tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9224960241650615602024-03-13T18:41:42.598-07:00Silver Spook GamesWintermutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03373942082589168299noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-52142051557055608612018-10-27T02:36:00.000-07:002018-10-27T02:48:30.954-07:00"Hotel Artemis" - Review & Cyberpunk Analysis<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
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<em><span style="color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-style: normal;">"Hotel Artemis" - A Review and Cyberpunk Analysis</span></em></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="color: white; font-size: 16.6667px;">Silver Spook AKA Christian Miller</span></span></h2>
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<em><span style="color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-style: normal;">Hotel Artemis is a cyberpunk indie film tour-de-force that got nowhere near the recognition
it deserves, slipping under a lot of radars, including mine. So here's me doing my small part to remedy that. </span></em></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.5pt;">Hotel Artemis, </span></em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.5pt;">written and directed by longtime
franchise writer Drew Pearce, takes place ten years in the future, where riots
over water privatization have ravaged Los Angeles. The Nurse (Jodie Foster)
runs a high-security secret hospital for criminals that hovers precariously on
the brink of chaos, bound by a heaping helping of anonymity and trust.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.5pt;">Artemis shares a lineage with Bladerunner in that it is a
British auteur's cyberpunk vision using the Art Deco husk of Los Angeles as a scaffolding
to layer a dystopian hi-tech future onto. In 1982 it was Ridley Scott that set his way across the pond, and this time, it's Drew Pearce, writer on
Iron Man 3, Mission Impossible 2, making his directorial debut.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Hotel Artemis has 'cyber' in spades. It's got the hi-tech
microwave scalpels cutting open low-life bank heisters. It's got hi-tech Black
Mirror-esque cornea-implanted video cameras that get 8G reception through
meters of reinforced steel. It's got low-life Molly Millions razorgirl-analogs
using said ocular cameras to make snuff films for lower-life well-heeled pervs,
two thousand miles away via satellite livestream.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">It's a film unstuck in time. Jodie Foster plays a
septuagenarian once-hippy turned-diehard-urban den-mother, known as
"Nurse". She awakens to the Papa's "California Dreamin" on
an archaic record player. After getting a frumpy grandma-cardigan that's as
time-faded and threadbare as a Velveteen Rabbit, she goes to work playing Neil
Young's "Helpless" on a cassette tape -- slightly less archaic than
the record player by two decades, give or take. She listens to 60's
counterculture rock on 80's lo-fi in the 40's-style Hotel revamped into a
2028-future hospital for LA's criminal underbelly, complete with 3D liver
printers and eye-rebuilding medicinal nanotech.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">There's an exquisite layering of time periods, strata of
technology and culture existing naturally on top of each other -- with the
newfangled gizmos as just a sci-fi icing on a fully-realized world-cake. This
degree of verisimilitude is perhaps the greatest achievement of Hotel Artemis
that few cyberpunk sci-fi or speculative fiction works ever manage. Most
instead hyperfocus on The Astounding Capital-F Future's Blasters Holodecks and FTL
Spaceships as in trad- space-centric sci-fi, or the shiny badass cyberarms,
flying cars, wired, biochips and trodes in every orifice, cyan-and-magenta
Photoshop filtered generic Tokyo-scape, and 100 foot holo-geishas as in schlock
cyberpunk. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Artemis' degree of lived-in, thought-through speculative
realism alone, more than makes up for some of the wandering story and
under-utilized tensions and actors oft complained about in other reviews. But
add to this several endearing performances, and a 'soul-first, money-later'
spirit that permeates the entire picture, and it's clear there's a
future-cult-gem of neo-noir genius buried beneath a tidalwave of mainstream
audiences disappointed they didn't get a generic marvel movie, or critics paid
by the actual Wolf Kings of Hollywood and the entertainment-industrial-complex,
who have certain members of Hotel Artemis cast on, if not the black list, the
'very dark grey' list.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">(Pearce has himself acknowledged that he had specifically
gone into 'Artemis' with the mantra, 'this is an indie film that not everyone
will like, but some people will love it to death' - in particular his seventeen
year old self. My seventeen year old self stands in solidarity!)</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Obviously this resonates with me, having spent 2 ½ years
working on Neofeud, a cyberpunk adventure game labor of love that is quite
decidedly not for everyone. Firstly, a LucasArts / Sierra-style point-and-click
that is niche AF, and secondly the 'postmodern impressionism' art style I was
aiming for is admittedly love hate. But for my own twenty year old angsty
Gibson-guzzling, Bladerunner binging and Deus Ex-devouring self, Neofeud
would've been the best thing on the planet.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">As a native Hawaiian, I'm intimately
familiar with hotels (and I also have issues with aspects of Big Tourism that's
colonized my homeland but that's one of my frequently digressed digressions so
feel free to binge that rant elsewhere in my 'Tube catalogue of extended
livestreamed diatribes).</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Hotels are sanctuaries from the daily grind of dayjob
drudgery. They're places of luxury -- exclusive clubs for a wealthy, privileged
elite, and if you've the rare fortune to have a stable job with mysterious
things called, 'vacation time', you average Joe or Jane might get to visit an
economy-class hotel, two weeks out of a year, if you're lucky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hotels are places of anonymity -- also a
privilege in our world of Big Brother-centric surveillance capitalism and AI
where Facebook, Google and China are in an arms race to build automated
wardrone skynets and train world-dominating economic Hal 9000's with your every
text message selfie-cammed micro expression, and online purchase. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">But in this fairytale land called 'Richistan', that has
none of that, that houses World Economic Forums in reclusive Swiss mountain
ranges, idyllic Waikiki penthouse sunsets and private beaches. In this
'Elysium' of the elite no one asks questions when you walk in on the red carpet
and check in, and the concierge would be remiss to give away patron data.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Hotels are homes for the moneyd homeless. The
post-geographical cosmopolitan jet-setters doing Goldman Sachs bidding over
powerlunches, smuggling Ono Sendai hacker decks and Maas-Biotek prototypes in
titanium briefcases, or assassinating corporate big-wigs (the latter is the
business of certain Hotel Artemis' members).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hotels are a country whose name is opulence, whose national past-times
are, 500 dollar hookers, high-thread-count sheets and four-star room service,
whose citizenship card is a platinum rectangle with the word VISA on it, whose
anthem is neoliberal doctrine, and whose membership requires fealty to
megabanks, megacorporations, and the megarich -- all of which are fundamentally
criminal entities, not unlike the occupants of Hotel Artemis. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Cyberpunk is criminals working for bigger criminals, and
Hotel Artemis has that in spades also.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Hotels are for those who do Nice, Honolulu, and Acapulco
in a span of 48 hours.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">According to Pearce, the initial inspiration came from
visiting LA during the California droughts. Two years later, Flint Michigan
taps spouting lead and carcinogens, 37 US cities and over 3000 communities in
America without potable drinking water as part of our cyberpunk dystopian
present, and Hotel Artemis is barely science fictional.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Is Hotel Artemis cyberPUNK?</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Yes, there are punk elements.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">The most punk aspect of Artemis is undoubtedly the Jodie
Foster character. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">We discover that the 'Nurse', through musical tastes,
ideological choices and backstory, is fundamentally a child of the original
subversive movements of the 60's -- the Civil Rights Movement, the spiritual
predecessor of punk before it was suppressed, destroyed and co-opted by 'The
Man' as the boomers called it then. Dr. Martin Luther King famously said,
shortly before taking a 30-06 round to the head, that 'There can be no racial
equality without economic equality'. And then, as Rage Against The Machine says
in The Matrix' credit's song, 'Then came the shot'. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">A single working parent without a high school diploma
could support a family of four with food, adequate housing, and healthcare in
the mid-20<sup>th</sup> century in America. As we all know, that 'golden age of
aquarius' has been in steep decline ever since, with half of the country at or
near poverty, and millenials with Ph. Ds barely scraping by at Starbucks, uberdriving,
dog-walking, and instacart gig-economy jobbing just to afford a closet above a
methlab or a 'cyberpunk' coffin apodment at age 37 like Seattlites in Amazon's
home city. The technically savvy are programming in sardine-packed into flop
houses, attempting to be the next startup / crypto Zukerberg, or win the
killer-app Hunger Games before the Go-Fund Me for their insulin dries up. (Fun
fact: the average family of four in the US now pays around 30,000 for health
insurance BEFORE being slammed with countless hidden fees and charges.
Outrageous healthcare costs are a #1 reason cited by teachers striking like
wildfire across the nation)</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Hotel Artemis functions as an exclusive healthcare club,
an exclusive 'potable water club' and exclusive high-security home for wealthy
criminals who've enriched themselves looting other people (and sometimes
killing them). It's quite resonant to the cyberpunk present we live in, in
which a criminal business and political elite have robbed the majority of us
blind and left us to rot like a homeless runaway teenager bleeding out from a
drug deal gone bad in a ghetto with poison for tap water.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Foster's Nurse is that good Samaritan, who took in those
desperate and dying street kids, healed their wounds, and served as a surrogate
parent. That is the relationship that Bautista's character, Everest, the
hulking orderly, has with Nurse. He will smash your face in with his medikit,
but he's like a giant little kid with her. It is one of the strongest
chemistries of the film, a believable adopted mother-son relationship, right down
to Nurse telling Everest to 'take the long way to get some exercise' when she
has him kick an unruly guest out of the Hotel. ("Visiting hours are
never!" -- Bautista has all the best zingers) </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Everest is no stranger to the violence and the brutality
of American street-level poverty. He reminds the clientele that he is a
'certified healthcare professional' and if you talk about fight-club- sorry.. I
mean the clandestine criminal hospital, Everest will hunt you down and
'un-heal' your ass. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">At the same time, Everest is completely loyal and cares
deeply about nurse -- always addressing her respectfully with 'yes nurse' even
when he disagrees -- because she was the only who was there for him when he was
lost in the brutal concrete jungle of cyberpunk dystopia that is the US present
and future.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">It later becomes apparent Foster's character had taken in
countless other street kids, like Everest, and had worked to heal the
healthcare-less at a free clinic, until it was shut down.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">This aspect of Hotel Artemis personally resonated the
most with me, as someone who grew up a person of color in a US ghetto. I later
went on to become a STEM teacher for inner-city kids and a social worker. Fundamentally,
I was a surrogate parent for countless homeless, marginalized, parentless
children whos parents were zonked out on meth, incarcerated, or just working so
many jobs to keep the family afloat they just weren't around. These kids I was
working with were like Everest, who saw their only possible future as becoming
a drugdealing criminal, an Ice Cube-like rap star, or both. They were all
striving to follow the footsteps of the Wolf King and the rest of the Hotel
Artemis' residents -- as affluent globetrotting badasses. But the reality was
they'd mostly end up in the prison-industrial complex making Whole Foods
products and fighting California wildfires for 72 cents an hour.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">I worked with several foster parents, many of them
aging-hippy white ladies just like Jodie Foster's character. One in particular,
she had the same frazzled grey hair, faded tye dye so ancient it might've
survived Woodstock. I was teaching a Lego Robotics class to about ten kids,
many from low-income housing and foster kids -- there were two Native
Hawaiians, a few Filipinos, mixed-race, and an African American. Side note:
Bautista is half Filipino half Greek, and grew up in poverty in one of the most
horrifically unequal areas <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of the US --
Washington DC. Bautista once recalled himself and his sister surviving for a
week on a pot of burned beets with their single mother.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">A lot of the kids I was teaching gave me flak and
insisted on pretending to be Kanye West and trying to rap battle me (I
occasionally obliged them and had to kick their butt to settle them down and
win some respect). But eventually, we got to working on building Lego robotic
arms (cause you've got to prime kids to grow up cyberpunks early!) I helped
them engineer and program self-driving Lego cars, beating Tesla and Google to
the punch by a decade.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">But at the end of the first class, this old white lady in
her Birkenstocks and a frayed old flower-sweater, very much like Jodie Foster's
character came in through the door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">"Ok boys, time to go!" she said. And about 2/3
of the class got up saying, "Yes, mom" in a tone just like Dave
Bautista's "Yes, nurse", and all the black and brown kids all flocked
to her and gave her a big group hug. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">Everest's and Nurse's relationship is really the soul of
this movie, and it is more true to reality than almost anything I've seen in
the cyberpunk and adjacent genres. While American cinema and AAA games often
demonize or glamorize criminals, (the latter is common in cyberpunk), most
actual 'criminals' in my experience are people who are 'prisoners of their own
devices' as a certain Eagles song about a hotel goes. They're people with
limited options, often due to poverty or marginalization, forced to try to
survive by often illegal means. Whether that's robbing banks, selling drugs or boosting
cars (one of the smartest kids I taught was a literal grand theft auto convict
who grew up poor and brown). 'Poverty is the worst form f violence' as Ghandi
correctly put it. It isn't glamorous, it is ugly, and it is wrong. It is a
wrong done to millions of people, a particularly egregious wrong in the richest
country on Earth like the US. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">The work to remedy is also as unglamorous and
often unnoticed as a little drab frazzly grey-haired old lady -- but it is the
real work. Jeff Goldblum plays the Wolf King 'owner of half of LA' and there's
a scene where Nurse is healing his wounds, and she refers to him as 'just
another ex-con hippy who traded beads for bullets'. In that moment the history
of America, perhaps the world, is boiled down to a microcosm. Six decades have
passed since the Assassination of JFK and King, and one flower child his sold
out, bought into 'greed is good' mantra of the 80's and made billions of
dollars profiting as the country falls into squalor, the environment burns,
water riots and chaos dominate. The other is still doing the hard but necessary
social work of providing for those less fortunate even when it was 'uncool', was
the safety net for those falling through the gaping cracks, healing the
healthcareless. If the ratio of true-punk nurses to sell-out Wolf Kings were
greater, we'd probably be in less of a global mess, right now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">Sterling K.
Brown plays Waikiki, a bank heister and his relationship with his less-competent
drug-addicted brother is another strong point. The brother gets them in trouble
and nearly gets them killed on multiple occasions, but Waikiki stays by his
side. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">But on top of the heavy subtance, Artemis practically
oozes style and flair. There are a fair share of action including Mexican
standoffs with 3D printed guns, assassinations via coffee cup (Riddick would be
proud) and Boutella (famous for kicking deadly ass with ninja-sword legs as
'Gazelle' in Kingsman) is amazing as a physical actress -- a great scene with
her taking on a mob of LA gang underlings is nineties-action flick quality. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">But what Artemis DOESN'T show speaks volumes, and is in
senses more bold than what it DOES. A massive showdown with Bautista wielding an
axe is merely implied, a bank vault goes uncracked (much to the chagrin of the
drilling specialist). Oft slammed by critics for 'missed opportunities' on the
contrary, I think fully revealing these would be easy, predictable Hollywood cliché,
and thinking about it in retrospect, wouldn't've added much. (The film was also
shot for $15 million, or about 1/3 the going rate for a major Marvel action
star, and given this A-List of Bautista, Foster, Brown, and Goldblum, there was
obviously some pro-bono work hours put in here.) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p><b><span style="color: white;">What is Punk?</span></b></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p><b><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Punk subculture originated out of working class
angst and the frustrations many youth were feeling about economic inequality
and the bourgeois hypocrisy. It was primarily concerned with concepts such as
pro-working class, egalitarianism, humanitarianism, etc." the inherently
infallible truth arbiter, Wikipedia, tells us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">Foster's character didn't have radioactive green Mohawks,
sleeveless jean jackets, or safety pins and studs everywhere, but her character
was the most actually punk in the 'substance' sense. Nurse actually did
humanitarian work, helped people who actually needed it, often at her own peril
-- such as Everest and an injured community liaison officer. The latter act could've
gotten her killed given the LA criminal godfather (played by Jeff Goldblum)
owns this future-tech hospital for the criminal elite.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">She's also got the 'cyber' in cyberpunk covered with all
the 3D printed organs, laser-exactos, and even a broken bone-mending spray
based on biohacked coral polyps. (Director Pearce describes this in detail, and
experts on the movie ranged from NASA to SpaceX. The research on the movie is
one of its highest points.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">While its neo-noir lighting and fixtures, whodunit
slow-burn sensibility and post-genre originality may not be everyone's idea of
a silver screen weekend getaway, for those who fans of true cyberpunk, and
tour-de-force from-the-heart indie filmmaking if you check into Hotel Artemis,
like the Eagles Hotel California says, 'you'll never leave'. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">(Drew Pearce probably wanted to get that song in the movie but couldn't afford the rights, so imagine it playing over the credits!)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: orange;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834262/">Check it out on IMDB!</a></span><br />
<br />
Check out the video version of this review:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VF-7rOXPF9Q/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VF-7rOXPF9Q?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-33587017763880061752018-10-22T14:15:00.001-07:002018-10-22T14:15:42.894-07:00Terminus Machina: Bailout (Excerpt)<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">Jack Newman shouldered past the six-inch reinforced alloy
frame of the self-driving armored personnel carrier into SoMa town, San
Francisco, shards of glass and crumbling asphalt crunching beneath his tactical
boots like the rib cages of small mammals. He squinted through mean wind that
tasted of burning batteries, to take in the broken majesty of AT&T park.
