OMGJeremy

My Life With Seaman Pt.1

Hi OMGJeremy readers, Jeremy P here. I’m working on a few awesome and new things (well, at least new), but none of them are ready because I lost all my fingers in a horrific cheese grating incident. Instead of slopping out a half-assed, short article, I am reposting a series of articles I wrote a while ago on Seaman. Some people have honestly requested we repost these, and I still find them funny now, so here you go. Other sites just keep archives, but here at OMGJeremy we like to tear down and recreate our entire site about 3 times a year, so there is no archive to speak of. We have to painstakingly recreate all these old articles, which (in my opinion) is actually harder than just rewriting them. In case you are unaware, Seaman came out 10 years ago on the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast. It was the first game to use a microphone for the system, and the whole deal was it was more or less a virtual fish with a man’s face that would respond when you talked to it. I decided to document my seaman from birth to death, and broke it up into 6 parts with daily updates. So, please enjoy a piece of OMGJeremy history, hopefully it’s still funny even though Seaman itself is just another page in the annals of gaming history.

I’m not allowed to have a pet right now. No, there is no horrible childhood story attached to this statement, but instead it turns out my roommate is allergic to everything. So it’s not that I couldn’t have a dog… it’s that my roommate would get all puffy and die, and then my rent would increase. I can barely afford to live now, so I guess the dog will have to wait. What we do have is a guinea pig. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with a guinea pig, but all they do is eat, sleep, and squeal. That in itself doesn’t make the guinea pig a bad pet, but it is a pet that makes me jealous. I want someone to keep me in a cage, feed me, let me sleep all day, and have little to no expectations of me, except that I will occasionally look at them and squeal. However, as of yet nobody has taken me up on that offer, so I hate the pig. I do want a pet though, and just as I was about to go buy some fish, I remembered that I already had something even better than a fish… I had Seaman.

My first attempts at Seaman were disastrous to say the least. The first time, I forgot to feed him and he died. The second time, he ran out of food (because of me again… but I didn’t forget to feed him – I went to give him food, but it was all gone). The third time, I just forgot about him, and he was dead when I remembered a week later that I had a Seaman. This time will be different, since I can’t forget about him if I write about it for the site. So, I guess what I’m saying is I’m in this for the long haul, and I’m not sure how long this will take overall. So if you like this article, be thrilled – there is a few more weeks of this coming. If you hate it however, I’d bet you’ll hate the others.

I suppose some of you may not be as big of a dork as I am, so let me explain Seaman. Seaman is a talking fish with a man’s head on it. You are supposed to raise it starting from an egg, and if you keep good care of him, he will talk to you and respond to things you say to it. The game came with a microphone, and it’s far from perfect, but it’s a really cool idea that is done relatively well. One thing that you should know beforehand is that Seaman is a real smartass. I’ll probably have transcripts of some of the more interesting days of conversation, so you’ll see what I mean. Another warning – Seaman remembers things you say, and will refer to previous conversations as he learns. I don’t want to ruin any more of this for you with the overview, so I’ll get started after one last warning.

If you do not want the evolution of Seaman and the later parts of his life ruined, please don’t read the rest of this article.

I doubt anyone that is reading this site is really worried about ruining Seaman for themselves (especially now that it’s 2010), but I would be if I was reading it, so I figure now I can honestly say I gave other people fair warning. Onto my wonderful new pet…

Day 1

This is where the magic happens

Welcome to Seaman. After a lengthy intro by Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock from Star Trek, just in case you lived in a small box and didn’t know who that was) we are taken to our tank, where we must prepare for the arrival of our new pets. First off, you need to turn on the light. I suppose you don’t have to, but then all my screen shots would be black squares. After turning on the lights, we must change the temperature of the water to a level that the Seaman can live in. From my experience, that means around 19 degrees Celsius. After you get the temperature right, you must fix the oxygen level in the water. Basically crank that up to 100%. This way you can forget about your Seaman for a day, and he wont suffocate to death. He’ll just be pissed. Anyway, after you fix the tank up, you must add your Seaman egg to the tank.

