Most regular readers here will quickly acknowledge that there has been an abundance of Simoebic Dysentery related posts. This one, the one you are reading right now, continues that trend. However, I hope to delve a bit deeper into the process thus far — the process of learning a new means to tell a story through trial and error. I’ve dreamt of working on a video game for the majority of my cognizant life. In the past, I’ve worked with Mojiferous (who’s developer diary that was recorded during the uDevGames contest (you know the one, the contest that we one 1st in “Originality” and 3rd in “Audio”) can be found here) through other facets including: a remix album, sound effects for Zoltan! and beta/QA testing for Atomic Combat 2.0. However, Simoebic Dysentery is the first project that we’ve worked on together from the ground up. Idea to (eventual) fruition. That being said, I’d like to discuss a bit of the history, from the origins to the present state.

ART

Glancing through my emails from the end of December, 2008 through early January, I can get an accurate glimpse of the some of the earliest stages of the process. The original idea, the one that sparked the whole thing, wasn’t related to the inner workings of the body at all. In fact, it was a weird “puzzle” game in which you were given a big gun, and had to blow up walls, but you only got a set of bullets. Pretty stupid really, but what it did do was spawn a slew of idea’s from Mojiferous. These ideas, pitched back and forth eventually lead to the idea of a game in which you play a virus and are attempting to navigate the bloodstream to kill your host. Originally the game was from an isometric point of view but technology, time and tech forced us into an overhead view. Also, after some fact checking, the virus was switched to an amoeba. The origins were remarkably crude, considering where we ended up:

I’m told that the main problem we were running into at the beginning were derivative of Mojiferous wanting to render the entire graphic set in the game — basically no call to jpg’s, png’s or predrawn hoo-haw. What we ended up with is a mashup of this system with the anatomy drawings from everyone’s favorite anatomical guidebook (which was the primary focus of the art style, narrative, and a building block to the basic premise of the game. Thanks Dr. Henry Gray!)

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

ORIGINS

Our first real face to face was conducted at a coffee shop, where we sat notebooks in hand, a copy of Gray’s Anatomy open on the table and coffee spilling over the cups, talking, talking, talking. This, I remember thinking to myself, was collaborative creation. It was the epidome of this weird bohemian vision I’d created in my head of what it really meant to be on the brink of a creative cusp. This wasn’t a game, it was a revolution.

Of course, this was all quickly lost after we began the process of actually making the damn thing. Life’s an interesting thing, because it tends to get in the way of a lot of things. Here we had two Graduate students that were working on a hobby alongside 40 hour a week jobs and classes. One of us operates as an early person, the other at night. So the majority of our conversations would now take place via email and phone — but for the moment I was stuck waiting. The problem with being a “designer” is that after the idea comes crapping out of your body, after the pen is finished with the paper, your job is done for a while. So I had to sit back and wait for Mojiferous to get me the level creator toolkit.

We also had a hell of a time coming up with a name for this damn thing. In fact, we went through quite a few:

• An Amoebic Adventure
• Amoeba Lung
• Amoeba Brain
• Amoeba Castle
• Amoeba Mumbles
• Lone Amoeba
• Amoeba Sandwich
• Amoeba Grease
• Amoebic Onslaught
• Amoebic Avenue
• Amoebic Aggression
• Amoebic Enterprise
• Amoeba Attack
• The Shits
• etc.

MUSIC

During this time I was supposed to be working on the soundtrack. Which I was — and by mean working on it, I mean it was forming in my head. I don’t write music, I’ve never believed that I had the ability, but I do improv and I improv well (and by well, I mean I enjoy myself, not that I play well). Eventually, I plopped down in front of the keyboard and recorded four hours of music. Then I cut it down. It’s available you know, in case you missed the thirty-six other mentions on this very blog, here.

But none of the above things are really all that interesting. These are the types of things that one would expect from a little indie game. Lots of meetings, testing, late night and early mornings.