Half of the Giants Stadium had collapsed like some 20th century rendition of
the Roman Colosseum, its steel bones digested by the stomach acid of Pacific
sea salt and the floor-by-floor demolition of state budgets. The more obscure
consumption of the United States by its financial élite, that infestation of
white-shoed tapeworms who devoured all legitimate business, all productivity,
leaving nothing but stinking piles of economic feces and fraudulent bank paper
where metropoli once boomed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">The Bay itself had gone the color of bile, the
ocean heaving nauseous from a trillion tons of anthropocentric carbon, vomiting
itself across South Beach Harbor parking lot and playground, washing wrecked
yachts across the highway against bent street signs and abandoned cars and the
dark windowless husks of skyscrapers. Shoals of trash and untreated sewage
festered and smothered whatever remained of the coastal ecosystem. The bodies
of poisoned fish, seals and whales were left to rot, the fly-ridden flesh thin
and grey and everywhere, like black and white photographs of Nazi camp
mass-graves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">It’d been ages since Jack had actually seen un-mediated,
unpolished urban decay in meatspace, let alone actually had to wallow in it,
and it made his skin crawl with a kind of ambient tension and Rousseau-esque
guilt. It made his head hurt more to think about what it meant that he felt
such revulsion toward reality. Visions of the Agent Smith-Morpheus showdown
asserted themselves like popup ads into his mind’s eye.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This
reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the
smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink
and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it." The
smell, that’s what it was. The smell of burning ash and rotting garbage and
dead mammals. All of these un-targeted, un-personalized stimuli, all this
terrible ‘serendipity’, this unprogrammed experience. It was viscerally
repulsive to Jack. He closed his eyes, nudged the microprocessors in his corneas
awake with a three-thought Ideocode sequence -- visualising his mother's face,
the melody to All Along The Watchtower, and the memory of his first successful
assassination with a humanoid drone. He clicked his heels together for good
measure. An Encephalock reader membraned over the tissue of his cerebral
cortex, scanned the chain of neural firings in his brain, unlocking a
transparent cerulean HUD of timestamp, taskbar, and compass that crept into his
peripheral vision. With a wink at a virtual tab, Jack papered over the sight of
disgusting reality with the clinical rectilinearity of his AR-overlayed email
inbox. He felt instantly better. Even if it was a wall of X-Pandgen penis
enargement gene-therapy spam and messages from his wife hounding him over some
birthday party planning he couldn't be bothered with. Even the ubiquitous
marquee ads for depleted uranium flechette pistols that kept chasing him across
the net were a comfort as they scrolled over the tangled snarl of a sixteen car
pile-up in South Beach playground. No place like home.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">It was unusual, to say the least. The heavy brass had
called Jack and his team of Troubleshooters out of the bunker arcology down
into San Fran, demanding in-person oversight of the investigation. That never
happened, especially not beyond the Ameribank City barrier. RPLCNTS and air
drones were teleoperated in the field from climate-controlled C&C hubs, or
programmed for autonomous detective-mode as the primary means of on-the-ground
actual police work. That was the CyberSec M.O. If human beings were called out
of the green zone into the battlefield, it meant someone very high up was
personally pulling strings. Strings such as the fat end-of-the-year bonus that
had suddenly appeared in Jack’s bank account, one which his immediate
supervisor would never authorize, not even for cluster-bombing an abandoned
Costco full of World Class War jobless insurgents. Not that Jack had an
argument with the money, per se.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">A Valkyrie drone transport was crouching near the crime
scene. The Emergency medical drones had made it in time to stop the bleeding
but the kid had slipped into a coma, and all the king’s nanites couldn’t put
his prefrontal cortex back together again. Multiple cerebral contusions, face
smashed unrecognizable- Jack hadn’t seen that kind of gutty gore since the
Compton prison guard robots went AWOL from a bad firmware update, pounded the
inmates’ skulls into corned beef with fire extinguishers. That incident had
been a bitch to cover up. It took the cleaners six hours to scrub the goopy
chunks of brain and hemoglobin from the cell walls and bars. The cover story
about a facility-wide prisoner revolt had been a stretch, but necessary to ward
off all the Human Rights and Anti-Robot organization limpdicks salivating at the
chance to score political points against the big-box automated prison industry.
Jack had pulled multiple Red Bull-powered all-nighters taking down
whistleblower blogs and humanitarian sites using DDoS hacking attacks, shouting
down activists in forums and chatrooms with an army of AI-run counter-poster
accounts. Jack nipped all attempts to expose the incident in the bud. The spin
team CGed black faces onto all the released security footage; the undying fear
of the angry black man could always be counted on to sway public opinion in a
pinch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">But this wasn’t an airbrush job for the corporate Elite;
for the first time in months, Jack was actually being asked to solve an
honest-to-Gnossis crime.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"I’m feeling like a real police officer, I think I
need to up my dosage," Jack bantered into his mic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Book ’em, Dano." Stasia laughed back, exiting
the vehicle beside Jack, ballistic leather-analog creaking as she slapped him
on the shoulder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"The boy, one Justin Diamond. Stable condition. Son
of Alistair and Margaret Diamond, Divorced. Father is a senior executive at
Vitanet Medical. Former governer of New Hampshire and New Jersey. On the board
of the American Medical Association. Duck-hunting buddy of President
Vanderlyle’s old man."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Vitanet? Jesus. That explains, well, everything. Of
course the trillionaires can afford to buy their own personal investigation
into their son’s near-murder."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">Jack pulled up the boy’s files into an unused section of
retina real estate, thankful for the overlay’s breakup of the real-world
overload. The brick and mortar was starting to grate on his eyeballs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Last connectivity, today, 9:34 AM. Via a dVice
Ubiq." Jack fiddled through the kid’s pockets, coming up with only lint
and date-rape pills.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"No dVice on him. Looks like someone out there is
running around with stolen hardware. Let’s run it by the registries."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">Jack examined the area surrounding the chalked outline,
stepping over the metal column of a fallen street lamp, fluted green metal
blistering with rust. There was another dead body, thirty feet away. A spider
crawled over to the mess, scanned the face and took a DNA sample. A tiny hooked
implement like a dentist’s scraper ejected from the forensic bot’s mandibular
area. It used the scraper to extract a dollop from the pool of blood beneath
the corpse’ head. The blood had congealed in a pothole like strawberry Jell-O.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">The results for the second victim were instantaneous, and
the dossier tabbed itself like a playing card beside the primary’s file.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Amit Garcia. Ex-accountant. Former Ameribank City
citizen till a few months ago when his citizenship was revoked due to
consecutive delinquent payments."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Double homicide? Or a separate incident?"
Stasia hypothesized.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Maybe. Hard to say. It’s dangerous, chaotic out
here in the Bay Area. Life expectancy rates aren’t so great."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Chaotic? Aren’t we going to at least look into
it?"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"He had his citizenship taken away for failing to
make payments. That means this guy’s a Deadweight. An Unemployed. He doesn’t
count as a person as far as we’re concerned." Jack pointed to Amit’s
former white collar office shirt, turned grey from living in the street, as if
it was QED.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"As far as we’re concerned? So we’re going to look
the other way?"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"As far as our bosses are concerned. We’re not being
paid to investigate deaths of unimportant individuals."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">Stasia performed a Premium Internet search with Amit’s
facial biometrics.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Look, there’s a video of Amit and some other
jobless San Franciscan tearing at each other’s throats. A human dogfight. It’s
got fifty thousand hits on the ‘Tube and is circulating semi-viral on
Friendbook. It looks like Justin here wasn’t exactly innocent." Stasia
held the jittery clip up in Jack’s face. Jack feigned incredulity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"We don’t know that. It could’ve been anyone filming
the brawl." Jack said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"’San Fran Food Fite to Teh Deth’, uploaded 9:34 AM
today by Darkshado, registered name: Justin Diamond." Stasia held up the
streaming video of the soon-to-be-dead Amit having his head crushed against the
point of a fire hydrant by another unemployed Deadweight bum. A cracking teen
voice laughed and wagged a bag of fast food at the starving Deadweights, egging
them into killing one another in sick gladiatorial fashion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"It’s just high schoolers being stupid high
schoolers, that’s what they do. Things got out of hand." Jack brushed the
video aside.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"Jesus, somebody is dead, Jack! And this rich little
silver spoon brat was directly responsible. We have to do something."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">Jack sighed, pulled an Altoid tin from the inner pocket
of his double-breasted trenchcoat, one of the few pieces of dumbware he kept on
him for sentimental value.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;">"I said I feel like a police officer, Stas. But
that’s not what we are. Police don’t exist anymore. We’re Troubleshooters.
Sooner or later you’re going to learn what that means." He offered her one
of the flat white cylinders. She turned away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><a href="https://silverspook.itch.io/terminusstory1"><span style="color: white;">Get the full story here!</span></a></b></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-16032515619218706632018-10-20T17:19:00.001-07:002018-10-22T14:24:06.354-07:00Terminus Machina Story Collection Vol 1 - Excerpt<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white;">The Ghosts of Cloud City (Excerpt)</span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;">Don’t get your head stuck in the Clouds,” my dad would say. I used to think that was why our home was miles below the Earth’s surface, cocooned down near the mantle, the warm bosom of Gaia. I thought dad kept us down there to keep us safe, away from the pollution-sickened silver nitrate skies of the surface. But the Cloud was everywhere, no matter how deep you shoved your head in the sand.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;">The metal slug squishes out of me with a nauseating movie-quality slurp. My vision fuzzes white with pain and I hold back the scream, clenching my jaw so tight I feel it pop. We’re pretty sure the fucks who attacked us lost our tail but we’re not taking any chances. Cyclops douses the gory hole in my arm with hydrogen peroxide, and the bubble of sizzling white foam and syrupy red blood on my tan skin makes me think of strawberry pancakes. This pisses my stomach off more, on top of the peroxide stinging like a centiscorpion. Getting shot sucks.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;">Cyclops and I bunker down behind the counter of a Starbeans Coffee, getting a nose and mouth full of dust and cobwebs. The cold is chewing its way to my bones, my empty stomach is eating its way out, and my arm is killing me. Figuratively of course; the 9mm round lodged in my tricep we can dig out, and granted it doesn’t infect, I’ve got a good chance in this hell of surviving. My NeuroArm, on the other hand, is literally and definitely going to kill me, and is the reason Cyclops is fishing for bullets in my nature-issue flesh arm with a long-nose pliers. It’s been acting up lately, started glitching spastic while we were in a shootout with some raiders. It’s tough to hit anything when you’ve got cybernetic Parkinson’s disease.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;">“We should get you to a doctor,” Cyclops finds a tray of non-recycled napkins, dyed brown to appear eco-friendly, back when such things mattered to anyone. He tosses off the top dozen moldy sheets, and uses a fresh napkin to dab at the injury.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;">“It’s just a flesh wound, I’ll be fine.” But not if we don’t get this AWOL prosthetic fixed, I subvocalize. Cyclops appears unconvinced.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;">“We’ll be at Ebayzaar in a few days if we make decent time. They’ll have a doc there for sure.” I reassure.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: white;">The peroxide we scavved up from the carcass of a MegaMart. Most the aisles were picked clean as the ribcage of a dead whale, so we were surprised to find the bottles of disinfectant floating in a mud puddle in the pharmaceutical department. As hazardous and unpredictable as they are, you can always count on raiders and cannibals to fail to think things through. Guess you can’t blame them, they are mostly the descendants of the infamously infantile Chattering Class that went extinct when the internet and everything else went bye-bye.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">The MegaMart had completely computerized self-checkout registers with RFID and biometric scanners for security purposes, having decided to do away completely with human clerks just before the world went belly-up. Now, I’m no urban archaeologist, but I heard that before The Silence, the MegaMarts sold cheap, Earth-killing, slave-labor goods to people who didn’t have the economic luxury of superficial presentation, so eventually they thought why bother with the flair of a human clerk?</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Starbeans, on the other hand, was targeted toward the spoiled upper classes who sipped over-designed cups of this stuff kinda like weak stims in liquid form called “coffee”, while checking their “Twitters” and “Portfolios” and discussing “The Teabaggers” and “Fawksnews”. Not that the Starbeans’ supply chain was any less karma-negative, but patrons were paying for the feeling of sophistication and moral high ground. Fancy names like Cinnamon Dolce Crème Frappacino, fancy cups. They needed this thing called “experience” or “story”, which I could never understand no matter how many times old-timers explained it. I have plenty of experience, lots of stories to tell, nobody ever paid me. Sometimes I think The Ancients were all insane, maybe that’s what dad meant about getting your head stuck in the Cloud.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">But the primary reason we’re in Starbeans is every Starbeans, unlike MegaMart, had several humanoid robots. Part of the simulated cafe ‘experience’ was having a human barista mix your ten dollar chai latte, but I guess the profit margin was much better if you didn’t have to pay real people once the robots got convincing enough. Lucky for me, the CLERCs (Cyber-Linguistic Empathic Relations Colleague) all come with the same line of robotic NeuroArms as the one attached to the stump where my right arm used to be. It’s a long story.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">There’s one CLERC face down in the store room. It’s corroded and covered in silt, a rat's nest lined with shredded napkins and artificial sweetener packets is carved out of the android’s stomach cavity. Another is at the cashier counter, standing, hand outstretched as if patiently awaiting payment or a Starbeans Rewards Card. Frozen instantly, along with all other robots and androids as their CPUs were fried by EMPs in the Intellectual Property Wars decades ago.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Her synthetic skin is dusty and slightly sallow, but remains remarkably intact. Her face is locked in an eternal smile of a lightheartedness utterly alien in the wasteland. Creepily ironic how the only remains of the real humans, including her customer, are heaps of rag and bone on the floor while this replicant appears she might resume her conversation any moment. A fossil token of a vanished culture, caught in the amber of electromagnetic pulse. Her name tag reads, ‘Cynthia’.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Hello Cynthia. Yes, you can take my order. One Venti Mochaccino, made with those Urban-Aggro beans please. A name for the order? Make it out to ‘Jericho’.” Cyclops laughs at my little skit even though he’s seen it before. I like to pretend. Maybe it’s my way of thanking them for letting me use their limbs. Besides, you’ve got to learn to enjoy the little things, even when you’re being pursued by psychotic sub-humans for your flesh, water, and ammunition. Otherwise what’s the point, right?</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Cynthia’s ancient sleeve comes apart like tissue paper.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Do you want the dermis too?” Cyclops holds up the naked arm.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Fuck no. Just help me cut it open, funny man.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Cyclops slices around the upper arm and down the length with an Xacto, pulling back like that scene in Terminator, except there’s no blood, just rubber and metal skeleton. I don’t need a womanly hand with candy apple red nail polish, and the cyborg look tends to frighten the dumber malicious riff raff. Mosquito repellant. Her NeuroArm looks factory-mint, she was probably on the job only a few months.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Cyclops unbolts it, unbolts mine. My prosthetic comes off, and there’s that disorienting feeling of soul-vertigo, that phantom-limb sense of deep wrongness. The feeling vanishes just as soon as the new arm clinks into place, somatosensory cortex settling down to luxuriate in the newfound sensory input. My personal bioelectric patterns are stored in a motor neuron implant that transcodes directly to the Neuroarm, so the new limb is operational instantly. None of that myoelectric stuff, painstakingly shrugging your shoulder, twisting your neck and squeezing your ass just to signal to your prosthetic to pick up a damn bottle.