This episode’s vocabulary
Real-time
adj. — communicated, shown, presented, etc. at the same time as events actually happen.
Strategy
noun — a long-range plan for achieving something or reaching a goal, or the skill of making such plans.
Bog-standard
adj. — completely ordinary, without anything special added.
Free-form
adj. — not having or following a particular style or structure.
Sandbox game
noun — a video game or part of a video game in which the player is not constrained to achieving specific goals and has a large degree of freedom to explore, interact with, or modify the game environment.
Fleet
noun — a group of ships, or all of the ships in a country's navy.
To set up
phrasal verb — to formally establish a new company, organization, system, way of working, etc.
Mode
noun — a way of operating, living, or behaving.
Difficulty curve
noun — the rate of difficulty.
Learning curve
noun — the rate of someone's progress in learning a new skill.
To overrun
verb — to defeat decisively and occupy the positions.
Novelty
noun — the quality of being new and unusual.
Escapism
noun — a way of avoiding an unpleasant or boring life, especially by thinking, reading, etc. about more exciting but impossible activities.
Nerdy
adj. — extremely interested in one subject, especially computers, and knowing a lot of facts about it.
Questions and answers
Rory, are you ready?
Yes, I'm ready.
Off you go.
I used to love playing video games when I was little. One particular one that stands out was called Imperium Galactica 2. It's a real-time strategy game set in space, and you have to run an interstellar empire on a quest to control the galaxy in some way, shape or form. It would probably be easier to mention when I didn't play it, to be honest. I got pretty obsessed, even though the mechanics were quite simple. I used to play before and after school and for big chunks of weekends when I was at home and had nothing better to do. Or even when I did, to be honest. It's just played with a, well, bog-standard keyboard and mouse, to be honest. Depending on whether or not you're playing online, or in the campaigns or just a free-form sandbox game, you have to work with different empires to build colonies on other planets, construct fleets and armies to defend them and set up trade networks to make money. It sounds simple, and it is in easy mode. But the difficulty curve, or the learning curve increases massively after that. And the computer used to overrun me on a regular basis. To be honest, it still does when I play it now because I'm completely out of practice. Initially, I think I had a lot of fun with it because of the novelty. It's not very often you get to play the role of a scientist, fleet and army commander, and explore. But it also gives some sense of escapism, especially on more boring days. Latterly, having played it for a while, it became part of the safety of routine. And now it's more about nostalgia. I was very surprised to find that it still works on more modern computers, to be honest. It was designed for Windows 98, or something like that, which came out a really long time ago. And now here we are about 20 years later. And it still works just fine. If I hadn't played this game, well, there were others available. But this one does seem to fit my personality quite well. It's actually been quite nice to look back on it. Or at least look back on that time.
And what about your friends? Do they enjoy this game?
No, no, my friends are decidedly less nerdy than I am.