Silurian Emergence

[gordonclandis]

All right, since Silurian Emergence is nearly done, I guess I should put up a thread for it. Family business will steal some time tomorrow, but Sunday is clear, so while I may go down to the wire, it’ll get served in time.

This dish is coming into existence despite the fact that I fought very, very hard to NOT make it. It’s way too . . . what we used to call “pervy” for my usual tastes. It, like Ben Lehman’s game, runs the risk of not being seen as an RPG by some folks (and even I’m not totally sure, though by virtue of cards created in-play it passes Mike Holmes’ “smaller infinity” test). It uses parts of my SNAP system, but not the parts that are supposedly the most important, and it adds its’ own complexities when I thought my in-the-making game designer principles would be for simplicity in all things. The utilization of the ingredients involves scientific disciplines about which I am far from an expert.

But I googled-up entomology, and found an article about a possible Silurian insect fossil. I found the site. And the damn thing wouldn’t let go. My game of lovers and other companions accusing each other of various transgressions in the mid-nineties California wine country may never get made . . . .unless perhaps I don’t sleep Saturday and Sunday night. And trying to build some kind of game via association with that invincible Companion in the Zephrem Cochrane Star Trek episode is just right out.

A brief taste of the dish I will actually serve – in Silurian Emergence, each OC (Ordovician Cephalopod, remember?) chooses a single attribute of that culture that he or she wishes to see persist through the ages. It might be Romantic Love, or Tolerance, or Inventiveness, or Passion, or Respect for All Life, or . . . whatever. This is the only “stat” for the OC – it begins rated at 10, and unless it is increased to at least 20, the OC can not be certain that that cultural attribute will persist. For the cephalopods have found a way for a disembodied sentience to exist through the ages by embracing a companion lifeform. An engineered lifeform created by the sophisticated biochemical technology of the cephalopods – a particular insect, and its’ evolving forms. And they have also found a way for that lifeform to affect sentience, if and when thinking minds should ever again emerge from the blindly evolving struggle of species down the ages. If, that is, the insect companion can survive, and thrive.

Gordon

[gordonclandis]

Shame is upon me. What looked like a trivial amont of "polish" has turned into an unresolvable mess. That Silurian Emergence should fail to be completed for this contest MIGHT be an excuse not to finish it at all - an excuse I've been looking for ever since the damn thing caught my creative muse and wouldn't let it go. But I'm afraid I can't let that happen - the game will be finished. I give myself another two weeks, and set the quality bar a bit higher.

Ba. The chef is disgraced. But the dish lives on . . .

Gordon