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Better. Very much so.” I windmill the arm a bit, test the fine motor responses, pull the rifle from my backpack and take aim at the center of the peeling ‘S’ on the cracked glass storefront of the Starbeans. No jittering.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“It looks good, Jerry,” Cyclops says, putting away the Xacto and pliers.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">He’s lying, of course, being a good brother. Cyclops doesn’t see the world like most people do. His eyes are blind as a cave shrimp, but he’s got some brain mod that pipes electromagnetic radiation directly into his frontal lobe from his shades, like some kind of third eye. Seriously bleeding edge tech, just before the world fell off the edge. However, a side-effect is he definitely can’t tell whether my new arm looks, “good” or not. The cortical implant bypasses subjective aesthetic valuation centers, old mammalian emotion modules buried deep, a floor above the reptilian brain stem. For him it’s pure abstraction, numerology; seeing a sunset is like reading instantly a spreadsheet on a sunset detailing the frequencies of red, yellow, and orange light due to Rayleigh scattering, seeing the pointers rather than actually experiencing all that qualia-rich, heavenly glory. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Kinda how the ancients kept their heads surgically buried in their “smart” phones, experiencing sunsets, rock concerts, sex, their newborns’ first steps, life itself through empty 70-character nibbles of text, their worlds reduced to two inch touch screens. In consolation, Cyclops’ eyes apparently facilitate sensitivity to a certain monastic, Einsteinian beauty in seeing the “superstructure of the world”. That’s what the brochure said, anyway. At any rate, he’s truly clueless as to the appeal of my latest prosthetic fashion accessory. But it’s the thought that counts.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">We search the Starbeans for any other useful material, but it’s been cleared out long ago. It’s not worth it to dissect the other CLERC for the extra arm; besides the fact that it’s covered in rat shit, these Starbeans are so goddamn abundant. I mean there’s one right across the street, what is up with that?</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">We pop open the Reebok knapsack, empty it out on the ground. A small can of pork and beans, a twisty-tied packet of a dozen raisins. It’s almost comical, except starvation has this peculiar way of filtering all the funny out of the world, especially when it comes to food. Cyclops’ head and thin shoulders slump, the skin is draped loosely over his emaciated bones like sheets over old furniture. A gust of cold evening air blows daggers and Cyclops starts shivering, so I shake the dust out of an Armani suit left in a booth next to a briefcase and wrap him up in it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“We’re not going to make it this time, are we?” He stares at a raisin in the palm of his hand, shriveled and stale to the point of petrifaction. Closes it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Hey. Hey, look at me.” I squeeze his hand tight over the raisin. “We are going to make it, I promise.” He is suddenly so small and fragile. Everyone grows up so fast out here, there are no childhoods in the wasteland. It’s easy to forget he’s just a fourteen year old kid.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“But you said it’s a few more days if we make good time and we’re stuck here with no food, and it’s cold and those raiders are out there-“</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“We’ll make do. We always do. They’ve got more food than you could ever eat at Ebayzaar. I hear they even have ice cream. You remember ice cream?” The corners of his mouth pull up, and I can see the episodic memories of birthdays back in the vault spooling through his mind like a freshly opened bag of jelly candies. The smell of icing and melted wax, adults in labcoats and military brass serenading out-of-harmony, no bed times for one night.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Remember that time dad got me a bb gun and tried to teach us how to shoot cans in the water purification room?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Yeah, I was still crap at using my vision mod and kept shooting you guys in the butt. At least I couldn’t shoot an eye out.” Cyclops taps his bionic eye and we both laugh.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Remember how he used to tell us those crazy bedtime stories when we were real little?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“I always liked the one about the people who built their city on the Clouds.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“They forgot about the real world down below. One day the Clouds evaporated, and they came crashing back down. ‘Their ghosts still haunt the surface to this day.’”</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“I miss dad.” Cyclops pulls his knees together and the Armani suit tighter around himself. His machine eyes lack the tear ducts to cry, but I know him well enough to know when he is crying inside.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">“Me too, Cy.” I gather up his Italian wool-swaddled body in a hug. I’m lying, about us making it. We’re at least a week, maybe two from where this Ebayzaar “Mecca of the Wastes” supposedly is located, according to an X on a map we plucked off a vulture-pecked body in a ditch on the interstate. For all we know, Ebayzaar is a ghost town, or worse, and out here, the universe’ dice are weighted towards “worse”. Maybe we’re the ghosts, haunting the city that fell to Earth, their streets, their steel-girdered castles, their simulacra of ‘the real world’ run and barista-ed by robot actors. Maybe we’ll fade away, at last, like the faux finished signs on storefront windows.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Desperation is an acid that will eat you faster than any cannibal.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">And aside from the vague glimmer of someday finding our dad, Cyclops is all I’ve got keeping me going out here. </span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">So I lie, because I am a good brother.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://silverspook.itch.io/terminusstory1">Get the full story here!</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-15363544433557097982018-04-03T01:55:00.002-07:002018-04-03T02:41:21.806-07:00On Feudalism and Neofeudalism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I started to respond to a comment in this Neofeud let's play, and it ended up turning into an essay, lol.</div>
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JULIE FISHER: "<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Elections? Profit? All very Neo-capitalist, rather than NeoFeudal."</span> </div>
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Feudalism is fundamentally about the structure, the
hierarchy. The supreme ruler, i.e. a king, gives titles, estate, powers to the lords,
who in turn hold allegiance to the king and carry out the king's will. In the
medieval period, this could involve managing the peasants, collecting taxes,
providing military support during war, etc.
But in a modern setting, corporate structures could potentially become feudal if capital was concentrated into a small enough number of hands. The ultra-rich could effectively become "rulers" who through controlling shares
determine the executive "lords" of said corporations, who in turn manage
the serfs (factory workers, waitresses, scientists, etc) to work the
"land" that is their capital/assets (offices, factories, laboratories). By extension, even democratic
republics, given a lack of separation between money and politics, could
potentially begin to resemble feudalism, as the kings (capital owners)
"appoint" their allegiant lords (representatives provided with the
resources necessary to win elections) to carry out their will (cutting my taxes
and shredding any regulation that stops me making money even if it hurts people
would be nice, thanks!).</div>
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While not expressly spelled out, it is alluded to in the scene above that this may be the case, as the executive and politician clearly are at the whim of the Princess.</div>
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What is the same in pre-Enlightenment feudal Europe, a neofeudal corporation or neofeudal representative government is that the supreme ruler gives
privileges, powers and responsibilities to subordinates, who in turn carry out
that will, and who can appoint their own subordinates and manage serfs -- like Karl. You could certainly have
a very nice, enlightened supreme ruler, who decides to command all of his/her
lords to give healthcare, benefits, and a generous 100k salary to each of the
peasants (maybe because robots do all the work now, who knows), but the
structure would still be feudal. I believe it was the Greek philosopher Plato who described the "Philosopher
King", who ruled the happy utopian city Kallipolis. A tyrannical king
could of course make life quite horrible for you, as they could take literally
anything they felt like demanding; be it your title, your money, your food, or your life,
on a whim. (Or maybe he makes you work 16 hours a day, with a broken leg, with no vacation or sick leave!)<br />
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While kings are in name supreme, what determines how effectively "supreme" a ruler is, is in practice complex. Lords themselves can rebel against the king, conspire to overthrow him, and the peasants can potentially revolt if the situation becomes dire enough. In a modern setting, what determines the "supremeness" is even more complex as our world is much more complex technologically, economically and socio-politically. To be too obvious, too overt about one's actual power could actually decrease it, which is why, if one were particularly powerful, one might want to couch that power beneath a layer of democracy, law, equality, good deeds, PR, etc. etc.. (Of course, if things get too actually democratic, that could be bad for business, couldn't it!? :) )</div>
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The particular scene in the video above is an important one in Neofeud where the nature of this feudal hierarchy is revealed. These individually powerful lords (corporate executive, mayor etc) are feeling very high and mighty, until a more supreme entity (Princess Sybil) enters the room, and must immediately kneel.</div>
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In Neofeud, as various individuals and groups vie for power, the machinations, power-plays, and conspiracies at every level are rife, as they were in much of the Middle Ages, particularly the War of the Roses. This period inspired much of A Song of Ice And Fire / Game of Thrones, which in turn was a big inspiration for Neofeud. :)</div>
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The fundamental difference between the feudal era and the post-Enlightenment Era, particularly after the French Revolution (a major peasant uprising that ended in the beheading of the King, among others), is that, at least ostensibly, we have "egalite, fraternite, liberte", "equality, fraternity, liberty", and more specifically, democracy, that is, rule by the people, for the people, rather than by one absolute unelected autocrat. The power derives from the people, who are equal in that each person has one vote, on specific issues or for representatives who carry out the will of the people in the government. One criticism of corporate capitalism, which came after the French Revolution, is basically that corporate structures equate to one dollar, one vote -- rather than one person one vote -- and so they are fundamentally non-democratic in nature. It could be argued that the error of the 19th century was to compartmentalize "politics" and "economics", and to believe that you could create democracy in one, without the other. Neofeud speculates that, unchecked, sufficient power accumulation in the economic sphere could effectively subvert the political sphere.<br />
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Incidentally, Princess Sybil's decision to call her organization, "The Egalite Cooperative", suggests a revitalization of these ideals of egalite, fraternite, and liberte behind the French Revolution, but with additional democratization of economics, as a cooperative is essentially a corporation, but democratized. (Of course, whether she actually intends to be a magninimous, good-hearted, "Philosopher Queen" and make good on her promises... well, you'll have to play and find out, won't you!? )<br />
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Of course, no system, including democracy is perfect -- mob rule can get stupid and bloody, like that episode of The Orville where a planet decides who gets the death sentence or goes scott-free based on a reality-TV text-in-your-vote "trial". A big theme in Neofeud is that humans (and potentially transhumans/sentient machines) are fundamentally imperfect, and so any political/economic/etc. system they are involved in will always be imperfect, and reality will always be far more complex and weird than we think. But, as cars have gotten safer and more efficient/less polluting, so too can we always make improvements on our institutions, if we do so while there's still time. :)</div>
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This site has a pretty good summary of what precisely feudalism is; that is, it's scope, and how it can exist in tandem with a variety of other political systems, including absolute monarchy, oligarchy, and (potentially) with a capitalistic plutocracy. http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/politics/difference-between-feudalism-and-monarchy/</div>
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At any rate, you should definitely check out the rest of the above let's play, which includes a lot of very insightful commentary by Dr. Brian Ballsun-Stanton.</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-34185109352340626402018-03-16T13:26:00.001-07:002018-03-16T13:26:20.384-07:00Silver Spook Podcast #19 - The Space Quest Historian<a href="https://archive.org/download/SilverSpookPodcast19TheSpaceQuestHistorian/Silver%20Spook%20Podcast%2019%20-%20The%20Space%20Quest%20Historian.mp3">https://archive.org/download/SilverSpookPodcast19TheSpaceQuestHistorian/Silver%20Spook%20Podcast%2019%20-%20The%20Space%20Quest%20Historian.mp3</a><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-28738915710958848662018-02-23T11:52:00.001-08:002018-02-23T11:52:12.621-08:00Silver Spook Podcast #18 - "Gemini Rue" Creator Joshua Nuernberger[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXRYxD7ltS4][img]https://i.imgur.com/9KW8HVr.png[/img][/url]<br />
<br />
In this episode, Christian "Silver Spook" Miller talks to Joshua Neurnberger, creator of Gemini Rue, a stellar, award winning adventure game, including PC Gamer "Game of The Year" 2012 in the adventure category. Discover a world where life is cheap, identities are bought & sold, & a quest for redemption can change the fate of a whole galaxy.<br />
<br />
Topics include:<br />
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-What it was like making Gemini Rue over the course of 3 years as a solo project.<br />
-Influences behind Gemini Rue.<br />
-The art design choices in Gemini Rue (limited purple / green color palette, use of visible brush strokes over pixelation)<br />
-The storytelling techniques in Gemini Rue such as the use of dual narrative and adding key twist reveals during a gun fight to heighten tension.<br />
-The benefits and drawbacks of procedural generation vs fully scripted, directed experiences.<br />
-A wide range of sci-fi and cyberpunk media including Blade Runner, Cowboy Bebop, Inception, Neuromancer / Snowcrash, System Shock, and more.<br />
-Dave Gilbert's army of testers.<br />
-If there is any chance of a Gemini Rue sequel (listen to find out!)<br />
<br />
Josh's website: http://www.thejburger.com/<br />
<br />
Support Silver Spook Podcasts and Games on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/neofeud<br />
<br />
Check out the rest of the podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLA7QLc4WB_Feo9QSIX7-To7bCbIygO0o<br />
<br />
Get Neofeud on Itch.io! https://silverspook.itch.io/neofeud<br />
<br />
Get Neofeud on Steam! http://steamcommunity.com/app/673850<br />
<br />
Check out the website: http://silverspookgames.com<br />
<br />
Silver Spook Games Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silverspookgames/<br />
<br />
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SilvrSpookGames<br />
<br />
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/accounts/259792<br />
<br />
Silver Spook Games' next project "Dysmaton": https://silverspook.itch.io/forgotteAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-49224154855782334512018-02-08T20:59:00.000-08:002018-02-08T20:59:27.413-08:00Altered Carbon - A Cyberpunk Review / Analysis By Silver Spook<strong>Altered Carbon. </strong>I did a two-part video review, but here's my short answer: "While Altered Carbon is resleeved in the glitzy robes of Netflix' 190-country spanning 120-million-user imperial protectorate, it manages to lay bare the mutilated corpses, the human fallout of world- assymetrical- and class-warfare."<br />
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Here's the text if you don't have time:<br />
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First up - There've been a lot of bad reviews piling up, but Altered Carbon was great. Set your eyeballs to binge, no matter what the 280-character attention-spanned press and the bought-and-payed for media matchmaking algorithms are telling you. In the post-truth, post-fact world, you need to see cyberpunk content with your own two eyes (or eye, or ears, for the visually impaired). In particular this technoir artifact.<br />
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Here's something I wanted to respond to, written about Altered Carbon on the cyberpunk site io9: "The other big weakness of Altered Carbon is the investigation itself... and pretty much everything that happens inside that damn police station. Martha Higareda is good as Detective Kristin Ortega, and I love the inclusion of her family to represent those who refuse to re-sleeve for religious reasons. But, for as much time as we spend with Ortega and Bay City’s finest, nothing ever happens."<br />
