My gut tells me that there’s no way, because the many archaisms and local-to-Dublin references in Ulysses really do make it unintelligible to a modern reader who isn’t already intimately familiar with the setting. But I could be wrong.

My point is not to call anyone a hypocrite, it’s to say that if we apply the same standards to Ulysses as to Space Giraffe, Ulysses is no more holy or uncriticizable than SG is! They’re both frustrating, and someone who decides they have better things to do is on solid critical ground.

It’s not that people “don’t get” the game, it’s just that they don’t like 1990’s techno and psychedelia, both of which Space Giraffe is absolutely saturated with to the extent that it’s impossible to ignore.

Space Giraffe doesn’t really explain itself. The visuals are, indeed, seriously overwhelming. The gameplay mechanic isn’t immediately obvious. It is frequently contradictory – auto-fire in a game where you’re rewarded for not shooting things? – and the game is consistently hostile to the player. It doesn’t let you in or welcome you – you’re fighting it all the way through.

All these criticisms that have been levelled at it are completely true.

Space Giraffe is a constantly unfolding voyage of discovery. It challenges your perceptions – purposefully forcing your conscious mind out of the equation, to bring about a primal, guttural, subconscious, animal experience. It forces you into “the zone”.

It hones your instincts to see – nay, feel – through different eyes. To sense the order and patterns from amongst the chaos, as a hunter comes to learn his environment so instinctively that he can see what is imperceivable – and seemingly impossible – to others; Broken stems, imprints in the soil, shifted or compacted soil, animal calls and other signs which trace the path of the predator through the jungle.

Like a hunter. Like an illusionist. Like a brain surgeon.

Any sufficiently advanced knowledge is indistinguishable from magic (even to its possessor).

The game, as nature, is “red, in tooth and claw”.

A predator does not hand out an instruction booklet to its prey on how to survive, or walk around with a “health bar” floating above its head.

You must learn from experience. You must learn by your mistakes. You are supposed to fail.

Because it is by these negative experiences that we learn, that we adapt and that we change our perception.

In the words of Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest, nor the most intelligent, that survives. It’s the one that’s most adaptable to change”.

Enemies do change behaviour without warning. Life will present you with hostility and it will most certainly, at times, offend you and your sensibilities without mercy nor apology.

Some people relish this life exactly as it is, and some people detest it with a passion and live their lives in perpetual complaint.

And once you realise that, in both instances, I’ve written about exactly the same things twice – just from different perspectives, mentalities and angles as to what those points actually mean – then you finally understand.

Everybody’s right.

It does ask for player active involvement, but hey, a game always needs a player. And it’s about the player’s skill. It’s natural a skill takes some time to improve.

I myself compare Space Giraffe to riding a bicycle. You need to practice…and fail several times. But then it clicks, you find the balance, and from there you can go anywhere at your own pace. One can always learn…and people don’t have to call “Bicycle sucks” because they couldn’t ride it for the first time.

Maybe the world is getting more and more short-tempered, and there is less space and time for learning new things…(and we see easy to grasp recycled gameplay pieces everyday)