Ex Albio Clears Every Box in BOB LOGISTICS, a Warehouse Game About Automation

NIJISANJI — Ex Albio cleared the last box in BOB LOGISTICS, a warehouse-sorting game, on a stream that ran about three hours and 40 minutes on Monday, and saw its story through to the end. “It was a pretty good game, this one,” he said afterward, adding that it was an excellent warehouse-tidying game in its own right.

In the game the player is a picker. He reads an order on a screen, pulls the items from the shelves, drops them in a box and seals it, and the box is transferred to the customer. Points earned from each order buy new gear. Ex Albio went from carrying by hand to a two-handed carry, then added an AR guide line on the floor, a cleaning robot, a cart, a Segway, an electric suction device and drones that fetch items on their own. Early on he wondered aloud what viewers find fun about watching a game like this one.

“It was a pretty good game, this one.” — Ex Albio, after the ending

As he opened new rooms in the warehouse, a story about automation unfolded in the documents inside. Protesters had gathered outside company headquarters, staff counts had fallen to zero, and the company ran what the game called a “dark factory,” a site that needs no lights because no people work in it. Ex Albio said it was less a scary story than an “I see” kind of story, and that he did not think it was far-fetched.

After the final box, the company’s president contacted the player through a terminal in a room cut off from the company network. He said the plan to leave one person in each warehouse was his, and told of weavers who smashed the machines that took their work. He then offered a post at headquarters to help draft the next operating plan, and a further round in which the player picks the gear and the volume of work. Ex Albio noted that the options included a mode with no gear and 12 times the volume. In chat, one viewer wrote “Luddite movement.”

Between stages he filled the stream with talk: thumbnail design, which phone chat uses, songs from his school days, and the catchphrases he borrows from comedians. He said he would like to hold a stream explaining the in-jokes he uses. He signed off by saying he expected to stream again the next day, probably at 9 p.m. The stream drew four Super Chats.