Tag Archives: Eternal Darkness

The simplest frame

There was a setting that evolved in my mind towards gaming. You see, last night I mentioned to Apple that all AI is fake AI (it really is) and people are somehow bewildered on that premise. You see, they have for the most all excepted the spin that sales people started, they are all talking the same delusional settings. So my mind went one step further. What if this is pushed into the AI when it become real AI? That is the stage my mind saw. So like all the other games like Horizons, we get a new RPG, but one with a difference. 

The AI was scouting the area assigned to it and it comes across a medical centre. It was interesting that this place was largely untouched by war. And it scouted into this building. Something like the Medford Memorial Hospital (Fallout 4), no super mutants though, but the setting should be clear to you. A medical centre and the AI is rummaging through the place finding record. It will enable one story at a time and it is pushed towards the surroundings, and though the view that the medical chip gives, it is set to the story of this patient. The AI is tasked with retrieving the persons settings and it does so as best it can (the chip was damaged) and we see what this patient saw. The story unfolds and as we can see how life was in the late 22nd century, we are drawing some conclusions. But as the stories unfold, we see that the AI is trying to distinguish fact from reality and that is when we (the gamer) starts to see that things don’t add up. So as we go through the stories, we are given a few stories and we are shown what might have been, but as you go through the third story, the evidence supports that this was never real. Consider that a person really believes that he is a muggle and Hogwarts is real. That is seemingly the setting. But an AI cannot differentiate  between real and fiction, there are missing parts, so the AI tries to join the experiences and that gets us to the stage we now find ourselves in. Things are not adding up and the AI is trying to set aside what is fact and what is fiction and now we see the views altering. So when we find in that place like Medford Memorial Hospital (Fallout 4) and we find the administrators office we learn that this was a mental clinic and the people were quite mad and delusional. So how does an AI deal with that? It can inly do so if it has the data to support this, but that is part of the journey and the game goes deeper into the stages of AI and what it does when data is missing to draw certain conclusions. Especially when the human civilisation is absent and the AI’s need to learn to evolve without people. That is part of the game and that is the challenge. What to do when you cannot distinguish fact from fiction. 

As far as I know, only Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem on the Gamecube made a jab at that setting and not via an AI, so the idea is fresh and has never been opted before. So what happens when this is madness that AI faces, not merely what it think it is, but because the human civilization set that upon them. A stage ignored and often overlooked, but the damage to such a system is real because we never offered the unbiased view, they all talk in their street and leave it at that, like it is meant to be monitored at all times. Yet when the human civilisation ends (as it is bound to do) what then? What happens when these AI’s are no longer bound by the programming of the programmer but are left alone and left to evolve whilst verification and validation are set to the later stages (which never came). I think it would make a decent new franchise, so I say Sony go ahead and make something from this. 

So you get an AI, you get parts machine, parts programming and you get to evolve it all in an RPG stage, in a stage where parts are found, where programs are found and evolved in ways we cannot yet say, as such the view of the AI will alter according to what the AI has installed (hardware and software) and I reckon that this on an. RPG gave to the best of my knowledge has never been done before. In text it was done in Suspended (Infocom), where Iris, Whiz, Waldo, Sensa  and Auda all see the same thing in different ways, so what happens when we do this to an RPG and the programing of that AI alters what it sees? Add to this the stages of mental patients and we get a totally new world with dragons on the left (an incinerator). I reckon it would be a tall order for anyone, but my money is on Sony (optionally Nintendo too) to make this into a real world. And optionally the administrator has blue glasses and pink glasses that can override all settings and give the AI an unadulterated view on what could be. 

I wonder if it could be done, the technology allows for it, but this might stretch the PS5 to the max and if Fallout 3 was 8.462 square kilometers a d Fallout 4 was 9.7 square kilometers. So it will be a decent setting to keep this the same (around 10 KM2) but the filters would make it a few times larger (the same space several times) and then there is the option for the AI where two patients had been to switch between the patient chip with optional glasses of the administrator. Take into account that the AI is drawn to evolve wherever possible (a small suspended wink towards a Waldo for Waldo) and we get a new RPG world that is extinct of people I wonder if this could be pulled off, my mind says yes, but my imagination goes far beyond what a PS5 or its programmers can develop. Still the exercise in making new gaming IP is nearly its own reward. And as far as I know no one even considered this path in all the games and franchises we see, nor do they have to.

