VR Surgery Action Adventure where you shrink down and traverse the insides of alien and android bodies in a dystopian future where the most valuable commodities are what's inside.

Check out the gameplay footage

Wishlist the game on Steam now!

The game is part of an expansive universe that also includes a full graphic novel which you can support on their Kickstarter.

I intend to post more content, and maybe some behind the scenes stuff, as the first chapter gets closer to release.

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Cheers!

More info:

Sketchy Neurons / Minimally Invasive

Sin Tiempo Game Studio

When I hear of Schrödinger’s cat, I reach for my pistol

- Stephen Hawking

There definitely are some Schrödinger’s cat scenarios that play out where things ARE both one way and simultaneously another, or some items in the game are unknowably in multiple places, until actually observed.

Also this is the 1999 version of the game, not the 2020 remake (that sadly has none of these great qualities).

Here is ‘City of Ruin’, my personal favorite track from the game, if you want some Resident Evil ambience while reading.

So, after recently revisiting the game, I started to think about some of its aspects a bit differently. Immediately after entering the police station and receiving the magnum, a realization about that event hit me, which I instantly connected to quantum mechanics. This led to me think about the rest of the game and where and how various events and aspects are also sort of quantum mechanical. I will attempt to break it down to the best of my abilities.

Randomness

Randomness (Probabilities) and Quantum Mechanics are deeply intertwined, so let me briefly talk about the randomness in this game and then I’ll immediately jump into the quantum mechanical-ness of it all.

Nemesis employs quite a lot of randomness (compared to other games in the series) to keep players guessing, which is actually great for survival horror, and also replay value. If you’ve ever played this game more than once, you’ll find out that the second time is likely different from the first, since the game has many moments where the player can decide the outcome of events, or item and enemy locations are randomized. Even playing the game once, will have you wondering, “What if I made a different choice?”, many times throughout.

The randomness in Nemesis is however not the crazy amount of randomness you might find in a rogue-like game such as Moonlighter, where each time you enter the same dungeon, the entire layout of the map, items and enemies are all procedurally generated. Nemesis has a more subtle and discrete randomness. I have a lot to say about randomness when it comes to game design, but I’ll save that for another time. Let’s just say that Nemesis makes use of randomness beautifully, adding just the right amount so you’re never 100% sure how things will play out.

Randomness and the Wave Function

Sure you can say that any game that has randomness can be compared to quantum mechanics in some way, where the outcome of any random number generator that the game uses is similar to the outcome of a wave function collapsing from a superposition of all of its possible states to just one.

In Nemesis, the most prevalent example of this is with the placement of random items or enemies in specific areas. Sometimes there will be a set of green herbs in a location, sometimes it will be red. Sometimes the player enters an area and finds three zombies ready to attack and on another playthrough when reaching the same area, they will be replaced by zombie dogs instead.

But there are other ways in which Nemesis compares to quantum mechanics that help it stand apart from most other games doing things similar to this.

Choices and Many Worlds

There are some key moments where player is literally asked to choose one of two distinct choices.

While not every event such as this has THAT great of an impact on the game, the ones that do, do so in significant ways.

There are other moments where the player is presented with a choice but it’s done so in a way that they might never even notice.

• When first reaching the downtown area players can either end up first at the restaurant or the newspaper building.

• When collecting supplies for the tram, players are free to choose the order to collect them in.

• When in the hospital they can choose which floor to go to first using the elevator.

All of these decisions alter which path the player will take next, and can change which events happen in which locations, such as where certain characters will meet, but also those events can play out very differently.

In extremes cases, paths and events are completely replaced with others, such as where and how characters will/won’t die, and how much of the overall plot is actually filled out.

For example, when reaching the pharmaceutical office, the player finds either Carlos or Nikolai depending on previous choices, both about to shoot an infected teammate. In the former case, the player gets a look at Carlos’s humane, caring personality, hesitant to shoot, and distraught after the fact. In the latter case however, the player discovers Nikolai’s not-so-humane side, showing no hesitation shooting his teammate, and even sticking around to analyze the situation on his computer, showing that maybe he has other motives for even being here.