NARRATIVE

I do believe I’ve learned a significant amount of skills through this beginning process. First and foremost, the ability to talk about a project like this and bring it to fruition. We aren’t there yet, but I have no doubt in my mind that we’ll be there shortly. For me, the most interesting aspect here is the narrative. I consider myself a writer before all else and for better or worse that’s my chosen path. With a game like this, a puzzle game, it seemed almost absurd to combine story with gameplay. But I believe that Mojiferous and I have worked out a compelling reason to play this — and not just for the brain twisters.

When one talks of narrative in regards to a game, it’s important to understand that narrative and story aren’t the same thing. I’ve looked at this before. The interesting thing for me with Simoebic Dysentery was that the narrative was the entire reason for the game’s existence. We were actually using the setting (a human body) as both a playing field and a character. The two were interweaved and as the game progressed, this became more and more apparent. The actual plot of the game is fairly simple: Man goes to Amazon. Man contracts disease. Man tries to rid himself of disease. Man… well, I won’t give you a spoiler yet, but it’s fair to say that the man will either live or die. These plot points are revealed in game, through voice overs coming through the body and into the setting.

For me, this is interesting on a number of levels. We are afforded the unique opportunity to have a story being told by non-playable characters that directly effect the way the game is played (man goes to voodoo doctor who injects you with snail juice and suddenly you, the amoeba are forced to adapt, change your methods and learn new tactics. Think of the fire in Far Cry 2, or the rain in Call of Duty 4). These outside forces, the setting of the whole story are contriving against you, the player. It also creates the interesting dynamic of what exactly a game is. A game is, to many, something that you try to “win” or “beat.” Brainy Gamer talked about the idea of “beating” a game a while ago, which is actually what got me thinking of how one would go about creating a relationship with “win” that would, in the end, destroy the game, the idea of the game, and the point of even playing a game. Basically, if you, the amoeba win, the character, which is also the setting, dies. You no longer serve a purpose.

We were also faced with the problem of creating these voices in a manner that was both believable and interesting. We’re still hard at work on this — but our voice talent is solid, and I believe that the story is compelling enough to keep the player entertained throughout their puzzle solving. I’m not going to bother going too far into this now, because I imagine it’ll be a major point in the second of these posts (when the game finishes itself), when I’ll be able to talk more thoroughly about what I thought worked well and what didn’t when dealing with the narrative.

WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE’RE HEADING

As of this last week, we’ve both finished up with school for the semester. I’ll be heading back in June for a month, but we’re still given ample time to continue on Simoebic Dysentery. The future of the game is still rather daunting. We have the final proof’s of the story. We have the voice acting. We have a hundred or so levels to design. We have mutagens, add-ons, adaptations and enhancements to think about. Oh, what was that? Didn’t I mention that the game will feature mild RPG elements that allow your amoeba to evolve? Well, RPG in a loose sense, as the evolutions will come from how you attack the levels, not from a dice roll or upgrade system. The hope is that by gauging the way the player plays the game, our branching narrative will adapt to continue the challenge while the setting changes as well, flushing out its own systems and bringing in new ones. New elements will be introduced based around the ways a player beats a level (do they float through the blood stream and hide from white blood cells, or do the lyse their way through like a tank?). So far we’ve learned a lot of things. We’ve learned to keep our ideas small, to understand our own limits but still push them, we’ve learned that friends aren’t going to spend time beta testing or toying around with an unfinished project, but strangers on the internet will, we’ve learned that we have an original idea that is worth continuing with. Sure, in the end, this is “just another indie game.” But it’s our indie game dammit. And I’m already proud of it.

Well, its been very busy here in Thoronia, busy enough that we haven’t really had a chance to update much recently. But, I assure you all, that this will not last forever, and it is indeed a good thing. What’s been happening here? Well, many things. We’ll leave it all to your mind to figure what might be making the waves of crunch then okay? Anyway. Many thoughts cross brain through week. Many. Now share!

