Epic
So having spent many hours slowly sailing through the Unterzee, captaining a ship entirely unfit for purpose, I finally saved up enough echoes to invest in a cargo ship, that I might be able to work the thin profit margins better and advance the game's well-written terror-ridden stories. It was huge and ever so ponderous, but it could carry massive quantities of mushroom-wine and clay men, and I began to build up a nice rhythm, returning to London just as the terror of the zee threatened to consume me. Indeed I became arrogant, and, armed with what I was sure would be enough foxfire candles, undertook to explore with my crew a shattered citadel on Godfall, an island formed of a collapsed stalactite so huge it poked through the surface of the water. The candles were not enough, and we returned to the ship crazed with fear. We tried to make it to a friendly island of guinea pig warriors, but paranoia took hold of the crew - or was it me - and they mutinied - or did I lose my mind and try to kill them? No matter. Somehow, by my hand or another's or a god's, I was killed, my brand new and hard-earned ship lost.
At which I point I swore a lot and almost left off playing the game altogether. My first character's skills and perks and nice shit weren't ones that I could pass down to my next character, and I found myself starting the new game almost from scratch, doing all the tedious early-game missions I hadn't even begun to miss. So I went into the save file and made myself a millionaire, to, you know, help me out in those early stages. (The game is good for its story-writing, I want to get to the end of the game and SEE some of that writing, not go over the first hour again and again!) I got myself a battleship, and it was brilliant. All my vexation and frustration melted away because I was the damn greatest.
I only did this briefly; when I shut down, though, I felt that same pride in my own greatness. Now unjustified: I made myself some dinner of eggs, mushrooms and toast that tasted fine but looked awful (and I used ketchup, which is cheating: good food doesn't need it); and it didn't last.
I named the ship after a poem:
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul!"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.
At which I point I swore a lot and almost left off playing the game altogether. My first character's skills and perks and nice shit weren't ones that I could pass down to my next character, and I found myself starting the new game almost from scratch, doing all the tedious early-game missions I hadn't even begun to miss. So I went into the save file and made myself a millionaire, to, you know, help me out in those early stages. (The game is good for its story-writing, I want to get to the end of the game and SEE some of that writing, not go over the first hour again and again!) I got myself a battleship, and it was brilliant. All my vexation and frustration melted away because I was the damn greatest.
I only did this briefly; when I shut down, though, I felt that same pride in my own greatness. Now unjustified: I made myself some dinner of eggs, mushrooms and toast that tasted fine but looked awful (and I used ketchup, which is cheating: good food doesn't need it); and it didn't last.
I named the ship after a poem:
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul!"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.