Constellation Games Read online

  * * *

  OMJennyG: I have leftover cue from Eddie's bday party

  We joined a pack of other cyclists at the onramp. Five miles out, a thick stream of cars started passing us up, plus the occasional overhead helicopter. Eight miles out we passed those same cars, now stalled in a traffic jam, honking their horns. Twelve miles out, we encountered a select group of assholes who'd decided to take their cars over the fence into the bike lane and spread the traffic jam there.

  "We may not get to the moon today," said Jenny.

  Some of the bicyclists turned around; others walked their bikes through the traffic jam. We walked ours over another wrecked fence through the mud onto the grass, and ate lunch on top of a hill.

  "It's only a couple miles away," I said. "Maybe we can at least see the ships land."

  "Who's that?" said Jenny, and pointed. It was an old hippie with a walking stick, heading through the meadow away from the landing site, back towards Austin.

  "Oh, geez," I said.

  "Don't be picky," said Jenny. "Maybe he saw something. Watch my bike." She got up and ran off to flag the hippie down.

  The hippie was about seventy, real wiry and muscular, naval tattoos up and down his arms. Classic local color. The first thing he said to me was: "Ya know, that used to be a living thing."

  I looked up from my spare rib. "Uh, yeah," I said, "it's barbecue."

  "There's coleslaw and potato salad," Jenny told him. "Corn on the cob." Hippie allowed as how he would eat some coleslaw, and crouched on the grass.

  "What's it like over there?" asked Jenny.

  "Just what you'd think," said the hippie. "National Guard, spooks, NASA, Homeland Security, all fallin' into each other's assholes." Another helicopter flew overhead.

  "So they're not even letting us in," said Jenny.

  "They're not guarding it," said the hippie, "except by accident, by sheer numbers. They're arguing over jurisdiction. Bunch of lions fighting over a zebra carcass." He nodded at the sticky beef rib in my hands. "No offense."

  "Don't bring NASA into your wildlife analogies," I said. "NASA's the good guys."

  "NASA has always been a civilian fig leaf for the militarization of space."

  "Dude!" I said, "Nobody eats my coleslaw and disses NASA." I always thought when the police blotter said a fight started over a "philosophical dispute", it was a euphemism, but maybe not.

  "My coleslaw," said Jenny.

  The hippie gave Jenny a look like: whoa, that was the last straw for that guy! "I was part of a civilian weapons inspection team in the nineties," he said. "You want to get in there? Go home, come back with a suit in a dry cleaning bag. Change when you get there, come out from behind one of the towncars, act like you belong there."

  "Sounds like a good way to get shot," said Jenny.

  "Well, go on and live a little," said the hippie. "I probably won't live to see it, but you kids are going to see the end of the human race."

  "Why are you so cynical?" I said. "This isn't an alien invasion. They're friendly. You think they're pretending to be nice so they can eat us?"

  "Intentions don't matter," said the hippie. "Read your history. Any time there's a first contact, the contactees end up dead."

  The cars stopped honking and some car doors opened. "Here comes a ship," said Jenny.

  The hippie turned and we watched the bullet-shaped shuttle drop whining out of the sky. A thing designed by people from other planets and made from pieces of our moon: superstructured glass and cerametal. The shuttle flared and landed silently behind a rise.

  "Why'd you go to the landing site?" I asked the hippie. "You must have been the first one there. You want to get wiped out first?"

  The hippie kicked back the leftover vinegar like a shot. "'M curious," he said. "We're all curious. That's what gets us killed." He stood up. "Thanks for the coleslaw. Better get back." He picked up his stick and headed towards Austin.

  "Man," I said when the hippie was out of earshot, "I thought hippies were supposed to be all optimistic and shit."

  We ate our cold barbecue. The cars resumed honking and trying to turn around. Before too long the shuttle took off again, rising like the chorus of a song, empty.

  Private text chat, June 11

  Smoke-ccsspm-6be8 Hello, Ariel. I am a submind of Smoke, Ring City's general-purpose cognition engine.

  My cognitive address is Smoke-Cursive-Cytoplasm-Snakebite-Singsong-Polychromatic-Musteline.

  In a recent email, you asked to be matched with a member of the contact expedition. I'm evaluating your application.

  Please answer questions with YES or NO. Do you understand?

  * * *

  ABlum: NO

  * * *

  Smoke-ccsspm-6be8: My supermind tells me you're being sarcastic, so I'll continue.

  Sometimes two humans have the same name. I think I know which Ariel Blum you are, but tell me if I'm wrong.

  I think you're the human partially or wholly responsible for the following works of art:

  "Recoil"

  "Pôneis Brilhantes 4: Problemas com Pôneis"

  "Me and Sonic at the Amusement Park"

  Is this right?

  * * *

  ABlum: man, i wrote that sonic fanfic in junior high school

  * * *

  Smoke-ccsspm-6be8: Please answer YES or NO.

  * * *

  ABlum: YEEEEEEES

  YES

  * * *

  [Smoke-ccsspm6be8 is now offline.]

