A day after the launch of “No Mans Sky,” I raced home excitedly from work to park myself in front of the television, Amy’s burrito in hand. The game, developed by Hello Games, features a quintillion procedurally generated planets, each with their own unique landscape, flora, fauna and creatures. I had pre-ordered the game and downloaded it in anticipation so that as soon as I had a chance to begin playing, I could start navigating deep space as quickly as possible.

The game opened up on a vast planet which I, of course, named after myself “Deidre”. My space ship, the “Rasamama S36” or as I am now calling it the “RastaMama,” was critically damaged and in need of repair. I began pressing random buttons on my controller to learn the controls. I used my multi-tool to randomly spew its laser beam into objects around me. Soon enough, I learned that it can be used as both a mining device and a weapon. Once I figured out how to determine what exactly I needed to repair my ship and how to scan for resources, I began wandering aimlessly across my home planet.

A little circle with a green “?” inside popped up in the beginning of my journey across the plains of “Deidre”. When I finally decided to follow it, a countdown to my arrival began. In a minute or so, I arrived at some wreckage with a save point and a few cargo drops to explore. I ended up with some items whose purpose I would later begin to understand. These types of planetary discoveries are strewn across the entire surface and when you finally fix your ship, you can even fly to them instead of running forever like I did at first.

Once I gathered all the essential resources necessary to repair my ship, I fixed it up and prepared to take off. Unfortunately, I did not understand how to scan lifeforms so I left my home planet with no discoveries other than waypoints. Epic fail. After this, it was onwards to space and attempting how to travel to the next celestial object.

Pictured above: A rather phallic rock on my home planet of “Deidre”.

In space, I quickly learned how to fly my ship. However, the major issue was determing how to make it to the next undiscovered planet in the solar system in less time than the six hours apparent arrival time. After playing with a few buttons, I started going fast and in just a few minutes, I landed on my second planet “Mubrial Uslons”. This planet, according to my discovery log, was a forsaken planet. Looked like it too.

Pictured above: Forsaken yet eerily beautiful “Mubrial Uslons”.

On this planet, I spent the majority of my time searching for plutonium to charge my thrusters and depart this barren, lifeform devoid rock. Unfortunately, I forgot to rename it and now back in space, it does not appear as though I have the option any longer so this is the name hence forth. I remembered to name the next planet I made it to and bestowed upon it “Derdriu,” an older variant of my name. I’ve decided to keep the names of my star systems in sync.

Pictured above: “Derdriu,” a name from Irish mythology.

Pictured below: The “RastaMama” resting on the surface of “Derdriu”.

Once I figured out how to use my pulse drive, I made my way to a space station. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any screenshots but I certainly plan to do so in subsequent blog posts. The sentient alien species I interacted with were also procedurally generated and some had beaks and frog eyes while others had talons and scaly skin. The titles of these lifeforms ranged from “Merchant” to “Sentinel” and each of them had their own, again procedurally generated, distinct star ship. Although too broke for the investment thus far, the player has the opportunity to purchase any of the star ships they encounter. Admittedly, I have a soft spot for the “RastaMama”. It is a really pretty space ship!

Next on the list, hyperdrive. Having discovered all the planets in my first star system, it was time to move onto the next. While I did not fully understand the navigation system, I somehow ended up following it to an alien outpost. On this alien outpost, I ended up with the schematic for the hyper drive. So, I set out to yet again build something through a struggle to acquire various resources. I ended up back at the station selling a bunch of things I had found on “Mubrial Uslons” for antimatter. At the time, I did not have the ingredient list necessary to create it myself. After some hard work, I built my new beloved hyperdrive only to realize that now I had to fuel it up.

The hyperdrive required warp cells which required a bunch of resources. Once more, I headed back to “Mubrial Uslons” and checked out the alien outpost. The resident alien then gave me the magic potion for antimatter, a very helpful addition to my crafting dictionary. After flying back and forth between planets and the space station, my hyperdrive was assembled and fueled with a single warp cell.

I turned to the navigation and chose the “Atlas” option. Once I had locked in on a new star system, I fired up my star ship and it was onwards to a new series of worlds. I named my second star system “Olseum,” this time after my last name. Oh, by the way, my first star system was named “Deidrium”. Nerd.

Atlas took me to my first planet in “Olseum,” a tropical temperate and achingly beautiful one filled with funny friendly creatures. The orange landscape was filled with yellow swaying grasses and red flowers in full bloom. I finally learned how to scan creatures and began documenting my discoveries.

Pictured above: A strange yellow-orange flying creature.

Excited to explore, I quickly left this planet and travelled to another which, although extremely toxic, in my opinion has been the most beautiful thus far.

Pictured above: “Osean,” a toxic tongue-like fungi-laden, floating disk-infested planet in my star system “Olseum”.

Currently, I am parked on another planet in this star system working on gathering resources for another warp cell. I have already discovered all the planets and their moons in this system. I will document their names and more information soon.

Thank you for reading!