It was midnight and I was alone in my room, talking with the Seaman on my Dreamcast. Seaman was asking about my love life and I felt embarrassed to admit I didnāt have one (this was many years ago before I was married). Seaman wondered, āOk, I want to ask you something. This one is a serious one, so no joking around. Tell me, do you like yourself?ā
I couldnāt believe a game was asking me if I liked myself. What was more confusing though was that I wasnāt sure how to answer.
Dr. Seaman
Seaman is a game unlike any other. Iām not sure even sure you could call it a game as itās more of a virtual pet that you raise. Developed by Japanese studio, Vivarium Inc., and narrated by the late Leonard Nimoy, the Seaman has a historical background thatās as mysterious as the experience surrounding it. A Dr. Jean Paul GassĆ© began looking for a creature in Egypt that was an āomnipotent messenger of godsā and helped conveyed special knowledge to humanity early in its history. Through decades of research, he was able to make startling discoveries in connection with ancient Egypt and the evolution of Seaman.
Your actual interactions with the game are minimal. You raise the temperature, turn on the lights, make sure the tank stays oxygenated, and feed the creatures. But Seaman presents some dark truths about nature very early on. The egg you drop gives birth to multiple Mushroomers, which represent the Seaman in its earliest stage. You have to get the Nautilus inside the tank to eat as many of the Mushroomers as it can. Eventually, the mushroomers will feed on the Nautilusā organs from inside and literally burst out of its skin. Itās like an Alien, only with a fish body and a weird human face.
Early on, the Gillman makes gibberish sounds that mimic a baby and actually sound adorable. But give it a few days and it starts talking with you in a hoarse, grouchy tone. Communication with the Gillman is important for their growth as it helps them to learn language. This is when it starts asking questions about your age, your birthday, your job, and whether you think the internet should be censored. You answer via the microphone included with the game that gets plugged into the VMU slot in your controller. Gillman, for the most part, is responsive.
Part of the gameās genius (or frustration depending on your perspective) is it made evolution very slow. As a player, you have to be committed to spending a little bit of every day with the Seaman. You canāt just binge your way through the experience (unless you cheat by changing the internal clock on the Dreamcast). Everyday, you come back, raise the temperature and oxygen levels, chat with Seaman, tickle it, feed it, then wait and see if something happens. If you check back too frequently, Nimoy will even chide you for your repeated visits.
The game basks in its weirdness and sticks to its identity with a tenacity that treats those who might object with an insolence akin to the Seaman who will flick its poo at the screen if you irritate it.
But embrace its quirky rules, go along for the journey, and youāll be rewarded with monologues that are as odd as they are prescient:
āYou know, Iām really getting the impression that you people are busy all the time,ā Seaman states. āMaybe itās just here in America, which is such a business obsessed culture. It seems like everyone is always complaining about not having any spare time, but when they get some, they donāt know what to do with it, because theyāre used to being busy. Itās strange that knowing how to relax appears to have become a skill you humans have to learn. You seem to know how to relax, if youāre talking to me. But I want to know what else you do in your spare time?ā
My spare time? I donāt have much, but Iām spending this Thanksgiving Day interacting with Kotaku readers and talking about Seaman.
āYou know what Iāve noticed? People love to talk. Usually if you ask a person the right questions, they can go on for hours. I mean, why else would you have me around if you didnāt like a good conversation every once in a while? I think thatās also what makes a good friend if theyāre willing to listen to you spout off about something, you just have to make sure you let them talk once in a while too, so you donāt bore them to death.ā
While Seaman is a pet, I wondered, can it also become a friend?
Friendship With SeamanĀ
The idea, and possibilities of a friendship with an AI, is brilliantly explored in the Spike Jonze film, Her, where an OS (operating system), Samantha, ends up becoming the protagonistās best friend. The most fascinating part of the film is that Samantha just seemed like a more advanced Siri. I didnāt think it was a big leap to assume that as technology keeps on getting better, this could actually happen in the near future, especially (and Iām sad to admit this) as I sometimes spend more time swiping through apps and checking social media than talking with my friends.
Seaman was a precursor to all of that, the first time I really wondered, could an AI become a friend with a human being? The game had its limitations, but for a virtual simulator, it had genuine moments of shock. Like the fate of the Gillman, the mating process of the Podfish, and the emergence of the Seamanās final form, the Frogman. Leonard Nimoy even goes onto speculate about the history of the Seaman, a tragic tale involving a forbidden relationship, the Egyptian gods, and an unfinished pyramid.
Who knew that all along, Seaman was a love story?
I really enjoyed my talks with Seaman. Although Iāve long stopped playing anything on the Dreamcast, I still occasionally visit Seaman. Theyāre still alive, out in the wild, asking me questions about my life. Will they one day evolve into something more? Is there some special coding the engineers programmed in that allow them to change into a super Seaman AI a thousand years from now?
I donāt know if Iād go so far as to call Seaman a friend. But the fact that I think about them, that I even wonder how theyāre doing, makes me marvel at what Vivarium was able to accomplish by asking players a few questions.