I relate this to the many worlds of quantum mechanics, where every one of the previous choices the player makes splits the universe into each of the outcomes of that choice. One version of the player ends up meeting Carlos in their universe, while another version of the player now in another universe ends up meeting Nikolai.

While most of the game is very linear, it has these specific moments where the events of the game are forked in this manner by the player’s choice into one of two directions, causing the them to exist in one of the different universes the game has to offer.

Quantum Entanglement

This is THE example of quantum mechanics in Resident Evil: Nemesis which encouraged me to write this article when I made the connection.

There are certain sets of items in the game which are in my favorite way described as entangled, where as soon as the state of one is revealed, instantaneously so is the state of the other. Such as discovering gun powder in one location, would instantly mean that a different type of gun power, or herbs will be found at another known location. And these are interchangeable and randomly decided each playthrough.

The best example is with the Grenade Launcher and the Magnum. These two items are linked in such a way that as soon as the player finds one at a specific location, the other weapon will undoubtedly appear at a specific other location.

And alternatively.

The information is known in such a way that if you measure the real world distance between the two objects in game, the information would be traveling faster than the speed of light, which is impossible unless the state information being determined was from two entangled particles.

This is obviously not the case here since the information is actually stored in the memory of the system that is running the game code, where the data is being stored and read at relatively close to the speed of light, even though the “in game” distance is much greater.

Can we use that idea to compare to what the underlying substrate of our own universe might be to allow things like quantum entanglement. Is our universe being simulated or projected in some way, and that the system doing the simulation or projection has information stored in a way that allows for seemingly instant state information exchange in the universe across “vast” distances? A larger topic for another time, but crosses my mind often.

Finally

As I mentioned, Nemesis has choice and randomness which change what can happen during the game, and particular items and events are quantum mechanically entangled, seemingly. The game also does a great job making sure not to over do it with the amount of randomness or potential outcomes or paths to go down, so that the ultimate question becomes, which of the finitely many universes of Resident Evil: Nemesis are you going to get?

I agree that Nemesis is not the only game where you can draw these parallels, but I find that the one’s here are just so unique and apparent. Not to mention the realm of quantum mechanics is weird and strange and scary, and to quote Einstein, “Spooky”, and those adjectives and themes pair so well with the classic survival horror you get with Resident Evil: Nemesis.

Now let’s all grab a cold one and play the Resident Evil 4 Remake that just released today.

In a free market, when you’re purchasing something, you’re going to buy the best combination of low price and high quality you can based on your price and quality tolerance levels for what it is that you’re purchasing.

When you pay someone in dollars (and just for simplicity, let’s say we’re living in a low inflation environment), there is an opportunity cost associated with using that money today, vs saving that money and using it for something else of equal value later. The opportunity cost here is somewhat symmetric.

Bitcoin introduces an asymmetric opportunity cost. Do I purchase something now, or do I save it and purchase something 5 times more valuable in the future.

What this does is also tell you that the TV or the haircut that you’re willing to purchase today (and forgo the increased future value) had better be incredibly useful or efficient, or hold its value pretty damn well, or be selling for a massive discount. So now the combination of low price and high quality is amplified. Your tolerance levels have shifted to extremely low price and extremely high quality.

The side effect of this new dynamic is that all producers creating low-quality, inefficient products, or companies that overprice their products, will inevitably be forced out of the market. This increases the demand for innovation and production of only the most useful, efficient, high-value goods and services.

Normally companies have to convince individuals of the value of their products, but now they have to go the extra mile and convince them that also their future forgone value will be put to good use.

And this makes sense. If I am getting a haircut and paying in Bitcoin, knowing that the hair stylist receiving this Bitcoin is going to reap the benefits of that asymmetric opportunity cost in the future, then I’d want that Bitcoin to go to someone who A: is going to give me a pretty damn good haircut, B: someone who isn’t going to rip me off, and very importantly C: someone whose future I believe in, and want to see succeed and grow, because I’d like to continue getting good or even better haircuts from them in the future.