• iPhone Firmware update finally goes live – as does App Store. The store already has over 700 programs — but seems to be missing some that I was hoping for at launch, including: Wordpress blog editor (mobile blogging and, more importantly, notes to ourselves), Netflix (so when you recommend a movie to me I actually remember it), native rateyourmusic.com app (I haven’t really delved into this service, but I probably would be more inclined to if I could just sit in front of my LPs with my phone in my lap and rate them).
• There are some things I was really impressed with, including the Ebay App, Crosswords, Pocketpedia (which syncs with a suite of programs on your computer, but also works as a library of stuff that A) you can carry with you B) you can include wishlists so as not to get lost in the book/DVD/Music store), NetNewsWire finally brings RSS to the iPhone, it syncs with NewsGator (even though I prefer to simple yet intuitive Mail.app for my RSS, I guess I’ll just switch on over). There are probably more things that I’d hoped for that never showed, but I don’t remember them now…
• MEDUSA Ray Announced – A new crowd control ray-gun has just entered production by the Sierra Nevada Corporation. The gun uses microwave audio effects to implant sounds and messages inside a person’s head. Why does this sound both exciting and awesome? Because, perhaps the next Republic of Thoronia album will not released on CD, MP3 or LP, but on MEDUSA, and it will be beamed directly into your fucking mind. Brilliant.
• Denver is gonna fuck you up — Denver has been real secretive about its plans for the DNC, but on top of importing an undisclosed amount of police officers, the city (which we here in Thoronia call home) has also ordered: goo guns, sonic ray guns, microwave guns, rainbow guns, happy bullets. There is also a possibility of rock and roll happening at Bar Bar in honor of the Convention’s Friday night… this rock will include the RoT first performance in a couple months, and is at this point, still only a theory.
• A fan outfits a room to look like Mario — But where, oh where, is the furniture going to go?
• Robo-fans — What do you do when you can’t get any fans? You invent some! Weird yet interesting things are happening with the Robot Fan Culture. I can’t even begin to decide what I think about it.
• I’m going to be in the market for a laptop – So if anyone has an Intel based Macbook (or, actually, any Macbook/Powerbook as long as it’ll run OS X 10.5) they want to scrap, or sell cheap, let me know.

I apologize for the drastic cut in updates over the past month. It’s simply been a busy time, and as I am preparing to move across town it is becoming more and more difficult to spend time in what I now consider a bland, outdated room — the one that happens to have my computer in it — and no windows or life to speak of. Anyway, instead of creating anything new and exciting I’m just going to forward your attention to a few amazing things I’ve come across recently:

• Slate’s Review of the absolutely stupendous Metal Gear Solid 4. If this review doesn’t make you want to go out and buy a PS3 and play MGS4 than you aren’t into cool video games.
• Caleb Crain’s How to Write for the Web. This essay goes into what people look for in web writing that differs from print journalism, and discusses what types of things need to be changed and revamped, as well as what makes each nearly everlasting.
• Rock Paper Shotgun’s interview with Paul Barnett about Video Game Journalism. A nice interview that goes into a lot of a review’s tolls and toils, as well as discusses some interesting points in video game related words.
• Wired’s Review of the music that has been sent into space. Why the hell didn’t I think of this first? This is great!
• Environmental Graffitti’s found video footage. Of a dog’s head being kept alive by machinists and scientists in, where else? 1920s Russia. This video has been disputed over the last 80+ years for its authenticity, but nothing remains more apparent — this is mind blowing either way.
• The new Sigur Rós album, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust is a welcome surprise from the band’s increasingly bloaded productions. The album serves as a more pop-friendly release, with songs and harmonics as well as a few short stints — and beats. It’s not ground breaking, or even that amazing, but it’s nice to see a band step away from itself at a point and make something new.

All the important news from the last week, I read so you don’t have to!

Obama wins Guam by seven votes. Seven, that’s is seven Guamanese… Guamos, Guamatanomos… people from Guam that made a difference, even though they can’t vote in November!

Iron Man the Movie comes out. Fanboys think it’s the “best comic book movie ever,” sorta-fanboys say, “It was pretty alright, better than Spiderman 3,” non-fanboys say, ‘Why did they base a movie off a Black Sabbath Song? Bah bah bah bah bah, bona bona bona bona bona DUN DUN DUN!”

Let’s Yoga is released for Nintendo DS. Girlfriends everywhere hijack DS for a week, give up, tell their boyfriends they should start doing Yoga. “It’s only eight minutes a day, what the hell else do you do?” They say… “We do important things,” we say, “Like write about the news.”