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I found the police station to be particularly illuminating, actually, as a part of the internal mechanisms of a neofeudal, post-social democratic society. Lieutenant Ortegas continual struggle to do her actual job -- protecting and serving the public -- is continually thwarted by the hollowed out and corrupt police department which is essentially just the leg-breaking force of the ultra-rich "Meths" like Bancroft. Captain Tanaka repeatedly orders Ortega off of actual cases investigating the deaths of murdered girls. Tanaka, and the department does the bidding of Meths, even outright telling Ortega, "You can try to do a little good here and there, but this world is owned by the Meths -- don't take me down with you," citing his mortgage and pension as the "leash" the elite keep him complicit with. Oumou Prescott, Bancroft's lawyer, is similarly a "grounder", but rather than bunkering fearfully into her cushy crony position and trying not to rock the boat, she aspires to rise through the ranks of 'insignificant human "fireflies", as one meth calls them. She has a Macbethian ambition to climb the hyper-corporate ladder, by lieing, cheating, stealing, backstabbing, and "getting rid of all of the human baggage" to become a Meth herself. Scenes between Tanaka and Prescott reveal this, "You just wish you were one of them," Tanaka accuses. "I WILL be one of them," Prescott retorts.<br />
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This for me is Altered Carbon at its finest and most cyberpunk, where it shows the real meaning of "a future dominated by megacorporations". It shows the way in which public institutions like the rule of law, and defense of the public good are subverted, and left as window-dressing, a charade of badges, uniforms, and meaningless courtroom "theatre" to lull the common serfs into believing their government and institutions are 'by the people for the people'. As Bancroft himself says, "In this world, you are either the purchaser or the purchased," It is fundamentally barbaric feudalism, and something all too extant in our world today. In the US, 98% of all political campaign finance comes from less than 1% of the population. Court cases are not rational and fair examinations of facts leading to justice but barbaric cage fights between corporate warlords of who has the most money for lawyers, fees, pul. Peter Thiel throwing over a hundred million to crush Gawker in court is a relatively benign example. Look at the millions who lost their homes in the foreclosure crisis after 30 second "sham hearings" before a judge sweating bullets to turn 100 grannies homeless by lunch. Or look at HSBC, the giant criminal bank that admitted it was the money laundering arm for murderous drug cartels, and journalist beheaders working for Al Qaeda, Hezbolah, ISIS and other enemies of the state. HSBC's "leashed Tanakas and Oumous", the so-called regulators asked them for a 2% cut of 80 billion dollars and let them continue committing crime, treason, slaughter of over a hundred thousand Mexicans. For a more recent and cyber exhibit: take the FCC's evisceration of net neutrality led by crooked ex-Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai -- a Prescott-esque lawyer certainly looking to become a "Meth" in the Verizon or Comcast castle one day. <br />
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This is for me is the raging core of Altered Carbon, and the fundamental problem of extreme inequality, and by extension, the broken system that creates such. The "R Greater Than G" -- what economist Thomas Piketty identified as the return on investments exceeding growth -- Achilles Heel of the capitalism Colossus. Although a race of undying, moral-free trillionaires inhabiting stratospheric "Palaces at Versailles" would undoubtedly exacerbate the catastrophe, we don't need immortality to create a separate race of "destructive ubermensch", because we already have one now in 2018.<br />
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Kovacs origin story and the related Quellist attempted revolution against the Protectorate and cortical stack technology itself had some of the best acting and storytelling of the show. In particular, Will Yun Lee's portrayal of the young Kovacs. Some of the best of the show, barring perhaps Quell and the AI hotel manager whose residual-self-image is Edgar Allen Poe.<br />
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The protagonist of the story, Takeshi Kovacs, was raised by an abusive and murderous father, whom he barely survives along with his only sister, Rei, on one of the extra-solar colonized planets (Harlans World in the book -- a reference to Harlan Ellison, author of deeply absurd and violent cyberpunk-ish spec-fic including I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream). Kovacs is found, as a boy barely at puberty, by the Protectorate, an interstellar 'federation' that polices the galaxy taking out 'terrorists', 'warlords', 'Yakuza', and other 'enemies of the transplanetary state'. (Morgan's book version serves as a pretty thinly veiled critique of a particular imperialistc superpower's serial invasions of other countries under pretenses of 'rooting out dictators, taking out terrorists spreading democracy, and fake 'Weapons of Mass Destruction').<br />
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Young Kovacs is informed by commander Jeagar in virtual that he can 'help protect people from the bad men' like his father if he only signs up for the military. Staring down false murder allegations, Kovacs enlists, and becomes essentially a child soldier as in Beasts of No Nation, but with a man's body. He later defects, for spoiler reasons, and joins up with a group of freedom fighters (classified as terrorists by The Powers). The protagonist has known literally nothing but violence, a series of bloody wars, both domestic and foreign, in which the stoic, alienated man was forged. At the heart of Altered Carbon is a Chandleresque neo-noir story,as is the heart of much cyberpunk including Blade Runner and Neuromancer. Morgan himself has commented on this extreme violence, which many commentators have criticized both the book and the TV show of relishing in.<br />
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Here's a quote from a 2008 Clarke's World Magazine interview with AC author Richard K. Morgan: <br />
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"I think one of the problems with the sickness, if you like, that we've got in Western culture is that we're scared to acknowledge these things. We're afraid to actually take them on board. That idea—that you sort of got a sick enjoyment out of killing—is just not acceptable currency, because we're told we must see our soldiers in these glowing, honorable terms, rather than seeing them as human beings. One of the aspects of American policy having to do with military matters is that there's an enormous amount of emphasis on the troops, as long as they are standing up and holding their arms, but as soon as you ship them back home broken or damaged or unable to cope, suddenly no one wants to know about them anymore. The amount of coverage there hasn't been of all the post-traumatic stress, and the incidents of guys coming back from Iraq who just cannot cope with what's been done to them—that stuff just isn't covered. The media has no taste for it. But we are talking about human beings, and human beings are complicated mechanisms, and when they get damaged, that's complicated, too."</div>
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This was a fundamental aspect of film noir, or the WWII-era existential literature and cinema of the 40s. Humphrey Bogart, the star of Casablanca and the Maltese Falcon was in fact an navy veteran, wounded in WWI. This post-traumatic-stress-ridden "Human fallout" of all of these soldiers returning from the field and unable to integrate back into society, the darkness, cynicism and apathy resulting from having seen and done horrible things on the battlefield (or more terrible- having enjoyed them) is the cold gunmetal heart of noir. Kovacs is the neurochem-augmented 23rd century Rambo, coughed up after multiple tours of napalm bombing off-world rice patty farmers and cutting down unionizers and rebellious sweatshop workers with full-metal-jacket rounds. An unwanted, despised criminal, the lost soldier tears the limbs off of everyone and everything in his way, questioning his very existence and almost icing himself after nuking his mind with every illegal drug he can find in finest Burroughsian fashion. The sort of mid-twenties male brooding introspective nihilism, often to the point of extreme drug use and suicidal tendencies is the deeply-lodged, lingering bullet fragment in the mind of cyberpunk. <br />
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Here's an excerpt from William Gibson's Neuromancer to further illustrate: "A part of him knew that the arc of his self-destruction was glaringly obvious to his customers, who grew steadily fewer, but that same part of him basked in the knowledge that it was only a matter of time". This truth, of noir and neo-noir as the post-traumatic failed-warrior-male re-integration and cultural fallout of war is rarely made more clear than in Richard K. Morgan novels. The truth that the foreign violence is only the beginning; the domestic violence is where war often hurts the most.<br />
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There is indeed much violence, mutilation, scenes of extreme torture in Altered Carbon -- at one point the protagonist is locked in a Matrix-like sim in which he is repeatedly tortured to death in a variety of ways including immolation, only to be resurrected and killed again. Kovacs himself kills more people than Neo does in the Matrix (I suppose you could argue he merely causes terminal organic damage to sleeves but the distinction is somewhat semantic in a visual medium). But perhaps the grotesque and 'uncomfortable' aspects of the violence are in part to remain faithful to the book and simultaneously to not 'sanitize' the results of the violence. The world of Altered Carbon is a science fictional dystopia, after all, and thus the repulsion to it by the viewer is part of the point: we should really try not to produce this future. If you watch Black Mirror or Blade Runner 2049, and immediately want to produce that reality, you may need psychiatric help, in fact.<br />
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I think a lot of the critics who came out with negative reviews of Altered Carbon, or saying, "I don't think Altered Carbon has much to say," may be suffering a case of corporate 'tunnel vision', a 'purchaser's blindness'. <br />
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One of the scenes which was particularly poignant and on-the-nose (in a good way), was Bancroft's 'ministering to the masses as a living god' scene. In it, a rich philanthropist attempts to show just how much he cares about the underserved by entering into a quarantine zone to distribute food and toys, and dying live, on camera, from their highly infectious disease before warping into a new cloned body.<br />
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This particular scene really hit home for me. As I've mentioned previously, I was a STEM teacher and social worker whose job it was to help and provide opportunities to at-risk and underserved communities in Honolulu. The majority of the children I taught were minorities, immigrants, about 30% were homeless, and all were at or below the poverty line. They didn't have terminal sci-fi nano-tech illnesses, but many of them didn't have medical care to take care of the staff infections in their feet from walking around without any footwear. What frustrated me the way that high-level politicians, bureaucrats, technocrats would come down once a year or whenever they felt like it, some fair-skinned wealthy man in a 5,000 dollar suit holding the hand of a poor brown kid, to win some sort of photo-op contest, justify some huge bonus or salary to pay for $25,000 a year private school for their kids, a multi-million dollar mortgage in Waikiki, a yacht payment. The ultra-rich abusers, these committers of the greatest violence, however obfuscated by shell companies, newspapers, media corporations they own, social media and tech companies they deal with, and all other ways of taking their demonic selves and buying their airbrushed saintly-images, relishing in "godlike" worship as philanthropists is the most sickening aspect of it all, for me, personally.<br />
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Wired also gave an unfavorable review of Altered Carbon, writing: "To what lengths are the poor willing to go in order to get the bodies they want for themselves, or the people they love? What about, say, transgender people, who might find the opportunity to switch bodies a profound and essential liberation?" Suggesting that Altered Carbon had many potential interesting topics to explore, but barely explored them, or didn't at all.<br />
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Perhaps the reviewer was (understandably) dizzied by all the fuschia neon bloom FX and ten hours of near-Blade Runner 2049 production values. As I previously mentioned, the scene where a husband and wife are reduced to a zero-g gladiatorial match for the mere 'entertainment' of Bancroft's elite Great Gatsby-esque party is a perfect example. Being forced to kill your loved one over and over every night sounds like a pretty far and nasty length to go to get a better sleeve. Or how about "Prick Up", where disenfranchised women and men sell their bodies, often literally allow their Johns to create live snuff-films of them (recorded by undiscerning AI hotel owners for future use). Being strangled, having ones forehead caved, or stabbed every night while being forcefully penetrated seems a pretty horrible job the poor have to do to get by.<br />
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As for transgender individuals, I think Altered Carbon really illustrates the way that unchecked capitalism ruins everything and everyone, including those who feel bodily dysphoria. It's an interesting conundrum, because testerone pills and genetic reassignment surgery might become moot, as you could simply dislodge a hexagon of Elder Alien Tech from your head and insert the consciousness-coin into the X or Y chromosome-fabricated body of your choice. But Altered Carbon takes it further -- it shows that in a future with mind-transfer tech, this problem of feeling alienated by ones body is not limited to "souls born into the wrong sleeve" as is the case today. In the beginning of the show, a 7 year old girl who was murdered gets resleeved as per her victim compensation program. Unfortunately, she gets resleeved into the body of a middle-aged woman, much to her and her parents horror. There are several cases of 'finding oneself in the wrong flesh', including the wife of Vernon Eliot, who gets resleeved in a man's body, or the reskinning of a Hispanic grandkids abuelita into a racist skinhead criminal's meat-chassis. Takeshi Kovacs himself is a half-asian half-hungarian man in a Nordic body ( I have to admit I wish the trans-ethnic dysphoria could've been portrayed a little better by Kinnaman).<br />
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Even today, the testosterone or estrogen hormones, surgical operations that a transgender individual might want can cost into the tens of thousands of dollars. It is already something reserved for those with the privelege of access to quality healthcare. Altered Carbon shows a world in which being slotted into the body of not just one's preferred sex, but also one's preferred race, age, size, health, attractiveness, strength and ability may all be determined by one's class. And in a forgone capitalist system of infinite immortal accumulation, it's likely even more people will be 'mal-sleeved'. <br />
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It's also interesting that there are several references to "Sleeve Mortgages". As I mentioned, mortgages and pensions are fundamentally methods of "leashing" the common individuals to the neofeudal capitalist elite, commanding fealty of lawyers, police, workers of every kind who live in an ostensibly 'free democratic' society but are truly slaves to their corporate masters, like Tanaka. The pundits are free to say whatever they want within their master's set-Overton Window of acceptable speech, academics are free to think whatever increasingly corporatized and for-profit universities allow them to think, police are free to arrest anyone the rich allow, and no one is allowed to question the brokenness and malfeasance of the entire system or risk termination for disloyalty. The sleeve mortgage, paying rent on one's own body is just a further literalization of the ownership of the serfs and peons. Pay-up, with money that we fabricated into existence by entering numbers into a privileged central bank server and/or "earned" by sitting back and letting our money make more money, or we will literally take your body and shelve your consciousness in our 'asset vault'.<br />
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A few more quick points:<br />
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Favorite scene: Reileen and Ortega fight. This scene, which involved eight body doubles and a great deal of (justified) nudity and thus vulnerability from the actresses involved really pushed the envelope of film and showmaking, in the way that the bullet-time fights in The Matrix did. Awesome work.<br />
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Best character - (Can't say who because of spoilers) but there is a particular character who goes from being a commoner to an immortal, and amoral, meth. It was a variation on the old koan, "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely". In this case, eternal life causes the devaluation of humanity, whom this meth later references as 'fireflys'. Insects, again with the theme of dehumanization and turning of individuals into objects, property. This character arc was one of the strongest and most interesting in the show.<br />
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Fun cyberpunk facts:<br />
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Takeshi Kovacs' first name is a fairly obvious reference to Beat Takeshi Kitano, a Japanese comedian, mega-personality in his home country, and auteur film maker who has produced some great and extremely violent modern Yakuza-gangster films. It's readily apparent in the Takeshi Kovacs book series that Morgan is a huge fan and draws great inspiration, especially from ultra-violent Japan-noir Yakuza gangster films of Kitano's like Hana-Bi, Boiling Point, and Aniki (Brother). The stoic, deadpan lines, random and brutal violence, katana sword fighting, and obvious presence of Yakuza are just some of the techniques, themes and tropes Morgan borrows.<br />
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Another fun fact: Takeshi Kitano plays the role of the menacing Yakuza boss hunting down Keanu Reeves' human-hard drive character in 1995's Johnny Mnemonic, and also plays the role of Section 9 boss Aramaki in Ghost In The Shell.<br />
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I always found the extrapolation of an intergalactic Yakuza "interesting" however unlikely in the far future of Altered Carbon, but I chalk this up to artistic license, an incongruous love-letter to the dragon-tattooed shoulders Morgan is standing on. I am guilty of this sort of post-modern homage often, some reviewers might argue to the point of cheapening the serious and complex themes, but I disagree. I think a good reader (or viewer) can deal with a gonzo-wacky comedy wrapped around a core of cancer-serious dystopian tragedy. For example, in the case of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, there are several ludicrous, hilarious scenes, including a man condemned to death due to a simple bureaucratic error being literally smothered in a tornado of semi-sentient paperwork. The comedic and silly bits can in fact enhance the impact of the serious parts, and provide some much needed 'breath' to the often asphyxiating, depressing onslaught of dystopias. (This was certainly my aim in Neofeud).<br />
