Independent game design from beyond the grave
Last year I started working on a few new game concepts. One was entitled, “Plastic.” I haven’t really touched it since then but I recently reread the doc and thought y’all might like to see a diagram (“The Fame Monster”) I created for the game. Allure, Talent and Style are the characters’ attributes. Exposure, Fame and Worth are resources. The Eye, The Biz and The Public are GM-controlled entities—the media, producers and consumers.
Snow Crash / Lady Gaga / JG Ballard / Douglas Copeland / Cory Doctorow / Chuck Palahniuk / Videodrome / Underground / FreeMarket / Borat / Mark Leyner / Warren Ellis / Grant Morrison
What if everything that was happening all the time everywhere happened to happen all at once?
We don’t stop for anyone. We’re plastic but we’ll still have fun.
She’s naked of course and there’s a pink and gold serpent skin print running down her body, shimmering in the hot, bright stage lights. On every side, thousands of screaming fangirls aping her makeup and hairstyles from the last album, the one they downloaded from the net. In the heat and the tumult of crashing bodies, sweat dripping down their faces, they look a mess. But not like her. She’s perfect. Millions of dollars of perfection. Her Scute™ is synced to the sound and light show going on around her and at a pre-programmed moment, the stage is blasted with white-hot incandescence and her skin, hair and nails turn jet black. She’s a living shadow, dancing in the hot sweet rhythms of the #1 song in the nation and her fans are freaking the fuck out.
After the show, she collapses. Her manager throws her into a tub of ice water and her body temp re-regulates. That’s the problem with this model: heat waste. She’s almost a gynoid at this point. Fake skin, fake nails, fake eyes, fake hair. Fake fake fake but more real than anything else is the money she’s pulling in for these shows. A great investment, thinks the manager. Well worth the expenditure. Well worth the cost. She’ll be asleep for a few hours and then they’ll slap on some stimulant snaps to wake her up so she can do the next show. Everything is prepared for her arrival. Everything is running smooth and on time. Just let her sleep.
Dozens converge on them, waves breaking over a single black rock. Bodies pressed against warm steel, fingers splayed against black glass that can stop small-caliber gunfire. Inside the car, neon-pink cocktails are mixed, poured, flavored, shared, sipped and savored. The One with the Hair unzips her blouse and struggles out of a clingy, stretchy top the color of the moon over Los Angeles. She’s a wispy, jittery thing made of cotton candy and flower petals.
“You got snaps?”
The other passenger flashes a plastic film about the size of credit card. “Scute™-compatible.” she says. The One with the Hair plucks it from her friend’s hand. She holds it against her skin until her snaps’ receptors grab hold of the film and bond it with her skin. “Ugh, this one is Japanese.” she says, her nose crinkling. “It’s all breast augs.”
Her friend motions “give it here” and says, “Let me have it then. I left my mobsofts are back at the hotel.” The One with the Hair ejects the film and peels it from her skin.
“I like the ‘Fun Shapes’ better.” she says as her friend slaps the snapware onto the back of her neck. A few seconds later and her Scute reconfigures to the new proportions, complete with a shift in coloration. “Too tight?” she asks and the One with the Hair shakes her head, “No, just right.”
The driver pulls away onto the street and the car accelerates to city-travel speeds somewhere between “maniac cab driver” and “subway.” The girls inside load Scute-talk into their carrie-alls and link the portable devices to receptors in their hips.
The One with the Hair holds her friend’s hand and places it on her heart. So where we headed?
Uptown.
She watches the feed on her wrist. Video plays across her flawless white skin. She flips through the channels until she sees the car. Overhead, a helicopter churns the air as it races over the rooftops, its cameras trained on the limo.
They’re covering us.
Her friend glances down at the wrist video. “Oh, yeah.” Check the ratings?
Middling. A sigh.
Should we roll down the windows? Sunroof? Make out?
Pandering. Just let it be… I’m tired anyway and the car’s paid for. She leans forward and rests her head in her friend’s lap. Her turquoise eyes flutter closed. Pale pink eyelids and butterfly lashes.
