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This Land is My Land
17 June 2021 09:25 amI will often say that “The 19th Century happened everywhere” to address that Steampunk is not just confined to Victorian England. Every culture in the world went though the 19th Century and so is welcome, if not encouraged, to participate in a Steampunk version of that time. Historically, what we think of as being the 19th Century more often was something that happened TO other cultures as the “major powers” became those power through colonialism and the exploitation of indigenous peoples.
The computer game “This Land is My Land” turns that around a bit by having the player act as a Native American who has decided to take up arms against encroaching white settlers. The game is in early release and so is still under development but Steam had a sale on open world games and I decided to buy in.
“This Land is My Land” plays on two levels. Strategically, as a Native American chief, you are responsible for collecting and managing resources to grow your territorial control. On a tactical level, you have to, one at a time, drive the white invaders from your land and burn their settlements.
Perhaps not necessarily one at a time. There is a mechanism in-game to create war parties and take warriors with you on these raids (or even to just send them separately on the strategic map level) but they don’t seem to do very well. I’ll be honest that I haven’t worked out the details on how to manage war parties so that my warriors get killed off pretty fast may be my not understanding the game mechanics well enough.
The game lacks any sort of storytelling arc, which, for the most part, I like. “Red Dead Redemption’s” story arc went places I wasn’t interested in going and, in so doing, delivered a message from the developers. Certainly, the developers have a message in this game as well (all developers do) but they do not plot hammer you into that message.
When connected to the Internet, the game included a Social aspect. As you do things, you are awarded points and tokens by the community which you can spend on improving your skills and equipment faster than you otherwise might. I’m not quite sure how it works because, for example, let’s say you have just killed a settler. You will get a message that you have just killed so-and-so, who was sent by some-other-guy. How did this guy send you this settler? Well, this other guy paid for the Founders Edition of the game and, for giving the developers extra money bought the privilege of naming characters in-game. Tis means you could have just dealt with Johnny Ringo or Wyatt Earp or Boris Johnson or Xzzy428. I find that having knifed Donald Trump has only a mild amount of satisfaction and definitely breaks my immersion experience.
Another thing the game is lacking are any women. No women in the native camps, no women in the invader settlements, no women warriors. On one hand, there is the lack of inclusion or representation. On the other, not having any women, even in the white settlements, removes the moral issues of going in and murdering everyone there.
Genocide is not the only solution to the white-man invasion, though. Instead of knifing settlers, or putting a knife in their back, or a spear through the guts, you can use a skill called “intimidate.” Except, it’s not really intimidation. After sneaking up on some poor guy and knocking him unconscious, you will set a bundle of plants and feathers smoking and wave them over his prone form. After a few seconds, he will stagger to his feet and, in a drug-addled haze, will stumble around and eventually wander into the woods, never to be seen again. What is more amusing is that his comrades don’t seem to notice or care. They continue going about their business, oblivious that, one by one, all their buddies are getting drunk and staggering off or simply disappearing altogether.
That may not be entirely true. Individually, they don’t seem to notice the change but I think the game AI has them more alert. When they lay down in their tents, trying to sneak up on them is harder. They don’t stray as far from camp. “Bob just wandered off into the forest, fourth guy to do that this evening. Maybe I’ll just stand here by the fire instead of standing guard out away from camp.”
All in all, it’s an entertaining game and, in the past two weeks I have played enough to qualify as a full time job. It still has some bugs and could be cleaned up some. Having played that much, the game started to slow down with some heavy lag. I wasn’t sure if the save got corrupted or if it’s reaching the limits of my laptop’s memory.
The computer game “This Land is My Land” turns that around a bit by having the player act as a Native American who has decided to take up arms against encroaching white settlers. The game is in early release and so is still under development but Steam had a sale on open world games and I decided to buy in.
“This Land is My Land” plays on two levels. Strategically, as a Native American chief, you are responsible for collecting and managing resources to grow your territorial control. On a tactical level, you have to, one at a time, drive the white invaders from your land and burn their settlements.
Perhaps not necessarily one at a time. There is a mechanism in-game to create war parties and take warriors with you on these raids (or even to just send them separately on the strategic map level) but they don’t seem to do very well. I’ll be honest that I haven’t worked out the details on how to manage war parties so that my warriors get killed off pretty fast may be my not understanding the game mechanics well enough.
The game lacks any sort of storytelling arc, which, for the most part, I like. “Red Dead Redemption’s” story arc went places I wasn’t interested in going and, in so doing, delivered a message from the developers. Certainly, the developers have a message in this game as well (all developers do) but they do not plot hammer you into that message.
When connected to the Internet, the game included a Social aspect. As you do things, you are awarded points and tokens by the community which you can spend on improving your skills and equipment faster than you otherwise might. I’m not quite sure how it works because, for example, let’s say you have just killed a settler. You will get a message that you have just killed so-and-so, who was sent by some-other-guy. How did this guy send you this settler? Well, this other guy paid for the Founders Edition of the game and, for giving the developers extra money bought the privilege of naming characters in-game. Tis means you could have just dealt with Johnny Ringo or Wyatt Earp or Boris Johnson or Xzzy428. I find that having knifed Donald Trump has only a mild amount of satisfaction and definitely breaks my immersion experience.
Another thing the game is lacking are any women. No women in the native camps, no women in the invader settlements, no women warriors. On one hand, there is the lack of inclusion or representation. On the other, not having any women, even in the white settlements, removes the moral issues of going in and murdering everyone there.
Genocide is not the only solution to the white-man invasion, though. Instead of knifing settlers, or putting a knife in their back, or a spear through the guts, you can use a skill called “intimidate.” Except, it’s not really intimidation. After sneaking up on some poor guy and knocking him unconscious, you will set a bundle of plants and feathers smoking and wave them over his prone form. After a few seconds, he will stagger to his feet and, in a drug-addled haze, will stumble around and eventually wander into the woods, never to be seen again. What is more amusing is that his comrades don’t seem to notice or care. They continue going about their business, oblivious that, one by one, all their buddies are getting drunk and staggering off or simply disappearing altogether.
That may not be entirely true. Individually, they don’t seem to notice the change but I think the game AI has them more alert. When they lay down in their tents, trying to sneak up on them is harder. They don’t stray as far from camp. “Bob just wandered off into the forest, fourth guy to do that this evening. Maybe I’ll just stand here by the fire instead of standing guard out away from camp.”
All in all, it’s an entertaining game and, in the past two weeks I have played enough to qualify as a full time job. It still has some bugs and could be cleaned up some. Having played that much, the game started to slow down with some heavy lag. I wasn’t sure if the save got corrupted or if it’s reaching the limits of my laptop’s memory.