In a world where people only purchase, innovate on, and produce the best, most efficient, most value retaining, longest-lasting, goods and services. The quality of life of all individuals trends upward.

Thanks for taking the time to read. Thinking about hyperbitcoinized societies is like thinking about futures from classic science fiction (and I love sci-fi). Except that future is very well upon us soon, and that’s exciting. I plan to continue writing about what life would be like if Bitcoin were money because Bitcoin does change the way you think when you root it into your ideas.

Just as all things in the universe are made from stardust, so too, will your Bitcoin slowly absorb the infinite representation of value.

In 150 years it’s not 21 Million divided between 8 billion people, it’s between 10 Billion, or even 12 Billion depending on how many people exist then. The number of humans and machines that use Bitcoin will increase, forever, into infinity.

This is of course assuming humanity is flourishing instead of obliterating itself. And provided no 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 scenarios have played out.

Bitcoin’s value is engineered to increase, FOREVER

Bitcoin has a fixed supply, 21 million units, with a predetermined supply issuance rate. Fundamentally, everything about the supply is known.

Because of the halving process, Bitcoin’s supply issuance exponentially decreases, meaning the amount of work expended PER UNIT of Bitcoin produced exponentially increases. That does not mean however, that you need double the work in the same amount of time. You can’t mine bitcoin faster with more power, it will just take twice as long assuming the same energy output, thus twice the energy, to mine the same amount. Bitcoin ensures this with the difficulty adjustment so that a block is created approximately every 10 minutes on average.

It takes twice as long because the mining reward gets cut in half every 210,000 blocks (approx. 4 years), a.k.a. the halving events. And this will increase Bitcoin’s value, because that value is derived from energy, which creates, secures, and facilitates the transaction of Bitcoin.

Imagine 118 years from now. It’s 2140. All of the Bitcoin have been mined. There is no more block reward for mining, aside from transaction fees. Bitcoin has penetrated, violated, and rebuilt every government monetary system and financial institution, and is now the settlement layer of value for the entire human race. How does the value continue to increase then? Well as stated, if the human race is flourishing, then that creates new entities whose value needs to be represented by the same 21 Million Bitcoin.

With the unstoppable force of increased adoption, an ever-growing wall of demand comes up against the immovable object of Bitcoin’s supply. What do you think will happen to the value in the Bitcoin system?

Can it become too valuable?

Currently, 1 Bitcoin can be divided into 100 million units. As a number Bitcoin might look like this: 1.00000000 (8 decimal places). The final decimal place, and smallest unit, is called a Satoshi (named after Satoshi Nakamoto). In the future, it will become more common to talk about buying things in terms of Satoshis, because the Bitcoin unit will be too valuable. We’ll be saying 1,000 Sats, not 0.00001 Bitcoin.

What if Bitcoin were priced at $1 Billion today. One Satoshi would be worth $10. This is now impractical because you couldn’t purchase anything with Bitcoin that’s less than $10 in value, so you wouldn’t be able to buy a bottle of water anymore. This isn’t a problem though, because when the time comes, the core code of Bitcoin will have updated to add a few more decimal points. And this can keep happening theoretically as long as needed. It will have sub-satoshis, milli-satoshis, whatever. Perfect money is perfectly divisible, to have the best flexibility, and since Bitcoin is a computer program, we can make it as divisible as we want.

Finally

Given this line of thinking, it’s seems theoretically impossible to be late to Bitcoin, when every next person is having their representation of value squeezed into the same 21 Million that was previously shared by 1 person less. You can only ever be early, and just how early you are is still just a simple choice. Thinking in terms of the infinity of Bitcoin, it’s pretty incredible to be alive in the same century that it was invented.