  * * *

  ABlum: wtf

  Smoke-ccssp-65290: Hello, Ariel.

  My cognitive address is Smoke-Cursive-Cytoplasm-Snakebite-Singsong-Polychromatic.

  One of my subminds recommended that I talk to you.

  Please answer in English prose. Do not use idioms.

  * * *

  ABlum: where did the other guy go?

  * * *

  Smoke-ccssp-65290: I don't know who you're referring to.

  My Musteline submind is busy identifying other people.

  My supermind is waiting to speak with you, pending the resolution of some concerns regarding your treatement of fictional characters.

  Shall we begin?

  * * *

  ABlum: hey, some of my best friends are fictional characters

  most of them, actually

  * * *

  Smoke-ccssp-65290: What was your role in the creation of "Recoil"?

  * * *

  ABlum: uh

  i mostly worked on the enemy ai

  so if you think about it, i was actually on the side of the fictional characters for that one

  * * *

  Smoke-ccssp-65290: In "Me and Sonic at the Amusement Park", why did you connect a fictional person to an electrical generator, in violation of Article 6 of your planet's Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

  * * *

  ABlum: i don't remember that

  but probably because i was in fucking junior high

  and i didn't know how electricity works

  * * *

  [Smoke-ccssp-65290 is now offline.]

  Smoke-ccss-b85b07: Hello, Ariel. My cognitive address is Smoke-Cursive-Cytoplasm-Snakebite-Singsong. One of my subminds recommended that I talk to you.

  Please answer in English prose. You may use idioms.

  * * *

  ABlum: hi, smoke-cursive-cytoplasm-snakebite-singsong

  * * *

  Smoke-ccss-b85b07: Tell me about a time when you did something evil.

  * * *

  ABlum: oh gee

  well

  sometimes i work too hard

  is that evil?

  * * *

  Smoke-ccssb85b07: Sarcasm ignored.

  * * *

  ABlum: ok um

  when i started college, my brother raph pressured me to join the ut austin chapter of his fraternity

  and i joined, only to discover that fraternities are the stupidest forms of social organization ever invented

  so, li
ve and learn

  but

  at the end of the fall semester, one of my frat brothers offered to pay me to write his final history paper

  and i did it

  but i didn't want to get caught, so i read his earlier papers and put a lot of work into imitating his shitty writing

  which made the paper a d+ at best

  so he failed the class

  and i wouldn't give the money back

  so they made up an honor code violation and kicked me out of the frat

  and at the time i remember thinking "this has worked out surprisingly well"

  so, i don't know what you consider "evil"

  but i'm sure you can find it somewhere in there

  * * *

  [Smoke-ccss-b85b07 is now offline.]

  * * *

  ABlum: well bye

  Smoke-ccssp-65290: Smoke-Cursive-Cytoplasm-Snakebite-Singsong-Polychromatic here again.

  What would it take to get you to kill someone?

  * * *

  ABlum: fuck's sake

  i'm not killing anyone

  * * *

  Smoke-ccssp-65290: Good.

  * * *

  [Smoke-ccssp-65290 is now offline.]

  Smoke-ccs-762d: Well, if it isn't Mr. Sarcasm.

  * * *

  ABlum: YES

  * * *

  Smoke-ccs-762d: Don't quit your day job.

  I'm Smoke-Cursive-Cytoplasm-Snakebite.

  Let's get down to business.

  In your initial email, you said that you want to write reviews of electronic games from the Constellation.

  * * *

  ABlum: yeah

  Smoke-ccs-762d: Before I connect you with one of our anthropologists, I'd like to see you write a review of a human game.

  * * *

  ABlum: there are like 50 reviews on my blog

  * * *

  Smoke-ccs-762d: I've read your blog.

  To eliminate confounding variables, I'll need you to review a game that no one else has ever reviewed.

  * * *

  ABlum: have you seen the internet?

  that's a pretty tall order

  why don't you have me write some more sonic fanfic?

  * * *

  Smoke-ccs-762d: I'm confident you can rise to your occasion.

  I'll be watching your blog, Ariel.

  * * *

  [Smoke-ccs-762d is now offline.]

  * * *

  ABlum: hello?

  guess that's it

  Blog post, June 13

  GAME REVIEWS OF WARMED-OVER RESENTMENT 2.0 PRESENTS

  Quexx (2012)

  A game by Reflex Games

  Reviewed by Ariel Blum

  Publisher: unknown (in-universe), Reflex Games (real life)

  Platforms: Primary Fire Control Mainframe (in-universe), Xbox Forever/PS4 (real life)

  ESRB rating: M for getting headshot while playing

  Most people who go through Temple Sphere's story mode will come out thinking that Quexx is a fictional game-within-a-game like frungy, Imperial Marzai, or Pinochle With Guns: frequently mentioned within the game but having no official rules. These people are dead wrong.

  Quexx is an action puzzle game that, as you'll overhear if you play Temple Sphere, is sweeping the Tool of Justice space fleet and causing huge productivity loss. The Tool warrior caste is twiddling switches back and forth to release colored bubbles, instead of twiddling the switches that kill humans with lasers. This goes a long way towards explaining why they rarely notice you sneaking around their spaceships.