See that shell in the tank there? That is important. That is called the nautilus, and I have no idea if a nautilus is a real sea creature. I know I could have checked it pretty easily, but I also know that you could do the same. But as far as the game goes, the Nautilus lives in that shell. Once the egg hatched, I recieved 8 of these little white balloons. They are technically called “Mushroomers,” and they are the first form of Seaman. If you tap on the glass, they will move towards the vibrations, and this leads us to the first brutal part of Seaman… you must lead the little white balloon things to the front of the nautilus shell so that the nautilus can eat them.

YES! Eat my babies!

That’s right, you start out your Seamen by having them get eaten. I love this game already. My failure as a protective guardian is actually a success in this game! However, this turns out to be a good thing, because after the nautilus ate 5 of the mushroomers, it begins shooting ink around and flipping out and then it dies in an explosion that results in the next form of the seamen, the Gillmen.

It's like having kids, if your kids were mutant fish men.

So now I have my first little fish men. Five of them to be precise. I attempted to talk to them, but they weren’t very responsive. Much like actual babies, they made noises at me, and seemed interested in what I had to say, but overall they just did their own thing. It seems like that’s all they’re up for today, so I let Leonard take me out of the game. Today I ended with five Gillmen, and three Mushroomers. Day one looks promising.

I hope this goes better than my last three tries…

Day 2

Well, so far so good. Leonard told me that I’m doing a good job, so I must be doing alright. Leonard then told me that my seamen were beginning to speak human words! I had to check this out, because maybe they could teach me a few new words to expand my vocabulary past the 35 or so words I know right now. So I fixed the oxygen level and the water temperature, and noticed… “Hey! My mushroomers are gone!” Leonard didn’t tell me about that! I wonder where they wen’t off to… it’s not really a big deal though, because I still had my five gillmen, who look much cooler than a floaty white balloon anyday. I started talking to them, and for a while I only got baby words. That’s fine and nice, but I want conversation! I want some thoughtful discussion! I want to argue about religion, politics, and flavors of toothpaste! So far, they hadn’t said anything, and then, like a beacon from the heavens themselves I hear “Hello!”

WOOHOO! My little fish-men can say “Hello!” Well, I have to see what else they can say. I attempt to say “how are you?”, “Hungry?”, “Having fun?” and many other simple questions, but to no avail. Then at the last minute I thought of something…

Me : “Seaman.”

Gillmen : “Seaman.”

This is the biggest rush I’ve had in months, followed by the depression of realizing this was the biggest rush I have had in months. As I came back from getting a drink, I noticed something floating at the top of the tank…

Maybe he's just sleeping... upside down... and not moving... Aw, crap.

Uh Oh… My first gillman casualty. I can’t explain it. The water was the right temperature, they had enough oxygen, and I had just fed them! I must figure these dumb fish out before this game beats me and they die for the fourth time.

Day 3

Not much happened with the Seaman today. I fed them, and I still have 4. I must need to talk to them more or something. I went to the store and bought some food, and then I came home and had a good “B.M.”… I think in the future if nothing happens, I’ll skip summarizing that day. I’m sure you all agree now.

Day 4

Holy talking fish, Batman! I came home today to find my seamen literally yelling at me to turn on the heat, and fix the oxygen. In full phrases. Then, I had the pleasure of trying to make them talk to me. They weren’t happy with me because I overheated them, so they refused to talk to me. Great. This is like having a girlfriend that you store underwater… except that these fish stayed alive and will fight back when you take them out for some loving. However, all was not good in the land of virtual talking fish today… I lost two more.

It's like the evil Snorks!

However… I saw how it happened! The Gillmen have these little hoses on their heads, and one of them would attach his (or her) sucker to the bottom of another and literally suck the life out of it. Wow. I hope no children ever play this game. This is almost as traumatic as having a gerbil that has babies… (In case you haven’t had this pleasure, the gerbils will eat the babies sometimes, and nothing fucks up a kid as much as picking up a baby gerbil that has had half of its body eaten. Nothing.)