That might be a bit exaggerated, but we’re all guilty of way over-scoping our game ideas. Sometimes it takes a few ideas or iterations before we humbly accept defeat and start over with something simpler. This is the case with the very first game I ever officially released called Lost Paddle.

Lost Paddle was released on iOS in early 2011. It was free and received a few thousand downloads and had a decent average rating (I think it was something in the 4-star range).

I won’t bother with the whole ‘what went right’, ‘what went wrong’, because looking back, it was ALL wrong, so I’ll just go over what I think are the more interesting facts, and things I’ve learned.

Disclaimer: I no longer legally own this game, and I even can no longer claim that I created it. I sold the game, any claim to it, and all resources associated with it (source code, art, project files) to an individual who will remain anonymous. I’ll get to the details.

The Gameplay

I said that with Lost Paddle, I started over with something simpler. I went to the simplest thing I could think of, Pong, but of course, I had to add a twist to it. The gameplay didn’t take long at all to figure out, I’ve always been pretty good at fiddling with gameplay code to find something I like, and the result was some mix of Pong and Breakout.

The basic idea is, blocks are falling from the top, and you can move your little pong paddle back and forth, which deflects them back, and any blocks that make it past you explode at the bottom and lower your health.

And since this would be an iOS game (because that’s all I knew how to make at the time), I wanted the gameplay to be something that could go on indefinitely, and then they would just receive a high score. I think that’s what all the mobile games were doing at the time, just quick little arcade games where you play ‘til you die. Like FLAPPY BIRD! Remember Flappy Bird!?

While the gameplay was good and was present, it just wasn’t enough. I never dug into it enough, to try to really squeeze all of the creative juice out of what was there. This is something I think a lot of games get wrong today too. Not all of them of course but there’s this tendency to create a game that throws together many shallow ideas instead of focusing deeply on a single one. In my case, I did neither, I failed to focus deeply on the single idea.

There were different game modes though. Endless mode allowed you to play endlessly until you made a certain number of mistakes and then recorded your high score. Simple, straightforward. And then there was a two-player mode. I’m actually pretty proud of this one, for it being an iOS-only game, coming up with a way for the game to have two-player touch gameplay, I thought was pretty cool at the time. Basically, there are two paddles, one for each player on either side of the screen, the blocks start falling from both sides, and they get tagged by which side they came from, or which paddle had last deflected them back. It was reminiscent of classic pong, just with lots more going on. Finally, there was story mode.

The Title and Story Mode

I couldn’t just make an endless arcade game. For some reason, I had to add a story mode that somehow attempted to explain what the hell this game was. The idea of ‘Lost Paddle’ is that this Pong paddle is somehow mysteriously lost in an unknown void-like place, and suddenly faced with an onslaught of blocks attempting to destroy it.

I’m not sure why I was trying to force a story into this game. Maybe I just played too many story-based games, or maybe I thought I was being clever, or maybe because I had just played ‘Today I Die’ by Dan Benmergui (a brilliant game) and I wanted to also evoke some emotion out of the player.

If I remember correctly there was a game over screen that said something like “Where am I?” and “This is hopeless”. And when you reach the final level there was, in the background, a pink-colored paddle in a hanging cage while you have to fend off the final boss. The pink paddle was the main paddle’s love interest and that was supposed to be a big reveal. The whole thing was cringe-worthy today, but I thought it was awesome.

I think one review said that “the game over text was a worse Kingdom Hearts script”. I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed that it sucked or happy to be compared to a game that I was a big fan of for many years.

The entire game was only 4 levels in total. One level of normal gameplay, one boss level, a second level of slightly harder gameplay, and the final boss. The boss fights were a mess, you have to avoid a laser beam filled with blocks that kill you in one hit, and then when the boss is idle, tap with your finger frantically on its face. Here is what the first boss looked like:

Most players couldn’t figure out that you have to tap on the boss. That makes sense as it was never hinted at in any of the other gameplay previously. I couldn’t figure out a way to deal boss damage with the current gameplay of just sliding the padding back and forth. The final boss was an even bigger mess, as you had to swipe the paddle up as if aggressively attacking. This one I got the most flack for, as there’s no way anyone could figure that one out. I thought that maybe players would get creative, but in reality, they just got frustrated and quit. There was never a sign that this game was looking for creativity from its players. The big lesson here is set up. If you ever expect anything from your players, make sure that they experienced it previously in a way that was simpler and more obvious, and that the next time, there’s something to remind them of the previous.

