Jeez. You did not have to go French on us. I mean fair. The trailer and the thing we released just now looks a little more like a quaint public park or cluttered weird back yard. Fair.
This is the trouble with “theming.” Right? No need to answer that, I am right because I have thought about this a lot. Ok. Look around your room right now. (Insert funny description of dirty room, and embarrassing object.) If your name is Wayne. Your room is themed to “Wayne.”
It’s like when you are a nurse -If you were I mean, and you go to a Halloween party as a nurse. That’s some real BS Kathleen. I remember. We all remember.
If you are in a theme park and it looks unkempt (yes that is spelled right) like say, Animal Kingdom. Careful, perfect disarray. That’s theming. You go to like a Six Flags and you see the same electrical wiring hanging in clusters from a pole. That’s not theming, that’s an OSHA violation.
So theming can be vague. And when it looks too sloppy or to “lived in” it can start to cross over into something else. Let’s look at HOW FREAKING MANY LEVELS DEEP WE ARE with this build.
Top level. You put on a headset. You go into the... You’re in there. Fake reality.
Next. The game loads(awkwardly) into a little room. You are not actually in the park. And the evidence is that you are sneaking into said park.
Next. You are in a theme park.
Next. The theme park has been themed to be under construction. Like, we themed the theme park as under construction, because it is. So we put little tools and stuff scattered around. Aren’t we cute? I have no idea anymore. Everyone’s face on the street is vacant. What if we learn in some sci fi real future that Covid actually did rewire everyone and that’s why everyone is.
Next. Sorry. Next. Now you get a hint that someone built the theme park. Not us. In the world of the game thing. Imagineers or whatever non-copyrighted thing we can call them. We have pseudonyms in the game world you might spot. Or not. I honestly can’t keep track of the builds. I might be talking about stuff that’s not in the one you’re looking at. It’s impossible to know. But anyway. Our real selves really building a fake theme park have real identities in the fake world as if we were doing theme park construction tasks in the fake world (But we are doing those things in the real world.)
Next. Yeah it keeps going. This park is not a theme park like other theme parks. It’s a dream theme park. Because seriously in your dreams that you have of theme parks. (You do that. Yeah? No? Yeah? See. Dead vacant stares.) Anyway in your dream theme park. Please tell me that you’re not dreaming of the park being designed to house 100k people at once. That’s so novice. We want a personal park. Small. Intimate. No blisters. No 1 mile hike to the next E ticket. If you could have your own theme park. F that noise. Also. I want to be able to pick things up. I trust me to do that. All sorts of things are possible. I don’t think this bullet point really fits with the others. But I don’t want to delete it because it took several minutes to type.
Next. There are clues that the theme park was built for a reason, by people with a back story. In a world with a back story. And that’s like 3-4 levels. Not just one. We’re DEEP in there now.
Next. Not in this build so I don’t even know why I’m telling you. The park itself has a sort of secondary story of it’s lived in experience. This game story takes place in a few timelines. Or maybe it never will. We could literally get bored with this whole thing and quit at any time. Kidding not kidding... We are like that. And I for one have tried to quit multiple times. As recent as at the beginning of this article. But we just keep coming back because it’s a good idea and fun.
Anyway. I’m tired of writing now. There are probably more nexts. But the thing I’m getting at is that once you put yourself in the headset. The story loop can be very deep. As you are immersed in levels of detail. But the funny thing is always “theming” because it never stops. You’re making a fake thing that is inherently already fake. And once you realize that sort of Nathan Fielder spiral. You just keep going. But the funnier® thing is that the spiral ends at the same place. It’s a video game. It’s the top level and the bottom level.
I just sat and stared at the keyboard for an amount of time that I cannot really explain. Could have been 1 minute. Could have been the gulf of all time. Impossible to know. But I am so over this. Building games. Fun. Trying to talk you into using your precious heartbeats to try it is exhausting. It’s hard to make anything you care about.
Like. It’s full of flaws and personal decisions you can’t decide if they are the details that make a thing special. Or if they are just gross and bad. And you see them one day and love them and see them the next and are so embarrassed by them you want to crawl into your own mouth and implode. If you’re reading this, thanks and why?
And to wrap up what I got sidetracked about from the headline. Way up there. Yeah, The Early Access build is not a lot of rides and standard amusement tropes right now. What you are seeing in this build. That’s like 5 builds behind what we’re looking at internally. But believe us. What you are looking at is the THEMEiest® of theme parks. It’s so full of themeing that it’s almost Ouroborosean. BOOM! That is a word to end on. I should have ended it. Let’s pretend I did. Follow the lanterns, new land in this build.
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