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Finally, another recent thumbs-down article on Inverse suggested shows like Altered Carbon, "turned cyberpunk into a consumer product, effectively declawing the genre’s entire aim." While I understand where the author was coming from, I must slowly snap my mirror shades on and give them the finger.<br />
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In fact, I actually think Altered Carbon is more 'clawed', it has more anti-megacapitalistic retractable scalpel-punches to the throat than both Blade Runner 2049 and Ghost In The Shell combined. Yes, it has been resleeved in the Netflix 190-country spanning 125 million-hours-of-eyeball-time-per day imperial robes, but it retains its cyberpunk critique of extreme predatory captalism despite its production by a world dominated by extreme predatory capitalism. Which is some kind of one-in-an-Avogadro-number good luck, given the miracle of Blade Runner 2049 not being utter cash-cow crap. It must be a glitch in Nick Bostrom's Superintelligent Aliens' matrix who happen to be CP lovers and are farming our reality for cultural products.<br />
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Final Silver Spook Verdict: <br />
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<strong>Altered Carbon - 4 ½ crying Rutger Hauers out of 5 on the cyberpunk scale.</strong><br />
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<br data-cke-eol="1" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-13434641623349193722017-12-21T11:24:00.000-08:002017-12-21T11:24:25.188-08:00Neofeud Is 40% Off In The Winter Sale!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Happy Cyberpunk Holidays! May your dystopian reality be slightly less grim for the next few weeks. :)<br /><br /><img height="419" src="https://c10.patreonusercontent.com/3/eyJwIjoxLCJ2IjoiMSJ9/patreon-media/post/15997942/8eaaee49f59044a881d8bee31792e644?token-time=1515024000&token-hash=TQJR5vMfpi4EgMnxznuLX_EuWLFzn6ikA5nwMvEhGug%3D" width="640" /><br /><br />Also, thanks everybody who voted for Neofeud in <a href="http://www.indiedb.com/games/neofeud">IndieDB!</a> Neofeud made it to the Top 100 Indie Games Of 2017 (Apparently out of over 10,000). We'll see if we beat Cuphead! (Not likely but one can hope! Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-69741434556764192012017-12-16T19:28:00.000-08:002017-12-16T19:30:16.811-08:00The Space Quest Historian Plays Neofeud!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: start;">I'm honored to have </span><a href="https://spacequesthistorian.com/" style="text-align: start;">The Space Quest Historian</a><span style="text-align: start;">, a prominent and very entertaining personality in the adventure game world, doing a let's play series of Neofeud!</span></div>
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It's a great video series so far, very funny and enjoyable generally. :)<br />
Space Quest Historian site: <a href="https://spacequesthistorian.com/">https://spacequesthistorian.com/</a><br />
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In addition, Neofeud has made it to the top 100 Indie Game of the Year list! Neofeud can use your vote, and it only takes a moment! (No registration necessary!) <a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="http://www.indiedb.com/games/neofeud" dir="ltr" href="https://t.co/ARAcsDkKAe" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="http://www.indiedb.com/games/neofeud"><span class="invisible">http://www.</span><span class="js-display-url">indiedb.com/games/neofeud</span><span class="invisible"></span><span class="tco-ellipsis"><span class="invisible"> </span></span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-72561651397832914892017-12-11T13:50:00.002-08:002017-12-11T13:50:33.212-08:00NEOFEUD IS A TOP 100 FINALIST! VOTE NOW!!!<img alt="" src="https://i.imgur.com/42xycOr.png" /><br />
NEOFEUD MADE IT TO THE TOP 100 INDIES OF THE YEAR! Thanks everyone for your votes and support! Neofeud can now use your vote again in the final round for ultimate indie of the year on IndieDB!<br />
http://www.indiedb.com/games/neofeud<br />
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In addition, I just had a great talk with <a href="https://twitter.com/PeaHeadGames/">@PeaHeadGames</a> creator of Neon Sword, cyberpunk RPG where you can use commerce or violence as your weapon of choice!<br />
<a href="http://www.keystone-games.com/our-games/neon-sword/" rel="nofollow"><img alt="User Posted Image" src="https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30434709/2534f0eaa1432b9f0f8097a46f5f894fba5586fc.jpg" /></a><br />
Some of Neon Sword's Game features:<br />
-Explore the neon bathed Quaid City.<br />
-A living breathing city with a diverse population.<br />
-Buy real estate and influence the city around you.<br />
-Collect different and unique clothing items.<br />
-Kit yourself out with entire arsenal of hardcore weaponry.<br />
-A deep branching storyline.<br />
-Save the city or run it into the ground it's your choice<br />
http://www.keystone-games.com/our-games/neon-sword/<br />
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This next Silver Spook Podcast will be coming soon here: https://www.youtube.com/user/twiliteminotaur<br />
You can support future SIlver Spook Games and Silver Spook Podcasts, where I help great indie game makers and other creators get the word out about their games, over here: https://www.patreon.com/neofeud<br />
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<img alt="User Posted Image" src="https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/30434709/d97b2d2fa7af77cb32dc717c6a00301d9c4bd128.jpg" /><br />
Next, here are a couple more reviews recently published on Neofeud:<br />
This first one is in Spanish (sorry) and I wish I was fluent so I could read this great Neofeud review in its native language, but thankfully there is Google translate!<br />
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"A much more complex world than what is shown in Blade Runner, which inspired it, and this game also poses itself as a more in-depth and realistic reflection of the dilemma insinuated by the replicants."</blockquote>
"From the point of view of music and dubbing Neofeud has nothing to envy of major titles."<br />
The reviewer also compared Neofeud with Neil Blomkamp and District 9, which is a high complement for me, since I consider D-9 as one of if not the greatest sci-fi film of the past few decades.<br />
https://nerdando.com/2017/12/04/neofeud-unavventura-cyberpunk-profonda-e-retro/<br />
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And one more review from Save Or Quit:<br />
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"Neofeud is a carefully crafted story that plays out like an interactive detective/mystery movie from the 80’s... This is a game for players who like to enjoy a good science fiction story set in a world that feels familiar and possible in the near future."</blockquote>
http://saveorquit.com/2017/12/03/review-neofeud/<br />
And finally, my Deus Ex 1 total conversion <a href="http://www.moddb.com/mods/terminus-machina">Terminus Machina</a> has been featured on IndieDB's sister site, ModDB! Thanks for the highlight, guys! You can also see a video of me replaying this mod that I made about 7 years ago with developer commentary.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OiyoIOSfgHU" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-53441661966935552182017-12-02T00:00:00.001-08:002017-12-02T00:00:25.555-08:00Neofeud for "Indie of the Year"!Hey guys, it's that time of the year! If you liked Neofeud, please consider voting for it for 2017 <a href="http://www.indiedb.com/games/neofeud">"Indie of the Year" on IndieDB</a>!<br />
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If you haven't played it yet, you can find Neofeud on Itch.io <a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="https://silverspook.itch.io/neofeud" href="https://t.co/OB43kAchAE" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="https://silverspook.itch.io/neofeud">https://silverspook.itch.io/neofeud </a> or on Steam! <a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="http://store.steampowered.com/app/673850/Neofeud/" href="https://t.co/pVvaEZVjeZ" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="http://store.steampowered.com/app/673850/Neofeud/">http://store.steampowered.com/app/673850/Neofeud/</a><br />
<br />
Here is some background on the game:<br />
<br />
"The art, writing, programming and music* of Neofeud was created by one person, Christian Kealoha Miller, also known as 'Silver Spook'. He also performed half of the voice acting. Christian is a Native Hawaiian, born and raised in Hawaii. Neofeud is a Dystopic Cyberpunk adventure game in the vein of Blade Runner, but with an overlay of Game of Thrones-like political intrigue, and 1366x768, hand-painted, stylized visuals.<br />
<br />
The art, stories and gameplay of Neofeud are a reflection of my experiences as a STEM teacher for the underserved youth of Honolulu’s inner city. Teaching robotics, programming, and sustainability is an often difficult, stressful, and even Kafka-esque endeavor -- being in one of the richest, most beautiful places on Earth, yet dealing with families with working parents, who are living out of a van, or sleeping on the street. It is hard trying to keep the kids out of gangs, off of drugs, and on a path towards better opportunities, such as the ones I had growing up in a slum area of paradise while going to an upscale private school. I made Neofeud to be a fun and engaging game in and of itself, but I also wanted the player to think about the society in which we live, as well as the one which we may be heading toward if nothing is done."<br />
<br />
Here's a roundup of some of the articles this year on Neofeud:<br />
<img alt="" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DL-c5-lVQAAnjVh.jpg" width="600" /><br />
<br />
Read the rest of this article from Native Hawaiian Print Pubication, the <a href="https://twitter.com/SilvrSpookGames/status/918558716575674368">Ka Wai Ola.</a><br />
<br />
"A Diamond Of Storytelling In The Scrap Pile... The characters of Neofeud are developed so much more than characters in nearly any other game I’ve recently played" <a data-redactor-span="true" href="http://www.spritesanddice.com/2017/09/review-neofeud">--Sprites And Dice</a><br />
<br />
"'Cyberpunk-Fueled Noir.' Reminiscent of Beneath a Steel Sky and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream... The art, gameplay, music and story come together to deliver a solid game." <a data-redactor-span="true" href="https://indieranger.com/neofeud-review">--Indie Ranger</a><br />
<br />
“An ambitious, atmospheric cyberpunk scenario and essentially the work of a single person (voice acting excluded). Oh, and it might also be one of the best adventure games I have played in a while... The world building is something else. It has a thickness, a density to it." <a data-redactor-span="true" href="https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=http://indiegames.com/2017/09/neofeud.html">--IndieGames.com</a><br />
<br />
"This spectacular and complex story will take at least 12 hours to play through, and the writing is excellent and enjoyable." <a href="http://3rd-strike.com/neofeud-review/">--3rd Strike</a><br />
<br />
"Science fiction at its most raw and visceral... <em>Neofeud</em> doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable subject matter. It gave me chills and made my stomach roll... It made me uncomfortable to listen to and watch…but that is the entire point. I can’t turn a blind eye in the game, and I certainly can’t turn a blind eye in real life." <a href="http://steamshovelers.cool/neofeud/">--Steamshovelers</a><br />
<br />
"An immersive cyberpunk adventure game... Echoes of H.R. Giger and William Gibson... [Christian Miller] knows what makes a quality game." <a data-redactor-span="true" href="https://brandonchovey.net/2017/05/19/three-reasonsa-bonus-one-to-buy-neofeud/">--Brandon C. Hovey</a><br />
<br />
"I loved the quirky but fantastic hand-painted visuals, the gruff, cynical humour." <a data-redactor-span="true" href="http://www.gamingrespawn.com/indie-game-spotlight/18770/neofeud/">--Gaming Respawn</a><br />
<br />
Here's one of my favorite Neofeud reviews from Steam user <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/id/hexagonsun/recommended/673850/">Jungle.James</a> who really went deep into the larger ideas explored in Neofeud, and seems to have really 'got' what I was aiming for with this cautionary tale:<br />
<blockquote>
Neofeud is the most visionary game on Steam evocative of the creator's passion, sparing what Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain could have been. Never have I seen a game produced by such a small studio translate a vision so well.<br />
<br />
It is a point and click adventure game wherein each line of dialogue is voice acted, and each scene has a MSPaint charm while expressing pure imagination, for example a chateau's ceiling where there is a painting of nearly infinite patterns, reflecting the royal's fascination with the godhead of technological transcendence.<br />
<br />
In sum, Neofeud considers the following:<br />
<br />
- UBI controlled slums filled with transgenic and outdated synthetics / androids deemed non-sentients and refuse.<br />
- DRM cigarettes.<br />
- Hypermodernity through a Baudrillardian simulation and simulacra of "consensus reality" interested rulers.<br />
- The sythesis of the contemporary prison and military industrial complexes.<br />
- Scepticism of the motives from those like Elon Musk who promote optimal adjustments to capitalism or late stage capitalism. Authenticity in social movements and how they're frequently co-opted; references to Public Enemy vs Kanye West.<br />
- What dwells in the abyss that is the coming convergence of science, technology, and society.<br />
<br />
If any of those topics interest you on a philosophical, economic, or social level and would like those topics paired with often times silly voice acting (for the better overall end results), please play Neofeud.<br />
<br />
edit: A lot of soul went into this project, and it shows.</blockquote>
And here are a few more interviews I did surrounding the game:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://brandonchovey.net/2017/03/08/an-interview-with-christian-miller-of-silver-spook-games-a-discussion-on-games-gaming-life/">A discussion on games, gaming and life with Christian Miller</a> ( talking with Brandon C. Hovey)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.indiegraze.com/2017/09/19/interview-neofeuds-christian-miller/">Another interview with Erik Meyer of IndieGraze</a><br />
<br />
And here is <a href="http://www.indiegamenews.com/2017/07/review-neofeud.html">one final review</a> by Fitz (Talos voice actor and a cool creative guy generally) on the also cool site of <a href="http://www.indiegamenews.com/2017/07/review-neofeud.html">CaptainD</a> (I am a Patreon of his!):<br />
<br />
"The soundtrack -- created by Silver Spook himself -- consists of various flavors of electronica; an obvious choice, given the futuristic setting. And indeed it fits in perfectly. It's minimalistic when it needs to emphasize the dreariness of the slum world. Action sequences, in turn, are punctuated by a pounding beat -- whereas a distorted piano plano creates a watercolor-like backdrop to some of the game's most powerful moments of existential reverie. As mentioned already, the game is a full talkie. It's something that's expected of a modern game -- but the workload and the quality are actually impressive."<br />
<br />
And here is Christian performing "Proto-J", a short story set in the world of Neofeud. The story is performed in the voice of the character whom Christian voice-acts in the game.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="338" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_A1xpjMxJqU" width="600"></iframe><br />
<br />
You can find more short stories in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Neofeud-Short-Collection-Christian-Miller/dp/1521322562">The Neofeud Short Story Collection</a><br />
Here are some of my other projects:<br />
<br />
<img alt="" src="https://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/21/20005/thumb_620x2000/TermSplash.jpg" /><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.moddb.com/mods/terminus-machina">Terminus Machina: a Deus Ex total conversion</a><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="338" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/8U8He6tjqoo" width="600"></iframe><br />
<br />
<a href="https://silverspook.itch.io/forgotten-city">Dysmaton - a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk adventure</a> (in development)<br />
<br />
And finally, here is a hangout with a bunch of the folks who helped make Neofeud possible, including my long-time patrons <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=">Deborah Dunaway</a> and <a href="https://s-smigiel.bandcamp.com/releases">Scott Smigiel</a>. Deborah also voice acted several characters in the game. <a href="https://twitter.com/Johnyliltoe">Chris R. Smith</a> and <a href="https://brandonchovey.net/welcome/">Brandon C. Hovey</a>, two great voice talents are also present. The other major voice actors and actresses who couldn't make it were <a href="https://twitter.com/AmayirotAkago">Amayirot Akago</a> and Mrs. Silver Spook / Holly The Robot.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="338" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hHxTBDl2WE8" width="600"></iframe><br />
<br />
(*I created 43 out of the 45 songs of the Neofeud soundtrack, the other two were by Scott Smigiel. he created many more, but due to changes I made later in the game, I only ended using a couple -- my bad. However, the tracks themselves were great, and you should go and <a href="https://s-smigiel.bandcamp.com/releases">check his stuff out!</a>)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-56597836623511054202017-11-24T01:59:00.003-08:002017-11-24T01:59:58.201-08:00Giving Thanks To Indies :) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NZv5yKX8buE/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NZv5yKX8buE?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<br /><br /><div>
If you missed it, here is the Silver Spook Thanksgiving Stream! I will also be streaming again doing game dev this Saturday, so be sure to stop by! If you are a developer, I will generally give you a shoutout mid-stream just for stopping in. :)<div>
<br />Silver Spook and friends and family join in to rebel against unfettered corporate capitalism and neocolonialism in a cyberpunk Thanksgiving special. Special Guests include <a href="http://chaosnova.co.uk/">Chaos Nova</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/PeaHeadGames">Peahead Games</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCmiCjWAZkoxFy8oD4r1ggA">Future Vintage Gaming</a>, and Mrs. Silver Spook.</div>
<div>