The Music

The soundtrack was pretty great. I found an individual on Newgrounds.com, and he had a collection of chiptune tracks that I thought were perfect. I sent him a message and as it turns out he was more than happy to let someone use his music in their game.

Here’s a link to the main track that was used: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/391867

If the positive reviews didn’t speak well of the gameplay, they were complimenting the music, so I feel a bit lucky to have found something that did fit so well with the game.

I tried making my own music. I opened up GarageBand for the first time, and thought, that just maybe I can put something simple together. I started mixing a few sounds and after about a day of that, I very quickly realized I was in over my head. Not wanting to spend months/years learning music, the idea was quickly scrapped and I made my way to Newgrounds.

No Android Version

This one is kind of annoying, but for me, at the time, it felt like there was nothing I could do about this. I was using a game engine called Cocos2d iOS. It was a game engine created to specifically work with iOS, and it was the only engine I was trained in at the time, and I’d never even thought about what it would be like to write my own game engine.

There was another version of the engine though, Cocos2d-X I think it was called, which was a multi-platform c++ version. However again, I was too intimidated by learning so many new things, knowing it would set back being done with the game. So I kept myself fairly stuck.

Making That Money

I made exactly $1,000 from this game. How? I released the game for free on the iOS app store, with no ads and no in-app purchases (they didn’t exist yet). I had 0 experience in how to monetize anything. How the hell did it make any money?

I sold it. I don’t mean that I sold it as an app on some platform. I mean that I literally sold it, the source code, the art, and any claim to ownership. It was all sold to a publisher who then subsequently re-launched the game under their own store.

I came up with the $1,000 number by estimating the hours it took me to make the game (probably underestimated), and then multiplying by a reasonable hourly rate (too low, but I was inexperienced). But also I wanted to make sure to sell it quickly because I was moving in a few months, so I was a little worried about setting the price too high.

How was it sold? I found a platform called something like sellmyapplication.com, I don’t remember exactly, but they had the option to post work like this for sale. It seems like most people used it to sell product review WordPress blogs and other software. I put the listing up, basically saying that the game gets lots of downloads, and has good average reviews, I just have no marketing or monetization experience so it would do better in someone else’s hands. It only took about a week before someone reached out. I had a contract made up, he paid, and I handed everything off.

I’m pretty sure I can’t even claim today that I did create the game, but what the hell, it’s been 11 years, and the other publisher seems to have abandoned it, and they surprisingly left my name in the credits, which I thought was generous.

Finally

While I don’t think the game was objectively ‘good’ in any way, I’m proud of what I was able to come up with and did a good job keeping it semi-simple overall for a first game. As I said before I probably would have avoided making the other game modes, especially Story Mode, and tried to dig into the simple gameplay more and get more out of just that. I also would have used a multi-platform game engine or taken the time to port it, to release it on Android as well.

Looking back would I have still sold it?

Probably not, I like to hold to everything I create these days, but, if I could fantasize just a bit, then hell yes I would have sold it because in 2011 $1000 would have gotten quite a bit of Bitcoin, and then I would just buy it back without breaking a sweat.

Let me know any questions you have, and share any similar experiences, have you ever sold the rights to anything you’ve created?

Links:

Archived App Store Link: https://apprecs.com/ios/451503468/lost-paddle-story

Original Release Review : https://www.nineoverten.com/2011/03/31/lost-paddle-iphone-game-review-fantastic-8-bit-action/

Beautiful country by the way. Awesome landscapes, great people and culture, and amazing food. The second day I’m there, I was walking with some people I had just met, and I’m not great at Spanish, but I overheard NFTs in their conversation. Eventually we talk more and I let them know that I maybe know some things about Bitcoin and Crypto currencies.

