I am trying to free it. I head down the narrow staircase I’ve dug and chip away a few blocks, widening the space a fraction, before I am incinerated. It’s slow work, but I am making progress. There used to be two suns down there. I made the second in the hope that it would battle and destroy the first. When I eventually liberated one of the suns, it swept out over the surrounding quicksilver ocean and detonated, blasting away a fifth of the tower’s foundation and dimpling the water’s surface in a horrid show of cubes striving to resemble fluid.
The remaining sun has lodged muttering inside the fractures formed by its sibling’s demise. It appears to have gone into mourning. It is also blocking the route to one of my teleportation cubes, marooning me on the tower. I open my Apotheosis conjuring circle for the umpteenth time and try to devise some means of killing it.
‘Apotheosis’ means making somebody or something into god. It frames ‘crafting’ in Lucid Blocks as a rite of transcendence, and forms the heart of scattered references to religions that sit oddly among the cutesier block designs ostensibly sourced from irony-poisoned digital culture. Procedural terrain generation as syncretizer, with mildly pareidoliac catblocks and dogblocks tucked in amongst the pentacles and rosary beads.
The workings of the Apotheosis circle resemble the worktables of Minecraft. You’ve got sockets into which you put items. Then, you push a button and the wheel spins and something new appears in the centre. But it’s a lot less dependable than the systems you may be used to in survival games. The circle has six sockets, and what you place where modulates the output. There is a nobbly pixellated switchboard on the left, which lights up in corresponding colours as you add stacks to the circle, but there is no explanatory text, and there is an element of randomisation throughout that is interfering with player efforts to write a crafting wiki – an intriguing half-enticement, half-rejection of the wider audience culture of value extraction that tends to keep games like these ‘alive’.
Sometimes, the output of an Apotheosis combo makes no sense at all. You add wool to sand and get a Hate Wand. You use an Essence block to revert something to its original crafting ingredients, and bizarrely generate more of those items than you originally used, like Jesus dividing up the bread and fish. Often, the results are disappointing: you chuck in a load of “druidic stone” and receive armfuls of dead leaves in return. But sometimes, you get a bottled sun.
I can’t remember what I combined to get a sun – perhaps influenced by the developer’s elusiveness, I find myself weirdly averse to writing my recipes down – and I can’t say why I chose to open the bottle in the depths of my tower. Or why I then aggroed the entity by punching it with my bare hands. I guess it just seemed important to keep experimenting, keep clawing at the ladder of alchemical possibility.
Crafting in videogames is rarely this warped and enchanting, which seems ridiculous when you consider that much ‘realistic’ crafting is occult database management with a garnish of workaday plausibility created by scientifically-timed spinny wheels and tink-tink-tink effects. I have a stick, and I have a stone, and abracadabra, now I have a stone axe.
It adds up, if only in hindsight, but you have to imagine a lot of intervening technique and bodily labour, which makes it quite alarming when, say, The Alters decides to portray the literal super-acceleration of your avatar’s body as they crunch through production of repair kits. There are games that dispense with menus and try to simulate the crafting of materials within the gameworld, letting you follow the transformation in real-time, but doing this is very hard, next to balancing an item database, and many players would not be interested, compared to the convenience of a menu.
Lucid Blocks is a game about the occult, but it’s also a game about the occult nature of crafting itself. The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is a nobbly pixellated switchboard on the left, which lights up in corresponding colours as you add stacks to the circle, but there is no explanatory text, and there is an element of randomisation throughout that is interfering with player efforts to write a crafting wiki – an intriguing half-enticement, half-rejection of the wider audience culture of value extraction that tends to keep games like these ‘alive’.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s a game that’s worth the effort.
The game’s crafting system is a mystery, and the player is left to figure it out on their own. There is no tutorial, no explanation, no hand-holding. The player is thrown into the deep end, and left to sink or swim. This is a game that demands patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail. It’s a game that rewards experimentation, and punishes complacency. It’s a game that’s not for everyone, but for those who are willing to take the plunge, it’s worth the effort.