<br />Featuring music by Scott Smigiel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fs-smigiel.bandcamp.com%2Freleases&v=NZv5yKX8buE&redir_token=D78YvMGQqoG5396SJEgvjsYzjyt8MTUxMTYwMzM3OEAxNTExNTE2OTc4&event=video_description">https://s-smigiel.bandcamp.com/releases</a><br />Plus, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLSveRGmpIE">Thanksgiving Poem by William S. Burroughs</a>, and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwimn920-dbXAhUJxWMKHQvJAS8QtwIIKDAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DGNi__fnadTM&usg=AOvVaw3dZh8I68raiyWB5fITO7Sb">"Burn Your Village To The Ground"</a> by A Tribe Called Red.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-57112853455866947382017-11-22T17:50:00.002-08:002017-11-22T17:51:33.628-08:00Neofeud is 33% Off + Thanksgiving Livestream Party!<img alt="" height="459" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPQqn5GUQAEqD9m.jpg" width="640" /><br />
<br />
So first off, <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/673850/Neofeud/">Neofeud is 33% off this week on Steam!</a><br />
<br />
<img alt="" height="390" src="https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzkyMDY3OS5wbmc=/original/rykvwm.png" width="640" /><br />
<br />
And the big news is I will be streaming live on my Youtube channel on Thanksgiving at 11 AM<br />
Pacific Time!<br />
<br />
Come hang out! :D In addition to the above mentioned hijinx, I will also likely be doing a bit of gamedev and making some announcements on the upcoming Silver Spook Games projects.<br />
No turkeys were harmed in the making of this poster!<br />
<br />
<a data-redactor-span="true" href="https://www.youtube.com/user/twiliteminotaur/videos">https://www.youtube.com/user/twiliteminotaur/videos</a><br />
<br />
Next up, I am happy to announce that I am currently in the process of porting Neofeud to Mac, and have a potential solution in the works! I can't give any specific dates on a release, but it is definitely in the pipeline. :)<br />
<br />
In addition, here is the most recent Silver Spook Podcast where I talk to the creator of cyberpunk strategy game Spinnortality:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bq4HSVOAAGc" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
In this episode, Silver Spook speaks with Jamie Patton, creator of Spinnortality, a groundbreaking cyberpunk game in mid-Kickstarter. Cyberpunk strategy/management game. In Spinnortality, you, "Run a global megacorporation. Manipulate culture, destroy governments and become immortal."<br />
Spinnortality website: <a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https://spinnortality.com/&redir_token=0DGsPHUnEdCU6vhIfnKD0YeMxft8MTUxMTQ4NzQ0OEAxNTExNDAxMDQ4&v=bq4HSVOAAGc&event=video_description">https://spinnortality.com/</a><br />
Spinnortality kickstarter: <a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1870604859/spinnortality-a-cyberpunk-management-game&redir_token=0DGsPHUnEdCU6vhIfnKD0YeMxft8MTUxMTQ4NzQ0OEAxNTExNDAxMDQ4&v=bq4HSVOAAGc&event=video_description">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...</a><br />
Follow Jamie: <a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https://twitter.com/james_d_patton&redir_token=0DGsPHUnEdCU6vhIfnKD0YeMxft8MTUxMTQ4NzQ0OEAxNTExNDAxMDQ4&v=bq4HSVOAAGc&event=video_description">https://twitter.com/james_d_patton</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-55399749081458743572017-11-12T13:46:00.000-08:002017-11-12T13:56:54.698-08:00The Phosphorous Endarkenment - (Neofeud II Teaser)<div style="text-align: center;">
(What follows is some teaser-material from Neofeud II)</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxIT5UNUOrdeioFruGYZCIZb6W1YfsRZZMdI9mIu8_ymAvbGyYOGWr6NQrQKWg38pHHq9Bo_86vbMmDz7JEDrWHhn6U99uEUzXn_R3qSXo5yoOs0QelHkfE_7NDum0yEInacz11FvV5vQ/s1600/Neofeud2TitleNovus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="916" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxIT5UNUOrdeioFruGYZCIZb6W1YfsRZZMdI9mIu8_ymAvbGyYOGWr6NQrQKWg38pHHq9Bo_86vbMmDz7JEDrWHhn6U99uEUzXn_R3qSXo5yoOs0QelHkfE_7NDum0yEInacz11FvV5vQ/s320/Neofeud2TitleNovus.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
The Phosphorus Endarkenment</h2>
<br />
Welcome to the The Phosphorus Endarkenment - A purported 'News Site'. An alleged 'Fake News Site'. A decried, 'Social Justice Cancer on the Nine Worlds.' A, "Weaponized disinformation scourge manufactured by the Sovions," according to the Ubizon-owned Coastlandia Post.<br />
<br />
And, according to blue-screened mad-men on the outer spiral arms of Jovian prison-colonies, "A salvo of diatribes 'Against The Day' we live in, thinly Trojan Horsed into an SEO-optimized series of clickbait-ey quasi-game-reviews, run through AI internet-addictiveness algorithms into blackest cyber-heroin. Shoot that into your crooked alt-reality vein, motherflackers."<br />
<br />
White phosphorus; after cluster bomb sub-munitions, the weapon-of-choice for immolation of hospital workers and innocent non-white, non-human children in some-country-with-resources, and other tokens in the massively multiplayer idle-game that is our un-Holy Roman Collapsar.<br />
<br />
Phosphorus. A solid, nonmetallic element. In one of three allotropic forms, it is yellow, poisonous, flammable, and luminous in the dark.<br />
<br />
The stricken match, the igniting flame, painful brightness. The color of nuclear flash, the color of orgasm. Ecstasy and annihilation.<br />
<br />
The Enlightenment; also known, however correctly and erroneously, as "The Age of Reason". <i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Aufklärung. </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Demise of monarchy. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">C</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">ame to advance ideals like</span> liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, equality, constitutional government and separation of church and state. <br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Enlightenment; an age whose time and ideas have wholly passed, de facto, though infinite jesters, such as this one, continue to lob molotov phosphorus pixel-howls into the banal, painful, Neofeudal goodnight.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Non Omnis Moriar.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I shall not wholly die.</span><br />
<br />
The future will grow from something. If that something is the irradiated periplaneta laying eggs in pillars of ash left standing after the antimatter blastwaves, the post-anthro nano-computronium seeds of a paperclip-pushing Accelerando panspermia, or some semblance of those fleshy-assed hypersynaptic monkeys we're rapidly no longer being, it will be something. Life Finds A Way, even through darkest, eldritch midnight.<br />
<br />
Phosphorus Endarkenment.<br />
<br />
Ignite.<br />
<br />
<br />
(End Transmission)<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-12996899941216955772017-11-10T12:17:00.000-08:002017-11-10T12:17:43.594-08:00Silver Spook Podcast #9 - Mark Yohalem, Writer of Primordia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pqiAvh0p81A/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pqiAvh0p81A?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this episode, Silver Spook speaks with Mark Yohalem, writer of Primordia, a legendary sci-fi point-and-click adventure game and a big inspiration behind Neofeud.
Mark and yours truly discuss the State of Adventure Games which somewhat resembles that of Schrodinger's Cat (never quite alive or dead!), Primordia and the making thereof, Mark's exciting new 'mythological, mid-apocalypse RPG' in development with Wormwood Studios, some insider game-dev shop-talk, Unity vs Adventure Game Studio pros and cons, Mark's and my favorite cyberpunk, the difference between depressing and melancholy, the psychological selling-points of post-apocalypses, why appellate lawyers may be cannibal shishkebabs in said apocalypse, and much more!
Wormwood Studios (Mark's indie game company): </span><a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wormwoodstudios.com%2F&event=video_description&v=pqiAvh0p81A&redir_token=n99pvwfFXmtoFPlWA_VWc6LNFAB8MTUxMDQzMTMyMUAxNTEwMzQ0OTIx" style="background-color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.wormwoodstudios.com/</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Follow Mark on Twitter: </span><a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wormwoodstudios.com%2F&event=video_description&v=pqiAvh0p81A&redir_token=n99pvwfFXmtoFPlWA_VWc6LNFAB8MTUxMDQzMTMyMUAxNTEwMzQ0OTIx" style="background-color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.wormwoodstudios.com/</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Neofeud: </span><a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.steampowered.com%2Fapp%2F673850%2FNeofeud%2F&event=video_description&v=pqiAvh0p81A&redir_token=n99pvwfFXmtoFPlWA_VWc6LNFAB8MTUxMDQzMTMyMUAxNTEwMzQ0OTIx" style="background-color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://store.steampowered.com/app/673...</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-46148394727673770962017-10-24T01:47:00.005-07:002017-10-24T01:51:38.816-07:00K'nossos - A True Work Of Art (And A Great Sci-Fi Game)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VXCvAkalz7c/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VXCvAkalz7c?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
If you believe that games can and should be elevated to true works of art, if you believe that we are not doomed to a Idiocracy-esque downward spiral into a hypermodern nightmare of <a href="http://silverspookgames.blogspot.com/2017/10/should-games-have-social-commentary.html">fascist n-word spewing online game culture or neoliberal lowest-common-denominator loot-box late-capitalism</a> or some combination thereof, then you're in for a treat with K'nossos. <br />
<br />
Svarun Games has just launched their <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/533772585/knossos-a-classic-point-and-click-sci-fi-adventure">K'nossos Kickstarter</a> today, for what might be the most original-looking game I have seen in eons. In the time it takes to travel to Alpha Centauri in non-FTL cryo sleep, you might never find another game like this one.<br />
<br />
Here's a quick synopsis:<br />
<br />
"K’NOSSOS is a classical science fiction point-and-click adventure game which follows the story of a lone passenger aboard a huge interstellar colonization ship traveling the unknown reaches of the cosmos, and the things he uncovers on his journey."<br />
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Having recently played the demo, I can say that K'nossos is a point-and-clicker's delight, especially if you're a fan of sci-fi. While puzzle difficulty can be somewhat subjective depending on how experienced you are and your personal preference, I can say that K'nossos appears to be in that Goldilocks Zone of 'not-too-easy, not-too-hard'. The plot itself is intriguing thus far, and chock-full of Star Trek-quality technobabble if that's your thing. (I'm watching ST: Discovery right now, but "Dune" or "Stasis" (the 3D point-and-click) might be closer, style-wise.) All in all, what I gathered of the science fictional story is already intriguing—this xenomorphic, xeno-aesthetic creature definitely has claws that drag the player into its Byzantine, fascinating depths.<br />
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<a href="https://alphabetagamer-3kkpqwvtmi.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/K-NOSSOS-Game-Download.gif"><img border="0" src="https://alphabetagamer-3kkpqwvtmi.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/K-NOSSOS-Game-Download.gif" /></a><br />
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Most remarkable though, is the art. K'nossos' abstract expressionist art style really gives this game an other-worldy feel, almost like touring a virtual high-art museum. Like a surreal daymare as experienced by a Picasso/Kandinsky fused mind. I can say, hands down, I haven’t seen a game that even attempts to do what is being done in K’nossos. <br />
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The sound track has similar megawatt-inspiration going on here, and reminds me of my MUS 412 - Post-Modernism In Music class in university, with a lot of Eastern and atonal intervals infusing meditative electronica soundscapes. It’s definitely got a feeling all its own! <br />
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So, if like me, you believe the Blade Runner 2049 box-office numbers mean that we should encourage a less-lazy, more sophisticated audience/culture, rather than dumbing everything down with explosions every 10 seconds and pretty faces, then check out and support K'nossos.<br />
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Two (three?) thumb-like, cubist appendages up—and I look forward to the full game!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-77803831784961316232017-10-19T03:54:00.000-07:002017-10-19T14:10:00.774-07:00Should Games Have Social Commentary?<br />
<a href="https://kiwifarms.net/attachments/b1767e0f-5158-44a6-aeb9-d6832569f9d2-jpeg.292822/"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://kiwifarms.net/attachments/b1767e0f-5158-44a6-aeb9-d6832569f9d2-jpeg.292822/" width="532" /></a><br />
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<br />
"Make America Nazi Free Again" <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/nazi-video-game-wolfenstein-angers-nazis-make-america-nazi-free-again-slogan-679530">is controversial to say in 2017</a>. The reactions to Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus' recent marketing campaign are a sad bellwether of the low point we're at, generally.<br />
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But I did find it interesting that Bethesda is trying to make it abundantly clear that their latest Wolfenstein title is <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/social-commentary-in-wolfenstein-ii-marketing-not-game-w509207">not social commentary, and any perception thereof is merely incidental.</a> This is certainly true in the case of this game, but it does beg a larger question: should games have social commentary? What role do games play in culture generally? <br />
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<a href="http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-story-in-a-game-is-like-a-story-in-a-porn-movie-it-s-expected-to-be-there-but-it-s-not-that-john-carmack-216914.jpg"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-story-in-a-game-is-like-a-story-in-a-porn-movie-it-s-expected-to-be-there-but-it-s-not-that-john-carmack-216914.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Guilty pleasure games are fun. I'm a huge Doom fan. I like to chill out and twin-stick-shoot my stresses away from time to time, just as much as the next gamer. Junk food tastes good. But if all you eat every day is double bacon burgers and French fries, you're going to ruin your body, and one day you're going to have that massive heart attack. <br />
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We are having the cultural equivalent of a massive heart attack. <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/21/16341458/pewdiepie-racial-slurs-online-gaming">Online gaming culture</a> is hugely toxic, with Pewdie Pie's fiasco revealing the tip of that ugly iceberg. And beyond the world of gaming, we have flag-waving, Swastika-wearing Nazis <a href="http://www.postandcourier.com/news/officials-white-nationalist-rally-in-charlottesville-virginia-linked-to-deaths/article_3a9cfec0-7fb0-11e7-8d16-132665d1f971.html">marching through American streets</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States">Half the country is in poverty</a>, several dozen cities have poison for drinking water, and our infrastructure is collapsing. <br />
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Escapism in entertainment is great, and sometimes necessary. But if everyone just escapes to the virtual, the real will just continue to get worse.<br />
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I believe that generally, yes, games should strive to engage with the society in which they exist, where possible.<br />
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This doesn't mean that games all need to be thirty-minute "walking simulators" which simply communicate a message, without much more "game" there. Games can, and I believe should, be *both* compelling, engaging, experiences, as well as thought provoking, challenging journeys that are relevant to the society in which they are created. At the very least, games should not promote negativity. Sort of a hippocratic oath for gamedevs: "Do no harm".<br />
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<a href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/o0IURgA_eTw/maxresdefault.jpg"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/o0IURgA_eTw/maxresdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.pcgamer.com/technobabylon-review/">Technobabylon</a> examines the great potentialities of technology to better society, as well as the pitfalls of techno-addiction, disconnection, and abuse. It is a great example of a game that handles diversity incredibly well, treating characters, "As characters first" with gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. being just another facet. <a href="http://www.pcgamer.com/planescape-torment-review/">Planescape Torment</a> and <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/Undertale/">Undertale</a> are fun, yet challenge players to think about the nature of RPGs, among other things. <br />
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<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/6910/Deus_Ex_Game_of_the_Year_Edition/">Deus Ex</a> not only revolutionized gaming by introducing the FPS/RPG hybrid, but touched on a plethora of topics from transhumanism to mass-surveillance to the need to 'question everything', especially information sources -- something increasingly relevant in our milieu of 'fake news' of all sorts. Games like <a href="http://newnormative.com/2017/08/18/though-flawed-fortnite-promotes-teamwork-not-toxicity/">Fortnite</a> are suggesting that a positive online gaming experience not filled with slurs and hate is indeed possible.<br />
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<a href="http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/36/35501/NeofeudTItleScreenNoMenu.png"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/36/35501/NeofeudTItleScreenNoMenu.png" width="640" /></a><br />
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I spent about 2 1/2 years making a cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game called <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/673850/Neofeud/">Neofeud</a>. Neofeud is a science fictional "cautionary tale" in that it suggests a pretty dark potential future, one that we'd probably like to avoid. In Neofeud, the trend of increasing inequality has continued to the point where the elite have become literal kings over the destitute commoners. There is the equivalent of the Palace of Versailles literally floating above an endless cross between an L.A. slum, a Mexican shantyland and a gargantuan Blade Runner 2049-esque landfill. It’s a world where the marginalized (robots and chimera part-humans) have to pass a ‘consciousness test’ to even be *considered* a person, and are easily discarded, disappeared, used for borderline slave-labor or to prop up a prison-industrial complex. <br />
