#2061: Tectonics Game explain

[Cueball is standing behind Ponytail, who is sitting on the floor playing a video game on a TV which displays a diagram of tectonic plates.]

Cueball: What game is that?

Ponytail: Tectonics!

Ponytail: You steer chunks of crust around, rifting, subducting, and building and eroding mountains.

[A view of the game screen is shown. It includes a large cross-section of the Earth with smaller charts around it.]

Ponytail (narrating): You try to keep your climate stable and your biosphere rich.

Ponytail (narrating): Avoid making large igneous provinces! They’re the worst.

[Cueball holds his hand out in a frameless panel.]

Cueball: Cool!

Cueball: Can I try?

Ponytail (off-panel): Sure!

[Cueball plays the game while Ponytail watches.]

Cueball: …How do I unpause?

Ponytail: It’s not paused.

Cueball: …

Ponytail: Continents can only move a few inches per year.

[Cueball has stopped playing and holds the controller in one hand. Ponytail points at the screen that shows an achievement page with no completed achievements, but a progress bar halfway done for an achievement with the number 1 and a mountain.]

Cueball: It’s real-time?

Ponytail: Just 400 millennia to go until your first mountain achievement!