A YouTuber dad and his five-year-old daughter have been delighting corners of the internet with an equal parts adorable and thrilling ten-minute fan film inspired by Hello Games' space exploration sim, No Man's Sky.
Titled Nomad Squadron, the six-months-in-the-making short film is the brainchild of Matt Silverman, and follows the daring deep-space adventures of his daughter Amelia, packing in everything from white-knuckle dogfights to the tense infiltration of a hostile alien world. Amelia's squadron cohorts are played by Kinda Funny's Greg Miller (who was apparently keen to get involved after he heard the idea from social-media-buddy Silverman), and Miller's pal Austin Creed, AKA WWE wrestler Xavier Woods, "a fan of [No Man's Sky] from the early days".
Nomad Squadron was created as part of Silverman's Free Dad Videos YouTube channel, in which he sings songs, performs skits, and generally larks about with his daughter. However, the No Man's Sky short is easily Silverman's most ambitious YouTube project yet. As he explained in a post to the No Man's Sky subreddit at the start of the year, Nomad Squadron's filming "was actually a relatively small part of the picture. Compositing the game footage and getting everything to look cinematic was the biggest challenge."