Last week, I announced that I would begin my journey into the world of Love, and that I would be taking you all along with me.  Every week I will be experimenting a different playstyle, and for this week I played as the Explorer.

By explorer, I don’t necessarily mean someone who wanders around the world and sticks flags in the ground.  Rather, in my case, I mean utter newb, and so my goal was to simply experience as much varied content as possible. As I mentioned in the last post of Love and Gaming, this is my default approach, so while it served to help me familiarize myself with the game, it also let me do it in a way that came naturally.

It might be tempting to compare Love to sandbox games like Wurm Online, in which you create new settlements and alter the land in permanent, meaningful ways.  However, in my week of play, I have found Love to be more like building sand castles on the beach. You can build the grandest castle, with turrets and a moat and a front gate, but sooner or later the tide will come in and wash it all away. Aggressive AI settlements dot the landscape, and while a single AI enemy is no challenge, they come in great waves and often have access to advanced weaponry that it can take a long time for a player settlement to procure.

That said, the game cycle of building up a settlement from scratch and holding out as long as possible proved to be addictive. As it is still in alpha, the game is continually evolving, and with it we see more varied approaches to settlement. When I started, walls were all the rage, with the longest-lasting settlements surrounded by high, insurmountable bastions. In a recent patch, the AI wised up, and it seems aggressive counter-engagement and teamwork have become more of a necessity.

Love is not a game that is easy to grasp right away.  My first night, I found myself alone in the wilderness without a clue as to what I was doing.  In the spirit of the week’s theme, I set forth to see what I would discover, and what I discovered was death.  Lots of it.

The art of Love looks like an impressionistic painting, and in certain lighting, other characters will often look like mere shadows gliding along the landscape. That first night, all I remember is barrage upon barrage of laser fire all around me, then the tint of red telling me that I was dead. It was not a good night.

Thankfully, I was able to find settlements on most of my following sessions. Love does not lend itself well to traditional exploration, as by default you have no map and there is no objective compass, but as you build up your settlement you have access to greater and more varied tools, with which you can do all kinds of fun things. For instance, with the Config Tool, you can walk right up to certain objects in the games like teleporters, relay cables, and power lines, and reprogram them.  These objects appear all over the world, not just in settlements, so if you can get your hands on one of these you could in theory create massive transportation networks throughout the world.

In the coming week, I will continue to explore the game, but my primary focus will go to my next playstyle: the Team Player. Every time I log in, I will strive to help create the greatest settlement possible, alongside as many players as possible. My concerns will be what’s best for the settlement, and I will engage in no solo endeavors. I suspect Love will lend itself well to this approach, and I look forward to sharing my findings with you next week.

But wait, there’s more! Read AJ’s insights as he explores the world of the Team Player in Part 3 of Love and Gaming.