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Neofeud is a world in which democracy is not merely in jeopardy, as it is today, but a footnote to history. There is no constitution, no civil rights, no labor rights, no human rights -- all the progress since the Enlightenment has been rolled back. It's a scary, but easily plausible world, if good people simply do nothing but continue the status quo, day in and day out.<br />
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While Neofeud is a 15+ hour game, and engaging in and of itself (at least it is meant to be), it was deeply influenced by my own experiences. I am from Hawaii, and a native Hawaiian, who grew up in the ghetto. Yes -- they do exist, even in Hawaii. Most of the folks in my neighborhood were and still are non-white, and a large percentage are immigrants. Families in my neighborhood were and still are sardined packed, with ten or twenty relatives squished into a single-family house. Pork and beans or vienna sausage over rice on a daily basis was the norm, growing up.<br />
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After college I taught an after-school STEM (science technology engineering and math) program to under-resourced youth in Honolulu. Many of the kids I worked with were in truly horrible circumstances, many with parents incarcerated or out of their minds on drugs, many homeless, living in vans, some even getting beaten in the street for sleeping on the sidewalk. These were kids who had parents in prison, or perhaps even worse, parents who were working multiple jobs and *still* they were living out of cars or tents. And right up the street, there were multi-million dollar mansions. I myself, along with my wife and kids, were just barely above homelessness, and spending over half my teaching salary to squeeze into a tiny studio or one bedroom.<br />
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<a href="http://indiegames.com/assets_c/2017/09/neofeud1-thumb-480x265-25031.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhFzYK29Y15Xlvw46tmTKWS5DeOho_6AAUyGj2PGY7ilraSnHM5RFxg4JqFBV_6XR9ii5eJ8DDtoPWjecQUysYJC67wOGJJAkPHg1iXE1zkipBpY6pJ6HiSxOSQMQBeaVcWVaHoSYFGXGiloApIyAWUo4t0En3DInSv5nFoAnCExysZ29wljZ4=" /></a><br />
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You could say that Neofeud has a "message", but in another sense, Neofeud is simply me sharing (through the lens of science fiction) my story, and the stories of people whom I have worked with and loved, but whose experiences and voices are often buried. It is my sincere hope that Neofeud doesn’t merely entertain, but also makes players think about the world we’re in, and the one we're heading towards. <br />
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The reviews for Neofeud have been mostly positive, but there have been a variety of reactions to the social commentary aspects:<br />
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<a href="http://dumeegamer.com/reviews/diana/neofeud.html">"Has something to tell and does this in a brilliant way, without hitting you in the face with his message."</a><br />
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<a href="https://indieranger.com/neofeud-review">"Different and cerebral."</a><br />
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<a href="http://steamshovelers.cool/neofeud/">"</a><a href="http://steamshovelers.cool/neofeud/">It was too real, too on-the-nose. It gave me chills and made my stomach roll."</a> (To be fair, this reviewer, I believe, meant this in a positive light, but there were a few others who expressed something similar.)<br />
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Truth be told, I would much rather be criticized for "having a strong message" rather than making a game without much substance, or merely an entertaining product.<br />
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<a href="http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/deusex/helios/23.jpg"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEgm8qqisEjygU3HzYHPhSCTZbG_MKH127ZKKnTV0HJkUfF5UIM2sktNgFRsYzRZjGXsqlSe3Kz8N09ecePaeg1yhj45MZJw6F1JZZ0TtH0CD5G2NioZmKZiVjTLZcW-JN6RnrsY3c1hYjYCLJCH-e0xqPrFEiEe=" width="640" /></a><br />
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The pre-requisite to democracy is the existence of an informed, civil society, that is capable of governing itself. A network of communities that interact and engage in discussion -- not just insults, caricatures, and flame war. A civic community is not just a hoard of shoppers or a million fans fawning over a movie or game or tech gadget, or a comment section full of people getting their rage "fix" without actually listening to arguments from the other side, or folks angrily blasting avatars of each other and shouting the n-word over voice chat. <br />
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So how can we prevent that? One way is by creators making more intelligent, relevant, challenging, and simultaneously enjoyable experiences, along with players, journalists and readers who demand, appreciate, and discuss these games, and other content.<br />
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<a href="https://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Screen-Shot-2017-10-16-at-9.35.53-AM.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Screen-Shot-2017-10-16-at-9.35.53-AM.jpg" /></a><br />
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Ultimately, I applaud Bethesda for <a href="https://twitter.com/wolfenstein/status/919684333207568385">doubling down on their anti-Nazi</a> stance and marketing campaign.<br />
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And I think that we all should double down on taking stands on things we believe to be right -- in our games, and society at large -- while we still have a (relativity) free society in which to do so.</div>
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<img alt="" src="https://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/36/35501/thumb_620x2000/NeofeudOnSteamSep19.png" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" /></div>
<br />The game will be on sale during launch week at 20% off. The base price is $15, so you can get the game at a steal of just $12 for 15+ hours of gameplay, according to latest estimates! The Neofeud soundtrack, which includes 45 tracks and 2 1/2 hours of music will also be available for purchase on Steam.<br /><br />Here's a recent interview I did with David Cameron of One Up Gaming, where we talk about Neofeud and the modern indie game scene:<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif, Tahoma, Arial, Verdana; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nkde9KUaT8s" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />The press on Neofeud has also been ramping up lately, and it has been featured recently on sites including <a href="http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2017/09/06/blade-runner-inspired-adventure-neofeud-launches-later-this-month/270816/">Hardcore Gamer</a>, <a href="http://www.gamersglobal.de/spiel/127855/neofeud">Gamers Global</a>, and <a href="https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/304838/Neofeud_a_cyberpunk_adventure_game_by_a_Hawaiiandeveloper.php">Gamasutra</a>.<br /><br />Here's a roundup of the reviews for Neofeud thus far:<br /><br />“An immersive cyberpunk adventure game... Echoes of H.R. Giger and William Gibson... [Christian Miller] knows what makes a quality game.”<br /><br /><a href="https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://brandonchovey.net/2017/05/19/three-reasonsa-bonus-one-to-buy-neofeud/">Brandon C. Hovey</a><br /><br /><br />“NeoFeud offers a dozen hours of gameplay that turns out to be a great time for any point & click and SF fan”<br /><br /><a href="https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://cabinetdechaologie.wordpress.com/seances/treizieme-seance/neofeud-au-futur-imparfait/">Cabinet De Chaologie</a><br /><br /><br />“The conspiracy runs deep and is quite massive in scope. Politics meet technology, philosophy meets madness. But even beyond the intrigue itself the world of Neofeud is quite a detailed and intriguing construct, with its own history and lore.”<br /><br /><a href="https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=http://www.indiegamenews.com/2017/07/review-neofeud.html">Indie Game News</a><br /><br /><br />"Taking a little more than 15-hours to finish, Neofeud showcases a deep tapestry of plot twists and turns, rich backstories, and action weaved throughout the point-and-click gameplay."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.opnoobs.com/reviews/indie/adventure/neofeud">OpNoobs.com</a><br /><br /><br />If any reviewers are interested, I do still have Steam review keys- let me know!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-50396580922917611662017-07-28T12:38:00.002-07:002017-07-28T12:38:33.977-07:00Neofeud Teasers, Reviews, and New Projects!<h2>
Neofeud Highlight - Deborah Dunaway</h2>
Strong female characters in cyberpunk! In this latest Neofeud voice actor highlight, Deborah Dunaway plays literal royalty, as well as a trans-species kid, a Nazi bureaucrat, and more in Neofeud.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/V9OcHMFAvg8" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I actually met Deb for the first time at a meetup with <a href="http://www.indiedb.com/games/neofeud/articles/add/@GreatDismal">William Gibson</a> in Kitsilano beach, Vancouver. We've been friends ever since, and apart from donating her vocal talents to the game, she's also backed Neofeud through patreon in the three-figure range. So thanks for that, Deb!<br />
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<img alt="" src="https://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/36/35501/thumb_620x2000/output_7oODv9.gif" /><br />
You can get Neofeud, a cyberpunk adventure game with 10+ hours of gameplay, here: <iframe data-mce-fragment="1" frameborder="0" height="167" src="https://itch.io/embed/32235" width="552"></iframe><br />
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You can follow Deb here: <a href="https://twitter.com/bittersweetdb" title="https://twitter.com/bittersweetdb">https://twitter.com/bittersweetdb</a><br />
<h2>
Neofeud Review!</h2>
In addition, a great review of Neofeud was recently published in <a href="http://www.indiegamenews.com/2017/07/review-neofeud.html">indiegamenews.com</a>. Here are some excerpts:<br />
<blockquote>
<strong>"From the makeshift, provisional, use-what-you-can-find architecture of the slums, through the neon-lit gangland underworld to the obscenely green grass of the skyborne islands, the art in Neofeud follows the modern trend of saturated dystopias such as Fury Road..."</strong><br />
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<strong>"The conspiracy runs deep and is quite massive in scope. Politics meet technology, philosophy meets madness. But even beyond the intrigue itself the world of Neofeud is quite a detailed and intriguing construct, with its own history and lore..."</strong><br />
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<strong>"Everything about the game just oozes the love for sci-fi: the literary cyberpunk and the 80's and 90's movies...."</strong></blockquote>
Thanks, Fitz, for the great review! Do check out his very well written and imaginative adventure games <a href="http://gamejolt.com/games/gray/12127">Gray</a> and <a href="http://gamejolt.com/games/the-unprintable-magenta/110958">Magenta</a>. You can also follow Fitz at <a href="https://twitter.com/Colm_E_Fitz">@Colm_E_Fitz</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://gamejolt.com/@Fitz"><img alt="" src="https://m.gjcdn.net/game-header/1200/12127-4epg4akp.jpg" /></a><br />
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In other news, I am currently investigating a few potential publishing opportunities while simultaneously working on setting up the Steam store for Neofeud. I've been getting some advice from more veteran folks in the game world on how to handle the Neofeud rollout to Steam, and so I'm trying not to rush things. I'm hoping to get a bit more press and more reviews of Neofeud to get it better publicized before it hits Steam, so I'm not setting a date for that right now.<br />
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Rest assured, if you purchase or have already purchased Neofeud on Itch.io, you will get the Steam key, and are helping me to continue to make games as indie devs get the most revenue for their work on Itch than virtually any other distribution site around. So thanks, Neofeud fans!<br />
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I am also currently on my next game, <a href="https://silverspook.itch.io/forgotten-city" rel="nofollow">"Dysmaton"</a> formerly titled "Forgotten City". This game is currently slated to be a point-and-click adventure like Neofeud, but with more of a post-apocalyptic / "interstellar" setting.<br />
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<a href="https://silverspook.itch.io/forgotten-city" rel="nofollow"><img alt="" src="https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMTU1NzgyLzcyOTMwOC5wbmc=/original/j1fKYR.png" /></a><br />
Here's a brief overview / synopsis of Dysmaton:<br />
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"Settlers of a new space colony got off to a rocky start, but eventually built up a happy, thriving metropolis... Then the machines took over. <br />
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Noria, a young engineer, lost everything the day the automated police forces went haywire. Now, on this failed new homeworld, she needs to survive the hostile environment, dodge the malevolent machines lurking everywhere, and manage her own painful memories of lost family and broken hopes."<br />
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<a href="https://silverspook.itch.io/forgotten-city"><img alt="" src="https://i.imgur.com/Go1UH4u.gif" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-2546747931653191762017-06-25T13:25:00.001-07:002017-06-25T13:34:43.912-07:00Anaphylactic Shock and Terrorist Tree Housing (Life as a Gamedev Dad)So here's a little personal slice of life you all who are wondering what goes on while I'm making all these crazy indie games. :)<br />
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As I'm working on the latest Silver Spook Games project, I've noticed some sort of allergic reaction going on in my head and lungs over the past week or so, though. Apparently some sort of new flower, bush or tree has decided to shoot its tree-sperm into the air and now I can't think straight and keep waking up in the night feeling like I'm choking! Goddamnit pollen!<br />
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Not such great timing as I need all the mental firepower I can get to finish off this new game prototype that I'm working on called<a href="http://silverspookgames.blogspot.com/p/forgotten-city.html"> Forgotten City</a> which I need to get done by June 30th to enter into this Adventure Game In a Month competition. I was out of commission for a lot of yesterday, and simultaneously the internet gods decided that this is a great week to turn off the spigot on the bandwidth pipe, which caused my livestream to go into anaphylactic shock, along with my human body. (Noirjyre can attest to this! Thanks for sticking around through the 0.1 FPS bits of the stream, Noir! I'd give you a Steam achievement if Neofeud was on Steam yet!)<br />
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It was kind of alright since Mrs. Silver Spook had a ladies' night out last night anyway with a bunch of other moms. They went out to a restaurant in town and then went to see Wonder Woman. So I was playing crazy games with the kids and making dinner (microwavable chicken nuggets FTW!) and having them walk on my back and such. Then we got to bedtime routine which involved lighting lavender incense and floating it about the room (a sort of psychological trick that reassures them that there aren't any 'bugs' -- spiders roaches -- even though there aren't. Then bedtime step 2 is I put on this Miyazaki music internet mixtape, then read them bedtime stories. Then step three is praying that Minobot prototype 2 (3 year old son) wouldn't totally flip out when mommy wasn't there for night-night. He also goes into a sort of anaphylactic or emotional shock when it's sleepy time and mommy's not there. He woke up about an hour in screaming, and so I had to come back into the room and lie down on the floor next to him to get him to stay down and stop crying.<br />
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Finally got him down but unfortunately I was having choking feelings all night, like right at that point where your breath starts slowing down, my brain kept waking me up and telling me that I was suffocating or drowning. I really hope this allergy shit goes away and the Loratadine starts DOING ITS ONE JOB so I can not be a 10 IQ sleep-dep zombie during this final week of gamedev before the competition.<br />
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Anyways, one other thing, some of you may have caught on the back channel is that I'm working on building a tree house -- actually, I'm technically trying to install a makeshift ladder into a 'hazard tree' that is leaning like a sword of Damocles over our house at the moment. I need to get the ladder up so I can get to a point on the tree high enough to cut it such that it doesn't endanger the house. But my daughter has been following me up the ladder, and has invoked her powers of "Children's Eminent Domain", claiming the tree installation as her "Tree House". (Never try negotiating children out of their daydreams -- it makes negotiating with terrorists seem like a cakewalk). So what's happening now is I'm planning to convert this horrible danger to life, limb, property and mental health called 150 foot Acacia tree, into an actual tree house, whilst subversely also working on chopping off the top 100 feet of it, while she's not looking. Or perhaps, I will chop the tree down to size, and convince her that it's much better to have a shorter tree house... Reverse psychology this shit and sell it as, "A Tree Tiny-House!" It works on Millenial Hipsters, I don't see why it shouldn't work on Generation Z, or A1 or whatever these whippersnappers will be called when old people need something to mean-spiritedly generalize them as.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com48tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-85886339114815995902017-06-12T22:45:00.000-07:002017-06-13T00:30:22.054-07:00"People Can't Handle The Future": The Truth About Science Fiction<div class="tr_bq">
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This is a reaction to a question in a cyberpunk writing group, which devolved/evolved into something of a rant on my part. But ultimately, I think it does offer some insight into at least how some science fiction and fiction generally is written. Here's the original question:<br />