Some website launches, wants to pay its writers peanuts. Sometimes people ask me questions about how much I get paid. I usually tell them. In this particular case, this website wants to pay its writer the equivilent of .012 cents per word. That’s about six dollars for a 500 word article. Let’s put it this way, even the Onion pays .10 cents a word.

Microsoft finally backs off the Yahoo bid.  Yahoo is like, sha’ like we’re totally worth more than that. OMG. We have the gayest, stupidest logo using the most god awful fucking font ever. Buy us at $37 a share!

Since Microsoft gives up, some type of merger has to happen, DT, known to Americans as T-Mobile is considering puting in a bid for Sprint/Nextel. That means it would be at least three companies rolled up into one. Firefighters wonder if they’ll still get a chance to balance the budget.

GKT levels up to 55 in COD4. Unemployment has allowed him to get pretty dang good.

Genetics found to be the cause of most problems. Now its oseoporosis and other bone fractures. Creationists and religious zealots insist, “It’s God’s fault your fucked up, not your parents.” 

Tecmo Bowl is announced for the Nintendo DS. GKT get’s super stoked.

NIN hops on the free train. Apperently Trent Reznor’s head isn’t as much like a hole as we’d all thought. Perhaps this is because of Radiohead’s success, perhaps it’s because NIN is indeed a progressive band. As long as there is a song with a vocoder and a theremin I’ll be happy.

Okay, so there are a lot of gimmicky things in the world, gimmick games, gimmick books, gimmick records. But sometimes the gimmicks work – which is why we all keep on trying (and for those that need the self-referential comment because you’re too fucking stupid ot get it: The Republic of Thoronia is totally legit and real). Anyway, some of my favorite gimmick’s (even the word “gimmick” seems a little off, I mean, why wouldn’t it be spelled “gimic” because you say it just like “mimic”)  are included below: 

 Books

An Ordinary Spy by Joseph Weisberg – An Ordinary Spy features tons of blacked out words to reflect what a CIA memo might look like to one of us normals. It’s a little silly, but the story works and the gimmick of blacked out words actually helps keep the story going and the reader guessing. Not suprisingly its a little annoying, but it makes the reader actually work at their job of reading, and sometimes, especially in genre fiction, that’s something to applaud the writer for.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski – To those who haven’t read House of Leaves and have just seen it – it looks and feels all gimmick. A muscle curdling 709 pages the novel follows several plotlines, from an annoying tattoo shop apprentice to the Navidson Record-a story written by a blind man named Zampano about a documentary film that chronicles the adventures of a few men as they travel deep into a house that doesn’t seem to end. Yeah, so now that the whole plot thing is out of the way and you totally understand what the book is about, we can move on the real gimmicky part of it all. Fake records, photos, typographical errors, mistakes, design, an appendix, a reference… the list goes on. Pick up a copy of House of Leaves and just sift through it. But the book, as a whole and as a vision for a budding author is remarkable. Danielewski’s scope and understanding of his own bizarre maze makes House of Leaves respectable in and of itself. 

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov – Calling anything by Nabokov a gimmick might get me shot-but if this novel had come out by anyone else at another period of time it would be termed gimmicky. So shut up. Anyway, the framing of the novel is simple enough: A fictional friend gives an introduction to a fictional poem by a fictional author. Simple enough right? Pale Fire is by far one of the best examples of metafiction that really works – others would include: 

