Yet another invention by the neralin that’s impossible to understand.

My friend Saraas connected a ‘gaming device’ to my television. He pressed buttons and moved levers on a controller to force a catman on screen to shoot a gun and blast lightning.

We sat on my couch and he handed the controller to me. Each button and lever corresponded to an action. If I combined the buttons and switches I could get new actions. If an enemy character shot at me the screen went red, but Saraas told me to position myself around the side of a house and then the red faded. This was damage, and if I took too much time would reverse and give me another chance.

My character did not have the ability to manipulate time. It’s like you’re teaching someone chess and they make a bad move, so you let them redo their turn.

But then later there was a scene where control was taken away from me, the game became like a film. A villain shot my character and I was bleeding out. I then took control of his commanding officer as I tried to save the original character.

When I had control of my character I routinely got shot and quickly healed whatever chunks must have been blown off my body. I asked Saraas why he wasn’t healing, and he explained that it was “a necessary divergence from reality to make it fun, similar to how time reverses when you die.” It’s basically like a boardgame that focuses on fun rather than simulation. Similarly, the combat was too close range to be realistic.

I’m not a fan. Perhaps if the Protectorate independently developed these ‘video games’ and I saw their development it would be fine, but I couldn’t wrap my brains around it.