down there is going to pop onto the surface and eat my face."
And with this realism thing going on, that's not an experience I look forward to.
There's also my other problem. Acting like a noob won't get me hired by Salvos. Candi's confirmed that they're watching.
I break the Sifter with my hand (thankfully the Resistance is only 1) and it shrinks, falls to the ground, and pops into my inventory when I poke it. Then I turn away. "Shelter. Shelter. Even a pile of rocks will work."
The sky's turning orange on the horizon.
And so is the pentagon sun.
Trees spread out uphill in the scattered woods area, where I know the land is open all around except for those holes in the ground. And venturing into one of those right now isn't an option, mainly because underground is where that sound is.
I run along the bottom of the hill, staying between it and the swamp water, huffing and puffing as I search for shelter. The dead trees? Nope. The first ranged enemy will take me out and I don't like the thought of getting treed by a ring of hostile mobs. "Come on, land. Cooperate with me here."
The horizon goes pink. The light level's dropping by the minute. Night falls quickly here, within just a few minutes. Yikes.
An indent in the hill meets my eye, and I peek in to see a shallow cave that goes back maybe twenty feet. Thankfully, I spot no mobs, eat-your-face or otherwise, and dive inside.
It's going to be a long night.
The cave floor is stone and slopes down a few feet. Not enough protection. I don't know if fires are possible in this game, but I don't have time to sit and figure it out.