We don't know why, but at some time, somewhere, everything began.
The game started.
Some players think the 'gods' did it, others accept it as an unknown.
All we do know is that it's running.
Chapter 1: Philosophy, Religion, Theology
The Start of the Game
Chapter 2: Physics
The Rules of the Game
Whenever the game started, rules of the game were set as well.
These rules are the game engine that everything is based on.
There were parts - light, energy, mass, space, time.
And there were rules for how they interacted with each other.
Objects move when pushed. Energy flows but it can never be created or destroyed. Heat spreads. Time always ticks forward. Things with weight pull on each other.
Chapter 3: Chemistry
The Small Things
These rules from physics formed 'elements' which are the building blocks of everything 🧱.
They are colourful, and have properties.
Many simple elements were setup at the start of the game.
The simple elements bond together to make more complex elements.
All of today's known elements are described in the 'periodic table'.
The elements are solid, liquid, or gas (their states), depending on the temperature and pressure (a game rule).
The elements react with eachother.
Chapter 4: Space Science
Small Things clump together
Many elements clump together and form Balls flying through space. (This was later discovered through a tool in our game called the 'telescope' ðŸ”).
There's a lot of different stuff out there, clumped into 'galaxies' - most of it not useful to us as it's too far.
There's also some weird bugs in the system called 'black holes' - they are so dense that they suck up everything around them.
“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent
Chapter 5: Earth Science
A special ball
One of the balls was called 'Earth'.
It had the special property of having the 'water' element.
The earth is an onion of balls surrounding one another.
The first ball is a ball of rock. This ball is surrounded by a mix of water, more rock, and ice. This surface is surrounded by game characters, and then by gas.
Chapter 6: Biology
Characters of the Game
There is a game rule called 'evolution'.
Through this feature, many many game characters and players were created on the Earth Ball. We call these characters 'life'.
Some believe these characters are only on the Earth Ball but its unlikely (See 'fermi paradox').
They have different shapes, sizes, complexity, and features. Many went into and out of existence. The smallest players are 'cells', which have other pieces inside.
Life is colorful, grows, and moves. Some live on land, some in water, some in the air.
The instructions for the players are all inside of their cells, in a script called 'genetics' 🧬 (later discovered in a game tool called the 'microscope' 🔬).
This was all enabled by the water on the ball.
Many players are in competition with other player types, players of the same type, or the environment.
Nearly every players goal is Survival and Reproduction (replication).
Chapter 7: Apes
The Human Player v1.0
At a point very late in the game, an early 'human' player character evolved.
They start as small babies, and grow bigger.
They are made of specific parts which are labelled by 'anatomy'.
Certain parts are designed for certain movements (labelled by 'biomechanics').
How the parts work and interact with eachother is labelled by 'physiology'.
'Immunology' labels how the body protects from outside danger (called an 'infection').
Chapter 8: Forming Teams
Winning character battles through group size
Early human characters were not a strong player in many ways, except via quantity, and coordination of the group.
They multiply via the important mechanism called 'sex' which a lot of their reward functions are based around.
Coordinating in large numbers and chasing for a long time, they could beat most other character types.
Thus 'socialising' is a key feature of the game.
Chapter 9: Agriculture
Farming our way to stability
At the start, human players would have to 'travel' all over the map (of the earth ball) to find ('picking/foraging and hunting') food.
They eventually figured out how to do it in one spot and stay still, and grow their own animals to eat.
They also mastered the tool in the game called 'fire', which let them 'cook', create metal parts from rocks/ore, and 'glass'.
Chapter 10: The Big Brain Ape
Attention, Consciousness, The Mind, Sensation, Perception, Awareness
All of the surplus food resources from farming enabled the growth of the 'brain' body part of the ape, in complexity.
It gave them 'sensation' and let them see, hear, smell, taste, feel, and 'think'.
It is still a mystery how the brain part creates sensation and attention.
Chapter 11: The Tools
Harder, better, faster, stronger
With this new brain, human characters were OverPowered and took over the world, over a long period of time, and formed large groups. They got very good at solving the problems of survival and reproduction with Tools.
Key tools include:
- Language
- Governance (politics & law)
- Trade, Economics, and Money
- Construction
- Mathematics
- Clothing
- Electricity
- Print & Books
- The Computer
- Television
- Medicine
They created 'factories' to build various things like ships, drugs, planes, cars, clothing, materials.
They even started creating new materials w their knowledge of chemistry.
Want to see what happens next?
Drop your email and I'll let you in when the next level's ready 👇