So I've played about 9 more hours of love since the last post I made, and I have now pretty well wrapped my head around the gameplay. This game is a bit unclear in communicating to the player what you're supposed to do, but fortunately, it's kind of fun figuring out how the different elements work together.

In order to play LOVE to its fullest, you have to deal with routing power from around the world into your settlement, which requires two people to really get it done. Someone has to go and collect a token for the power generator, and another has to build walls and reinforce the settlement so that the AI won't attack your precious home. The design of settlements involves a lot of interesting elements, because you have to be able to defend from incoming AI that will steal your tokens, making you less capable of developing your settlement. This usually involves having simple entry points and large walls, but my settlement uses a slightly more elegant method.

Our monolith is on an island, with one steep bridge leading up to it. I built one extra large tower on a corner of the island which allows me to leap across to the cliff that's nearest us. That's pretty much the only way out, and the bridge is the only way in. While we were building up our settlement, we obscured any work we were doing from passersby by building extra large walls so they couldn't see us. The AI is very intelligent, and it doesn't cheat, so if it can't see you, it won't know you're there. This allowed us to build up to a relatively defensible and advanced state without any attacks, though we always keep one person on guard, watching the bridge.

Once you get power and possibly some better building tokens, you become more visible because enemies can see power beams heading into your settlement. This forces you to develop at a careful pace, and it also forces you to be careful about stealing tokens from enemy settlements, because they will try to find you, and if you're not equipped to defend against them, your settlement is over. It's a very well-paced experience and it's a lot of fun sneaking into other settlements and stealing their tokens, then rushing back to your own home, deftly hopping around the unpredictable world.

That's enough for today, but I would like to add one more thing.



<rant>Online gaming veterans stand out like a sore thumb in LOVE, because they're jaw-clenchingly obnoxious. I was part of a ridiculously over built settlement, which had about 12 people in it and about five entrances. The AI started attacking on a regular basis, and during a firefight, I accidentally shot of a little friendly fire. I looked in the chat screen and saw "WHO'S THE GRIEFER!" "I DUNNO, FUCKING GRIEFER!" "I THINK IT'S MINTAKON GRIEF GRIEF GRIEF". Then some pompous turd said "well, I'm chatting with the dev right now, so I'll tell him."</rant>

Now I can't access LOVE for the time being. These kind of things are why I don't normally play online games, because people play for 8 hours straight and their primate brain takes over. Hopefully I can resolve this without wasting too much of Eskil's time, because this is not the kind of thing he should have to deal with. Seriously, next time, instead of throwing a hissy fit over a griefer or someone who is supposedly ruining your gaming experience, just pull your doughy little face away from the monitor and take a moment to reflect on why your parents always make that sighing sound whenever they look at you.