• William Gass’s – Willie Master’s Lonely Wife 
  • In which Gass himself makes several appearences and the real hero of the novel is indeed not the author’s character but the reader him/herself. Essentially Gass gives the reader the very unusual feeling that we are indeed making love with the book, to put it nicely where Gass likely wouldn’t of.
• Robert Coover’s – “The Magic Poker” 
  • Oye. Coover’s “The Magic Poker” has been studied and studied again — and to really no end. What we know for sure is that the narrator is some sort of magical wizard pumping his ideas into the reader’s head as we all just do what he tells us to. Probably wouldn’t work as well in another country, I’d have to say. No, certainly they just wouldn’t stand for it.
• Kurt Vonnegut’s – Slaughterhouse 5 
  • “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.”
• Cervantes’ – Don Quixote
  • Crazed country gentleman occasionely confuses reality with fiction — just as perhaps the reader might do with this particular work. What’s real then?
• Italo Calvino’s – If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler
  • It’s a book about a reader that is reading the stories in the book. What is so hard to understand about that?
• John Barth’s – Lost in the Funhouse
  • A sort of literature 101 as Barth hops, skips and jumps through genre, title, plot and all the other conventions that we still see in modern literature.
• Paul Auster’s – New York Trilogy
  • Holy smokes. I don’t even fucking know anymore. Perhaps a mystery novel in which the character and author interact in ways that haven’t really been seen before? Or just a mystery novel? 
• Alasdair Gray’s – Lanark   
  • In which towards the end of the novel not only do we get a chance to meet the author with Lanark we are also treated to a massive list of supposed plagiarisms performed by the author. Aw, thanks Mr. Gray, not I remember where I thought I’d heard that before!

Movies 

Adaptation by Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman — Really, this is just a story about Kaufman writing the adaptation of a book that can’t be adapted into a film and struggling with it. So, maybe a little autobiographical eh? Whatever, the gimmick is really the absurdity of it all — and I’m okay with that. See also Being John Malkovich. 

“Duck Amuck” — By far my favorite cartoon of all time. If this isn’t some metacartoon gimmick I don’t know what is. 

Schizopolis by Steven Soderbergh — One of my favorite movies of all time, this bizarre romp through movie making showcases how a gimmick can quickly become movie making magic. 

F For Fake by Orson Welles — As Orson Welles tries to get to the bottom of an art mystery it turns out that perhaps we’ve all been had. Fucking Orson Welles. 

Music

Night Ripper by Girl Talk – Don’t fucking argue with me about this. Yeah, its a great, super-fun album that mashes together so many freaking songs that you’re never entirely sure what you’re hearing at any given moment, but its a solid, complete, gimmick. Tell me you’re going to look back in 50 years and say this is one of the greatest albums of all time, TELL ME THAT. 

 Yeah, this was probably worth the time and effort, I mean it takes every annoying sound from Windows and turns it into a “song.” Way to go bra’. 

Matmos A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure – All sounds from this record were taken from the operating table. And it sounds so pretty, and gross.   

Smurfs All Star Show  – What? This album is remarkable. Eat your heart out Devendra Banhart! This is real folk/disco/dance-punk.

Video Games 

Wii Sports Wii – Yeah, its gimmicky, stupid, silly, but a blast. I’m sorry, but bowling with a remote, playing tennis, awesome.  

Lobster Petting Mac OSX, iPhone – Yep. You pet a lobster with a mouse. Why do I enjoy this? Maybe I need an iPhone so I can actually pet a lobster. Anyone want to buy me an iPhone?  

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS — You control Link with a stylus on a touch screen. Questions? The whole friggin’ system is a gimmick. 

 Technologies

iPhone by Apple – As of right now, Apple’s “Smartphone” is still one massive touchy feely gimmick. Yeah, its neat, its fun to touch, you can search the internet real neat like a absolutely horrendously slow speeds.  But soon enough, come June the iPhone is going to become a badass little miniature powerhouse. Think of the possibilities: A little recording studio, recording software, lobster petting, Word, Excel, Delicious Library — the possibilities are nearly endless provided Apple doesn’t lock it down too hard. Oh, and its a phone. 

Nintendo Wii/DS – Both systems are complete gimmicks and both are fun. One gives you motion sensors and IR and the other gives you two screens, once of which is handily waiting to be touched with a stylus. Yep, in other countries they get to learn to languages, study for exams, take tests — all on the DS, here we get Ninja Gaiden and Cooking Games. 

Korg Kaoss Pad  – This handy little device also features a touch screen… hmm… theme? Touch the music, make it do stuff. Yep.   

 Articles and Features

“Host” by David Foster Wallace 

 David Foster Wallace’s article about radio hosts gets the typical DFW treatment, it’s available with the above link in its internet form (not as neat) or available in “The Atlantic” or Consider the Lobster orThe New Kings of Nonfiction. 

Yahtzee hates everything. He makes a cute video every week where he makes fun of every video game that he hates — sometimes he likes them. Fun animation ensues!