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"I'd like to address the timing of technology and its impact in our fictional worlds. Specifically what I'm referring to is the sequence in which certain technologies are used in fictional worlds. For example, in Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy, interactive holograms (he likely uses a different term) aren't uncommon. I specifically remember the English boy Kumiko could summon with the device she carried with her. The boy was a hologram that she could interact with, not physically but verbally.</blockquote>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;"></span>The point of this post is that unless there has already been breakthrough technological advances in artificial intelligence in the world, this type of technology would be impossible. Therefore, authors are forced to think through what other technologies have been invented and to what extent. Another example, if you include sophisticated nanotechnology in your writings, that opens up a monumental can of worms. Nanotechnology will change everything. So an author is forced to think through what his or her world would be like if nanotechnology has been around 15 years or 50 years. How would that reshape the world? It's mind-bending to conceive it.</blockquote>
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I could go on and on and on about this, but I'm curious how much thinking and planning all of you put into your work when deciding how technologies are presented. I mean, if you have interactive holograms, you have sophisticated AI. If you have high-grade AI, what else might be present? Or, what wouldn't be present? How will that change things?"</blockquote>
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Gibson himself had no idea how the technology he was describing actually worked. I think I remember him once saying that he imagined that computers, 'Had some sort of Star-Trek crystals inside, not these clunky, mechanical structures.' Also, in Neuromancer, 2062, Case is peddling, "3 megabytes of hot RAM", when a.) that much RAM was already worthless within a few years. b.) Nobody pays money for hot 'RAM' as RAM isn't for data storage of valuable info, but 'random access' during operation.<br />
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Gibson basically just walked into an arcade, saw kids totally engrossed in these video game things, trying to reach through a screen, and then imagined that there was a real space behind that screen. Voila, cyberspace. <br />
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If anything his genius was in his insights into human beings, and their relationships to each other, their artifacts, and their bodies. I honestly cannot think of a better writer, sci-fi or otherwise. Neuromancer was a masterwork, a biting satire and cautionary tale of Reagan/Thatcher-era economics in a world dominated by 'markets' where 'greed is good' and technology amplifies greed and criminality, with no thought of the human 'meat'. <br />
But the truth is, most of his "science" is a lot of techno-hocus pocus that he found in a magazine or heard in a tech conference, and thought sounded cool, and evocative, so he threw it in some technopoetry. But what sounds cool and evocative, and insightful and beautiful is not the same as what is technically correct, scientifically accurate, and the way the world really is, or the way the future really will be. I say this being the most massive William Gibson fan.<br />
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And the truth is, if you really, really think things through, and try to draw the most realistic, or at least most technically accurate picture of the future... It will be kind of insanely off-the-wall and people will think you're crazy, or it will be totally boring. Like, who would have predicted in 1985, even 2005, that billions of people around the world would spend huge amounts of time chasing virtual fantasy animals on the street (Pokemon Go) or watching *other people* play video games, and make stupid jokes? That the guy with more views than the biggest Hollywood star, the President or the Pope, would be some Swedish Youtuber screaming and making fart jokes while gaming? No one would buy that book in 1985, in 2005, and probably not even now. But that is cyberspace. Not a bunch of James Bond / Oceans 13 console cowboys hacking the planet in trenchcoats with razorgirls, but people watching each other play video games and act like idiots. <br />
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The truth is, people can't handle the future. People don't actually want the future, because it is too weird, too boring, and it tells them something about themself that they don't want to hear. IMHO, District 9 was the best science fiction movie in decades. But it's been mostly forgotten, because it threw in people's faces an ugly reality that an alien contact would probably not be about peace or war, but about the way that we generally treat different races/countries. As objects to be exploited for profit, then abused and discarded when convenient. And D9 didn't have Dwayne Johnson or Scarlet Johanssen or something, and people just couldn't handle that. <br />
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Anyway, tangent aside, the point is: don't worry too much about the under-the-hood of your future tech, unless it will actually be interesting to your audience.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-7015744796793437732017-06-05T11:03:00.000-07:002017-06-05T11:03:01.466-07:00"We had to dump the residents into the landfill, which was unfortunate."A short clip from the Neofeud Let's Play that's particularly dystopian, and relevant to our current political climate. "We had to bulldoze the low-city and dump the residents into the landfill, which was unfortunate." In this episode of 'Let's Play: Neofeud', we visit the bejeweled "upper crust" of the Stratoplex, where the rich debate the best way to cut benefits for poor people. Trump Tower Circa 2027!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="338" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/IyFBoc1Nno0" width="600"></iframe><br />
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If you haven't already, Neofeud is <a href="https://silverspook.itch.io/neofeud">available for $15 on Itch.io!</a> If you can afford it and you want a 10-hour immersive cyberpunk adventure, go ahead and grab a copy! It will be a huge help with making this next Silver Spook Games project work financially as well. :)<br />
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<a class="thickbox" href="http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/36/35501/ForgottenCityOutsideGOod.png"><img alt="" height="422" src="https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/36/35501/ForgottenCityOutsideGOod.png" width="640" /></a><br />
So I've been working on this most recent background for about a week now, and it's taken an incredible amount of time. I think the only background that's ever taken me longer was <a href="http://www.indiedb.com/games/neofeud/images/the-fulcrum#imagebox" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Neofeud Sky Palace</a>.<br />
Worth it, though, I think!<br />
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So in addition to that, I've been working on hashing out the new story for the successor to Neofeud with some of the folks over at Chaos Nova ( <a href="http://www.chaosnova.co.uk/?page=home" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.chaosnova.co.uk/?page=home</a> ) which is a group of writers that primarily write in the sci-fi genre. The plan is to put out a prototype of this next game as a test to see how well we work together and what sort of output we can manage, I'm hoping by the end of June. If the prototype pans out, it's likely that we'll work together on a full game. If not, I may end up just working solo again, and there are other potential projects on the table, although those are still pretty preliminary.<br />
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Neofeud at this point is at around 350 votes on Steam (but we can always use more- so get out on Steam and vote up now! <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=894789880" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=894789880</a> ). I'm still hoping that it will squeeze by before the end of Greenlight but we'll see.<br />
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You can also vote for Neofeud on Good Old Games (GOG) here: <a href="https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/neofeud?pp=51af0418179317caa1e2d452f67017b44d428d8d" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/neofeud?pp=51af0418179317caa1e2d452f67017b44d428d8d</a><br />
In addition, I've been doing a bunch of promotional video clips and livestreaming every Saturday to help out those who contributed to Neofeud (including all of my generous Patrons). Here's one of the most recent ones I made for Neofeud voice actor Brandon Hovey:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="338" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/to4ZVADACSs" width="600"></iframe><br />
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The next video I'm hoping to make is for Deborah Dunaway, another one of Neofeud's biggest supporters, Patreon patrons, and a longtime friend from the William Gibson Board.<br />
So that's what's going on over here. Thanks again to all my patrons <a href="https://twitter.com/ssmigiel" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<strong>ssmigiel, </strong></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/bittersweetdb" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<strong>bittersweetdb, </strong></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Noirjyre" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<strong>Noirjyre,</strong></a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/benjaminpenney" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<strong>benjaminpenney</strong></a> for all of your help and support!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-38798773841074677352017-05-18T12:05:00.003-07:002017-05-18T12:05:38.120-07:00Neofeud Short Story Collection is on Amazon!<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
The Neofeud Short Story Collection is now available on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072LN4QC2">Amazon for Kindle and paperback! </a></div>
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Help support Silver Spook Games and expand your kindle library at the same time! </div>
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"In a dystopian future, the one-percent hover in glimmering golden sky-castles above a wasteland of destitution. A young 'low-born' seamstress' only chance to go from Cinderella rags to Kardashian riches is to be 'noticed' in a cosplayer competition, and to marry a ultra-wealthy prince or be picked up for a TV show by a megacorporation -- all while dealing with poor body-image and self-esteem issues, resulting from a society that doesn't need or want her.<br />
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A sentient machine, one of millions of 'defective prototypes' mass-produced by tech-giants, winds up in a 'machine prison' due to 'substrate profiling' -- robot is the new 'black'. He's beaten, abused, and finally teams up with the robo-convicts to jailbreak from the supermax facility.<br />
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Neofeud is a cautionary tale, a dark vision of where we may all be heading very soon, if we aren't careful."<br />
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You can also find the Neofeud Short Story Collection on <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/christian-miller/neofeud-the-short-story-collection/ebook/product-23177929.html">Lulu.com</a> if you prefer. :)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-83293253204852607682017-05-01T15:35:00.001-07:002017-05-02T12:19:43.707-07:00Kathy Rain - 90's To The Max!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.kathyraingame.com/"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/370910/header.jpg?t=1480366361" height="149" width="320" /></a></div>
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There's all this bloviation on the internets now about whether games can or should tell good stories, which I feel is utter BS. As such, I am going to be heavily emphasizing the story-aspect of games in my reviews from here on. So suck it, or 'eat me', as Kathy Rain, AKA 'Ms. 90's', would undoubtedly say.<br />
Kathy Rain is a sparkling, totally-too-cool-for-school alt rocker gem of a point-and-click adventure game. On the surface, it's a mystery story about a misanthropic college girl-cum-detective who is brought back from college to her quaint hometown due to the passing of a family member. The usual investigation- finding clues, following up on leads, <strike>putting rubber chickens in pulleys</strike> combining objects in your inventory is the name of the game. As adventure games go, it is not terribly hard (or perhaps I'm just getting more used to the usual logic of p-n-c adventure designers) but also none of the puzzles are designed to be intentionally obtuse, as often occurs.<br />
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My inner 16-year-old Smashing Pumpkins-fan loner self loves Kathy Rain. The goth chicks at my high school scoffed at Titanic posters with *exactly* her smirk. Kathy is all abut ripping on the excesses and ridiculousnesses of late-20th century American culture, from her Jesus-and-DiCaprio-loving roomate to Captain Kangaroo and lazy law enforcement. If you're more than 18 years old, this game is like time-traveling, complete with the corded phones, phone books, tape recorders, Nirvana clothing styles, and, come on... 'Eileen'? :) The fact that that aspect of the game is so believable is a big credit to the developers, Clifftop Games. <span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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Beneath the eyebrow piercing, raven-dyed, perma-snarky veneer of Kathy's, this game is basically Stranger Things, as a video game, with more 90's nostalgia than 80's (game is actually set in '95). You have all the David Lynchian "American Gothic" Suburbia, the damaged-goods girl from the broken-home, with an overlay of surrealist psyche-diving paranormal activity. Why are all these mysterious killings happening in our beautiful Edward Scissorhands-like town? What made Kathy so damn snarky and alcoholic? Where are her parents? <br />
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I really liked the way that the long history / psycho-geography of the Rain family narrative is woven in -- from an upstanding World War II hero 'Pillar of the Community' who spawned a rebellious Kerouac-ian Hells Angel whose neglect gave way to the barbed, troubled alt-chick protagonist. Kathy Rain at its core is perhaps about the subconscious cycles of trauma that echo through time. It is inward gazing, at times -- you literally play INSIDE Kathy at certain points -- but thankfully without resorting to annoying levels of omphaloskepsis. Excessive whining and crying the second tear, was, after all, another signature of the 90's (coughAlanisMorissettecough). <br />
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So, storytelling wise? Kathy Rain kicks ass.<br />
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All in all, I give Kathy Rain 4.5 tear-flavored raindrops out of 5. Great job, Clifftop Games!<br />
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<a href="http://www.kathyraingame.com/">Check out Kathy Rain here.</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-922496024165061560.post-74524567232618189682017-04-11T14:30:00.004-07:002017-04-11T14:37:05.767-07:00Considering Making An Indie Game? READ ME!So I've yet to do an official "post-mortem" piece on Neofeud, mostly because I'm too busy running on 52 cylinders trying to get it on Steam, get visibility and sales up as high as they can be, and everything else that goes along with releasing your first official commercial game. And RL. <br />
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But, I just read this article from Indiewatch, a horror story from a first-time developer who suffered setback after setback after setback for several years, and I felt total sympathy and absolutely had to comment. If nothing else, to help others avoid some of the of the pitfalls who are thinking about plunging into the adventure, or as I term it, "The Odyssey" of making an indie commercial game. Without further ado:<br />
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://indiewatch.net/2017/04/01/how-to-make-your-game-when-the-world-falling-apart/">HOW TO MAKE A GAME WHEN THE WORLD IS FALLING APART AROUND YOU</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #a19999; font-family: "lato"; font-size: 16px;">For me, making a game seemed like a brilliant idea! I’ve wanted to make one as far back as when the Atari 2600 was considered the most powerful console. So why not give it a try? It would be a good life experience and I also would be doing something I enjoy. What could possibly go wrong?</span></blockquote>
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My response:<br />
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"A great read, and a wild trip man. Good to hear that you came out of it. As an indie dev who blew 2 1/2 years on a game with a different set of trials and tribulations, I can only say, I empathize. You're making the best decision of your gamedev career at this point to do something small, and the second best decision of your career to work on your game solo. I'm going to badly paraphrase Doom's creator, John Romero now: "You don't just make Doom. First, make Pong. Then, make Space Invaders. Then make Mario. Then, eventually, you make Doom." Which is to say, it sounds really great to want to just make that giant MMO right off the bat, and it seems like a waste of time to work on these smaller projects that probably won't net much revenue at all, but this mindset is truly the biggest pitfall.<br />
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Gamedev is in many ways more complex than film-making, which is one of the most complex and risky endeavors you can take on. You are going to make mistakes, just like the first time you ride a bike, or the first time you buy a house. Making the mistakes early, on a small project, before things can get painful, expensive, and full of drama and potentially lawsuits, is the way to go. I always plan for everything to go 4x as bad and take 4x as long as I think, and I calculate into the schedule all of these Black Swan disasters, like my computer exploding and two of my backup drives being lost or stolen simultaneously. So I have 6 backups. I have literally had multiple backups go out simultaneously, so I have not regretted the decision.<br />
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Plan to have anyone that you bring into a project abandon that project at some point unless they are making enough money to pay all their bills *during the project*. This is why I brought zero people onto my project when I made my first official commercial game. It took me over a decade to get enough experience to do the writing, art, programming, music, and half the voice acting for my game, and I realize that is not a price that everyone is willing to pay. But then you could also spend ten thousand dollars, and years of your life trying to skip ahead, only to wind up with nothing, also. Again, Romero made 300-something games over the course of more than a decade before he made Doom.<br />
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At any rate, good luck with your next game, and I truly hope that it succeeds for you this time!"Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03543938082596144748noreply@blogger.com0