If I am in a game, Gerry thought, then this would be the most realistic game I could ever think of. But why do I think it is a game? The only reason I think it is a game, is because it has what I know to be a game like-interface.

“But whatever you do don’t die” Garry said aloud.

Games like people dying though, Garry thought. There is a whole study to what the penalties should be for death, but most designers admit that death shouldn’t be permanent. Permanent death deters taking risks, and part of what makes gaming enjoyable is taking risks and having them pay off or not. A permanent penalty for dying removes the incentive to take too many risks.

I don’t have enough information right now to know what I should do. If this was a game, joining up with Tomi the Red might have been have been the training mission. Or it might have been the equivalent of spawn campers taking advantage of the newbies.

“How do I know this stuff?” Garry said.

I’ve made my choice in some ways by running away, Garry thought. If I want to do this on my own, and I think that I do, I am going to have to make sure I get my lower Maslov’s dealt with. But first, if I am running away I should get a bit of space to make sure that I do not get an outcome that is not the one that I want.

Gerry climbed down out of the tree and headed away from the field. The forest covering was consistent, but not dense enough to block out the sun. He kept the sun at his back throughout the morning and once it rose overhead kept walking towards it as the evening ran its course.

As he walked he looked around and the surroundings for danger, but after hours of not seeing anything he drifted off into thought and daydreams.

It’s hard to think when you do not have any memories of the past, thought Garry. All you can do is think of the present and the future. Frankly, that isn’t really so bad? Why do people even remember the past normally? Does it really serve a function to help people, or does focusing on things that happened only hinder the present and the future?

I know about directions, and about the sun rising in one direction and setting in another, but strangely I cannot recall any of the details of the interface or of how the leveling system works. I wonder if that means that wherever I was from before this didn’t have the leveling system, or if that part of my knowledge has been removed from me as well as my memories?

I guess the right thing to do is to figure out some basics about the system, because whether or not this is a game it seems like this interface is going to be one of the more important things to learn about.