Sorry it's been so long since the last update. I had two things I wanted to share this time around. The first is an update on the prototype, including some screenshots. The second is some thoughts on how I want to treat cybernetics in my world, and an invitation for you to join me in some readings and discussions about it on Discord.

Prototype Update

A lot of my time recently has been spent reimagining and redesigning our clue collection mechanics. What I really want from this is to create a detective game that encourages exploration, where clues peak your curiosity just enough to pull you forward instead of the plot dragging you along. Since Elizabeth, our protagonist, has enhanced sight and hearing on account of her cybernetics, we've focused on making using those senses interesting.

Below is an experiment with our "radar" mechanic. By focusing, Elizabeth can locate far off sound sources. Snippets appear atop her head as the waves hit her. In this prototype scenario, Elizabeth is looking for a missing person who's "holo" (a kind of new cellphone with a holographic display) was last heard from in Stanley Park. Without much of a lead beyond that, she just has to explore anything that seems out of the ordinary.

For example, why does she hear a violin?

The other feature is her enhanced sight: the ability to see more than the naked eye and analyze it at a glance.

These overheard snippets and captured images are collected in an inventory screen, where Elizabeth can consider them by engaging in a dialogue with her HUD (Heads Up Display), a talking avatar that is the manifestation of her cybernetic systems.

Anyway, it's coming along. All these clue collection mechanics are going to come together with a yet-unnanounced system that I'm very excited about but is still in the early stages of its design. It'll push players to engage more deeply in thinking about the characters they're meeting and their motivations.

We're taking a break from advancing the prototype for the next few weeks as we're preparing an application to the Canadian Media Fund. It's quite a bit of work, but if we're successful, we'll have some funding to work on this full time and really play with these mechanics.

Cyber-Selfhood

In regards to our world and character, I've been thinking a lot about how I want cybernetics to factor into our game. Common themes like "how far is too far" or "are these people even still human" have very little interest to me, aside from being attitudes other characters in the world may have and the protagonist would have to contend with. "Human" is not so stable a concept to begin with, and for big swaths of our history many people have been excluded from it. "Human" will adapt to mean whatever it needs to mean, and people will just mean whoever we imagine as members of our community.

I'm also not interested in just importing a lot of tropes and assumptions from "cyberpunk." Punk is dead in my world, relegated to just another brand you can get printed on your t-shirt.

In my world, I think progress did not so much revert as die. Technology didn't become the menace we all feared it would be, because new technology just cost to much to make. It's a lot easier to keep selling ever more fragile smart phones than develop something that revolutionizes the very concepts of "tool" and "man".

Cybernetics were a failed experiment tested on the poor and grifted upon the rich. Wealthy parents, like Elizabeth's, paid to have their child augmented at birth. The results were tragic. After the deaths of many in the first wave, and what came out about the corners cut by the research company, the entire enterprise was discontinued. Some, like Elizabeth, survived without litter suffering, but she lives with senses and intuitions that make her insight uncanny.

It's something that came in handy, dealing with clients as a sex worker in Toronto. It's something that still comes in handy as a Private Eye in Vancouver.

What really interests me is not classifying "what" these people are, are they "human" or are they "not," but how they understand themselves, and how people from different places and different upbringings can come up with very different answers to that question, even if they don't think that's a question they've ever answered at all.

Anyway, I really want to start digging into some social history and philosophy around cybernetics, not necessarily to find ideas I'll agree with but just survey all the ground that's already been covered. I'm going to start with The Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway, an essay classified as "cyber-feminism" written in the 80s. Not sure what that means yet, but I'm excited to find out.

In fact, I invite you to find out with me. If you have any interest in reading this stuff with me, or just discussing it as I dump random thoughts and excerpts I find as I read, you should join me. We have a Discord now. I've included an invite for it below. I'm going to be creating a new "cybernetics" channel inside where we can chat about this stuff. I hope to see you there.

Until next time. Farewell!

Discord Invite Link! Click Here to Join!

Brook Jensen