After watching my fish-men cannibalize their brethren, I figured maybe they’d want to talk or something… but no, they wanted to sleep. So I turned off the lights and let my little murderers sleep. But they better start talking to me tomorrow, or I’ll flush them…

Day 5

I love Leonard Nimoy. I’m not sure who thought he should narrate, or why he decided to do so, but this game would be a lot less cool if Don Knotts was the narrator. My day started out wiht Leonard giving me a lecture on natural selection. Now I don’t feel so bad about my seamen killing each other thanks to Spock. Perhaps if the Nazis would have had Leonard’s help they might have not seemed so bad. So, after Leonard stopped boring me, I went to check on the fishmen for myself.

These would be good eating, if it wasn't for that face.

My Seaman sure have changed in the last 24 hours… yesterday they looked like small little goldfish, and today they look like trout. Well, all but that head. But, there was more than visual growth last night. Seaman’s voice has matured into its adult tone. Now is where the Seaman started asking me questions. Now the Seaman knows my sex and age, and that I was born in June. The I told him my birth day and he told me that I share a birthday with Joe Piscopo and Barry Manilow! My seaman is teaching me more than I am teaching it. I hope it asks about porn, because then I could show off my knowledge.

Here is a perfect example of how my Seaman is a real smartass… In response to my birth month:

“Count nine months back… it must have been a chilly autumn. You can’t blame your parents for trying to stay warm… but I can…”

This was also when Seaman told me about his dislike for food pellets. He wants to eat moth larvae. So, he introduced me to the insect cage, a new room full of plants and eggs, that will grow into larvae as long as I keep the cages moisture level up. This must be important later, and it must be nice to feed the seaman something other than little pellets.

A place where I can grow bugs other than my crotch.

Unfortunately at this point, my Seaman demanded sleep. At 5 pm. What the hell?! Even my mom goes to bed later than 5 pm… it’s not like the Seamen have to go to work or school! What kind of creepy talking fish have I raised? I am such a failure as a parent! Well, I guess they need to sleep, so I’ll check on them tomorrow.

Day 6

Today wasn’t a very active day for the Seaman. As soon as I came and talked to him he wanted to sleep. I don’t think I’m that boring, just boring enough to document my fucking seaman online. He did ask me if I was still in school (No… I dropped out and as you can see, I’ve moved on to bigger and better things like living in poverty and watching the worst movies ever made) and then he asked what I do for a living. I said “Office Work” because I figured if I got into details they would definitely fall asleep, just like everyone else does. Seaman, however, heard something far different than anything I said and he asked, “So you work in the sex industry?” Well, I’ll admit… I was flattered, so I said ‘Yes.’ I know I’ve mentioned this before, but Seaman will bring up old conversations later. I can’t wait to see where my job in the sex industry comes up.

You can't see it on this picture, but these bugs also have little creepy faces on them.

I starting seeing the larvae in the insect cage today. They aren’t very exciting, but watching Seaman eat them is. He literally bites it, and rips it apart like a dog. What a happy little game. My seamen aren’t just intelligent beings that talk to me, they are violent killing machines… they are smart Pirahna… They could overtake the human race! It’s a good thing I’ll probably accidentally starve it to death, or else we could be in some real trouble here. Well, Seaman went to sleep, so I’ll check back in the morning.

Day 7 – March 2, 2002

Well, Seaman was a bitch this morning. I got up, made some breakfast, and then took care of the Seaman, and he actually told me to go away and he’d talk to me later. It’s ok, Seaman, I still love you.

Let’s see… I suppose that means that week one is over, and what have we learned so far…

1. Seamen are cannibals.
2. I work in the sex industry (I hope I’m not a fluffer)
3. I need to get outside more often.

Well, that actually sums up my week pretty damn well! So far, my Seamen are growing really well, and Leonard Nimoy thinks so too. If that’s not the sign of a good time, I don’t know what is. I’ll let you know how this goes weekly until it either dies, or takes over the world.

Stay tuned to OMGJeremy for Week 2 summary… possibly NEXT WEEK.