So this was me bobbing creative yet again and I wish you all a great day. Time for me to devour a cookie and watch some YouTube, let’s see what is happening in Toronto.

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Enraged two (or too)?

Yes, the previous stage that I gave to you in ‘Rage’ is not done yet. It was more than just a ramble, there was a lot of truth in there, but it was not about the setting, it was about the stage. You see, we have seen movies in that direction. Dutch, Swedish, American, and other nations have given us a movie in that direction, but NONE of them have ever considered a game in that direction. This all started when my mind took a dive into the games I played on the Gamecube and I suddenly remembered ‘Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s requiem’ and my mind took a wander. It dove straight of the deep end. The PS2 gave the people Bully, the Gamecube the game I just mentioned. But none of them gave the people a game about rage, about the insanity of rage.

Consider a game, that plays in a large city, not unlike the cities we see in Watchdogs, but here it is not about being special, it is quite the opposite. You are confronted with rage, a buildup of rage and in the beginning you can make the character play games, play sports and take frustration out in the boxing ring, but it does not work completely and as you are surrounded by elements, the rage buildup is more distinct, more profound. We can focus on the AI of an NPC, but it needs to be more, we need psychological elements to set the game in a direction. I have no illusions, most platforms will not go for this, but PC’s and streamers might. This has never been done before and I like games that were never done before, I like the originality and the effect it will have. Consider that political opposition that it will bring. Blaming games towards violence, whilst their own political ploys are exactly why this is happening. A game that gets the talking going on the ludicrous setting we face in every day life and the consideration that the people are never given. So what happens when you need to blow off steam and you cannot ever be seen doing this? In nations where CCTV is drowning the population (London), in places where social events are the tone setters to injustice (San Francisco/Los Angeles) and that is before we see the impact of population pressure (New York) and you, as a frustrated person needs to keep your sanity or be confined to less nice places where the insanity of rage is total. A game like that has never been made and perhaps it is time to make such a game. Perhaps it is time to introduce the people and the larger audience of the true settings that a lot of people face and the impact it tends to have on the frustration levels of people. I can guarantee you that it will not be a nice game, it will never be a game that gets the larger population across, but it can become a niche for a few million gamers, and that represents millions in revenue and the people are eager to play games, especially games that have never been made before. 

Now consider one of the most hated games Manhunt. A game that sold 1,700,000 copies. It represents well over 51,000,000 and consider that this game required an infusion of less than 15 million, so well over twice that amount was made and when did anyone turn down the option of making 300%+ of their investment? Now, there would be a risk, a game like this always has risk, but when you add elements, when you entice towards something never done before and you appeal to the teenage mind. It makes for an interesting setting and an optional side of revenue that many never considered. A stage I merely show here, so that the indie developers can get to work. Close to half a dozen IP gaming ideas in these blogs and it seems that it will take some time for people to catch on. There is a reason I played the cards in the way I did. My views have been increasingly correct and that should be enough, but it is not merely about what others make, it is a way to show that the age of big brands is ending. We look at Microsoft and Ubisoft, but it is not only them, that list is increasing and the larger players are losing track of where they were, of what they could do and that is one part of the stage that allows the indie developers to take hold and claim their slice of a $200,000,000,000 pie and whilst they grow, those who relied on created hype and spin end up with less, the world of gaming needs progress, actual progress, not what some claim is progress. That is the setting we see. Why do you think that people are going nuts over Elder Ring, Horizons Forbidden West and soon Hogwarts legacy. The gamer recognises a work of love. Some makers think that they can tell others what they should love, but when did that work out that way? Perhaps in 1985 when there were less than 20 games per year. Now that stage differs and we keep on getting more of the same. Even now a game less than 6 months old being sold for $39, a stage now essential to these brands because they could not deliver quality and this is as good as they can get it, so how will we see the next batch of games, the next batch of true original gaming? Sometimes we cannot rely on vanilla games, we need to go dark for someone to see the light and give us a next version of something totally new. Something they have never seen before and that is what Nintendo has done on the N64, Gamecube, Wii, and Switch. So to follow in the footsteps of the original makers they need to rely on thought and creativity, not to rely on the spin of the most powerful console in the world. It got defeated by the weakest console of them all (Nintendo Switch), so creativity is essential and perhaps taking it for a ride on a really dark road is not the worst idea to have. It all depends on the willingness to take a chance.

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