  Snoop on enemy transmissions with your spacesuit radio. Along with useful information about whatever mission you're on, you'll hear Tool command-castes bitching about how much time the warrior caste is wasting on Quexx, and warrior-castes swapping strategies.

  That's as deep as most people go. Even pro game reviewers are being paid to review Temple Sphere, not Quexx. But I'm not being paid, and my future as a reviewer of Constellation games depends on reviewing a game that's never before been reviewed as a game. So I'll tell you that within Temple Sphere's infiltration path you can play Quexx from any vacant Tool of Justice workstation. It's called "Multidimensional Fluid Simulation" to hide it from the officers. There's even a boss screen inside the game, showing fake battle telemetry. That's a boss screen for a game played on a simulated computer inside another game running on a real computer.

  The game itself is a clever variant on the combo-matching mechanic that has been hijacking humans' pleasure centers for twenty-five years now. Bubbles line up behind gates. You open and shut the gates, guiding the bubbles into a reaction chamber where they interact in pleasing or horrible ways. There's no opponent, but since one switch controls up to three gates, you'll find yourself taking punishment for almost every bonus you recieve.

  The big problem with Quexx is that there's nothing alien about the game. It would be perfectly at home as a ninety-nine-cent downloadable on HitBrick. Now that there are real extraterrestrials living in lunar orbit, it's time to hold fictional ETs to a higher standard. It seems strange that intelligent birds in a religious caste-based dictatorship would develop the same games as a human sitting in a cubicle in Austin or San Mateo.

  When I first heard about Quexx I admit I took it as a personal affront. I thought it was my former co-workers' way of mocking me for leaving Reflex for the world of short-term consulting contracts and femme-y "casual" games. It may seem silly to suspect Reflex of putting so much manpower into an Easter egg just to mock a former employee, but if you'd worked with these guys there's not much you'd put past them.

  And then Give 'Em Hell III came out, with the French kids and all their street games, and I mellowed a little—Reflex devs love screwing each other over, but they also love running jokes. Games-within-games are just their latest joke.

  And while it may not fit perfectly with the Temple Sphere backstory, Quexx is a real game, not a parody. It's polished and playable, and the strategies you hear from the Tool transmissions are actually good strategies. (Pro tip: clear out the Tool ship before starting to Quexx, or you'll get a laser bolt through the head before you even finish the tutorial.) It's almost like the game-within-a-game is an outlet for the Reflex devs' creativity as they crank out a game with identical mechanics every sixteen months.

  (Confidential to Smoke: all your civilization's games could get this same gushing treatment! Or, if your games are terrible, I can also do funny-angry reviews, which humans really go for.)

  * * *

  Chapter 3: Rare Drop

  Blog post, June 13

  In 1995 my brother Raphael gave me sole ownership of his Sega Genesis after he/we (mostly he) got a Playstation for Hanukkah. This was more a verbal agreement than a real transfer: we only had one television, so the Genesis just sat next to the Playstation. The Playstation was also a popular holiday gift that year for a lot of only children, and their Genesis games started showing up at yard sales for three dollars, or with the real tightwads, five. That's how I became a retro game collector at the age of eight, and that's how I stayed loyal to lovely 16-bit sprites when Raph had moved on to jerky, horrible-looking polygons.

  One of my yard sale acquisitions was the RPG Sun/Voice 2. The cart I bought came with the former owner's saved game, right before the final battle. A saved game from the 16-bit era is only about one kilobyte of data, but it can represent up to sixty hours of some unfortunate kid's labor. And what did I do once I got home from the yard sale? I created a new game in the second save slot. I started getting up at five on weekends and spending hours re-creating that one-kilobyte file on my own.

  Which is to say: I just spent the last six gruelling hours of my Saturday creating a last-minute binary patch for Brilhantes 5. The size of the patch is about one kilobyte.

  Why do I resent all the time I wasted as a kid grinding in 16-bit RPGs, when what I'm doing now is basically the same thing? And why do we make the experience of playing games so much like the experience of debuggin
g them?

  Blog post, June 17

  [This post is friends locked.]

  Howdy from São Paolo! The game company I contract for flew me steerage class to the yearly meeting. It's an opportunity for the makers of the pony games, the unlicensed sports games, the media tie-in games, to meet and greet and self-loathe. The hotel is the kind of thing Brazilians think Americans will like, and my presentation on "Five New Gestures For Minigames" brought down the house. And by "house" I mean "small conference room with carpet on the walls."

  I'm spending a lot of time with my co-worker L., who is inescapable at these gathering and who I never see otherwise. L. manages the company's rapid response team. Every summer a dance craze sweeps South America and/or Europe, and within a week L's developers release a shake-yer-phone game to capitalize on it. They've got a stable of Flash minigames that they'll rebrand for you in two or three days because you forgot to put up a website for your TV show. And so on. L. is about seventeen and lives in São Paolo with his parents, so rather than get his own hotel room he's set up camp in ours.

  Real life, June 17