Escaping and Crafting in No Man's Sky

I've been spending a lot of time playing No Man's Sky recently. I got it for myself on sale Christmas 2023 and started playing March 2024. At that time I had been playing mostly Minecraft, building castles with each of my three kids to their specifications. NMS is not a new game (2016) but it keeps getting excellent updates and has an active community. It has a steep learning curve because of how many different functions it has, but it quickly drew me in and became my favorite game, taking over most of my video game time.

I would describe it as a cross between Minecraft and Escape Velocity. Both of those have been my favorite game and have sucked up a lot of my time.

Reminiscing on Reaching Escape Velocity

Escape Velocity is a fantastic space game from a couple decades ago that my brother and I both played a lot during high school. You fly around a spaceship in a top-down 2D world with 3D rendered graphics. You can buy new ships, install upgrades, run trade routes and missions, and complete one of a handful of main storylines with several optional side quests. My brother would spend time cataloging all of the possible upgrades and trade routes. I found a couple configurations that I liked (mostly using a Starbridge and strafing enemies from long range while staying away from missiles) and one good trade route with a rare commodity bought low and sold high. I'm a little too lazy for the kind of diligence my brother put into the game. But each of us in our own way enjoyed it thoroughly.

Escape Velocity is played 2D but the 3D models were turned into renders that make beautiful desktop backgrounds. I still have several of them in my rotation that I use to this day. In fact, I'm looking at one right now, of the Valkyrie (a ship I would often use earlier in the game before I could afford a Starbridge).

Those renders are from Escape Velocity Nova, the third and prettiest of the games. I also played Escape Velocity Override, the second game. I started with the second, but went back and played the original Escape Velocity once too. All of the games were very good. Too bad Ambrosia Software isn't around anymore, but good vibes and kudos to them wherever they are now.

Being a child of my time and a bona fide nerd, I am understandably enamored with space. Space Shuttle, NASA’s Venture Star concept, the International Space Station, Star Trek, Star Wars, the original Battlestar Galactica, the movie Space Camp, and so on capture my imagination. The chance to have my own adventures flying a ship in space, building it up to my own custom preferences, was exactly what I wanted. As a programmer in high school I often thought about designing my own games, and at least half of the ideas were in the vein of a more 3D and expansive space universe based on Escape Velocity or something similar.

Mining and Crafting

I have played Minecraft on and off for several years, taking breaks but coming back to it. It is fun to imagine myself lost on a foreign planet with nothing and needing to create my own tools, explore for good spots, and create efficient hideouts and impressive mansions or castles. I enjoy building toys like Legos and Minecraft is basically digital Legos. But the exploration and resource gathering parts are also a fun part of the adventure that makes it more complete than just building alone, which is why I prefer survival mode most of the time.

This blog features several screenshots of Minecraft creations. It is fun to show off what I made.

I don't play a lot of video games, usually rotating through one or two at a time, but I keep coming back to Minecraft spending many hours on it.

NMS

So when I found No Man's Sky it is easy to see how I would get sucked into it. It has the kind of adventure found in two of my favorite games but combined into one. I can explore planets, fly spaceships, upgrade and customize them, and build bases for industry or show.

The game itself is rather pretty so I've been capturing screenshots as I go. Several of them are good enough that I have added them to my desktop backgrounds rotation. I figured I could share some of those here.