Once Human: Winter Has Come

There very nearly wasn't a post again today. There barely is one now. I am not exaggerating when I say my desire to play Once Human is all-consuming.

Okay, I am exaggerating. That would literally be the definition of an exaggeration, to say that I am entirely consumed by the desire to log in and play this particular video game. That I would cease to eat or drink or sleep until I dropped dead of exhaustion, thirst and starvation at the keyboard. Although thirst would kill me quickest so hunger wouldn't get a look-in and no-one ever died of falling asleep unless it was at the wheel.

Okay, yes, there are lots of other ways falling asleep could kill someone. I get that. It kind of ruins the joke, though, don't you think, to have to list them all? 

There was a joke in there? Must have missed it.

Enough with the padding. The reason this post exists, other than to avoid my missing three days in a row as I work the weekend, is to share some snaps I took of the sudden, unexpectedly heavy snowfall that hit my home in Once Human this afternoon. 

Until now, the most I'd seen of snow, outside of the mountains anyway, were some thin sheets lying on the ground here and there and a flurry of flakes whirling in the air now and then. The temperature fluctuates a great deal, frequently dropping below -30, leading to hypothermia and death for anyone insufficiently well wrapped up but until today I hadn't seen anything pitch, as we say where I come from.

As you can see, that's all changed. Not only is the snow sticking (Other people say that. I don't.) it's drifting too. It's lying a foot or more deep all over my territory and it looks fantastic. 

I'm a long-time afficionado of virtual snow. It has its own tag on the blog. I once wrote an article for a fanzine about the depiction of snow in comics. I love me some good flake.

I think this is the best ground snow I've seen in a game. Rift probably had the best white-out blizzard conditions but I can't recall seeing snow lying this convincingly before. When I stand in it it comes up to my knees and when I move I see myself trudging through it, leaving a deep trench behind that doesn't fill in and disappear in moments like footsteps in most other games.

Even more impressive is the way it coats the surfaces, clinging to the flowers in clumps and leaving the grass coated and bowed down. It's almost eerily realistic. 

Meanwhile, my household deviants carry on as though nothing has happened. They happily trot through the new-fallen snow - or wade through it in the case of the shorter ones, like the somewhat startled bunny in the picture below - somehow finding their way to the rocks and plants buried beneath. The harvest must come in, regardless of the weather.

My plan for today, before I decided I'd rather play the game than write about it, was to go into some detail about how much I'm still learning and discovering, even after a hundred and thirty hours and counting. I feel like I'm only now starting to realise just how much I've missed so far. It's like I missed half the game. More.

That's all going to have to wait. I want to get another couple of hours in before I have to stop for the night and I won't be able to do much after that until next week.

No point wasting time talking about it, when you could be doing it, right?