So I’m talking with one of them for a few hours about this, basically trying to describe some of the underlying technological and economic concepts built into Bitcoin. The funny thing is, for the first hour or so of the conversation, I had to continuously re-iterate that I was talking about Bitcoin, only Bitcoin, and not the twenty thousand other crypto currencies. Not Crypto, Bitcoin. That there is a difference between putting your money into a better money for the long term, and putting your money in a project that may or may not be successful, and that’s hopefully not a scam.

For a country full of people that could benefit from Bitcoin, it’s astonishing how little knowledge there is about it and it’s easy to see how early we are.

The one ray of hope I saw, and it made me smile so hard, was when we passed by a random wall in the downtown area, and it had some graffiti on it in orange that read, “Bitcoin is freedom”.

If you’re a Bitcoiner,

your journey maybe went as follows:

1. You heard about Bitcoin but didn’t think much of it.

2. Years later you heard about it again because now it’s 100x more valuable. You maybe buy some.

3. You started looking at all other crypto currencies and seeing how they increase by much larger multiples than 100. Traders and YouTubers are telling you which projects are going from $0.03 to $1,000, so you buy 10 more cryptos because of this and also because diversification is key in any portfolio.

4. Researching other cryptos you realize how they are better than Bitcoin. Ethereum is like bitcoin, but it can run apps and games. Litecoin is like Bitcoin but it’s faster and cheaper, it’s the silver to Bitcoin’s gold. Ripple is like Bitcoin but it’s insanely faster and all banks will use it as payment rails.

5. Late 2017. The bull market REALLY takes off, you’re up 10x, you’re a genius.

6. 2018. Bull market disappears. Your portfolio is down 90%.

7. You realize the 10 other cryptos are down 99%. But you still believe crypto is the future so you don’t sell, because you know it’s coming back.

8. Three years pass, while you occasionally check the prices, and do a little bit of learning on the side.

9. Bitcoin’s price comes back harder than ever, and while the other 10 cryptos regain some value, it’s nothing in comparison. All the while, new projects kick off and it’s a new generation for Crypto. Interoperability, De-fi, NTFs. Is it the future? For some reason you’re not as interested, even though everyone is supposedly making millions.

10. You realize the entire market is centered around Bitcoin’s beautiful balance of Proof-Of-Work mining, difficulty adjustments, halvings, and various other game theoretical and economic quirks that you slowly discover after researching hundreds of hours of content, and you figure out that it’s really the only truly decentralized system, that has no controller or team or fund or corporation behind it.

11. You sell the other cryptos, because Bitcoin is all that matters, it’s all you think about, and it’s the best form of money that’s ever existed. It really WILL change the world. It can do so much good for so many people who are oppressed or stressed by their governments role in the monetary system.

12. You now care more about how much Bitcoin you have, instead of it’s price.

Not everyone’s journey is the same,

but this was mine. There is so much more I can talk about, not just understanding Bitcoin, but money itself, energy, work, human evolution. I wish it didn’t take me so long, but I got there.

And this is why I understand why Bitcoin is drastically different from the rest of the Crypto space.

I’ll briefly describe some characteristics of both:

Bitcoin is built on the idea of having system in place that can represent money (the idea of being able to trade value / energy / work) in the best way possible. The system is decentralized in that there is no ONE centralized computer system that makes decisions about transactions, it’s performed equally by all computers in the network, but also that there was a creator that both stayed anonymous and also disappeared from the project. It has a finite supply, and coupled with the idea of replacing current monetary systems, means quite a lot.

This project is updated very infrequently, by countless developers from all over the world, and these updates are voted on in various ways by all actors in the system. It has very few features in comparison to other crypto currencies, and it is slow, by design. When you have a system that you want to be pure money, you prioritize simplicity, stability and security, over speed and features.

Other crypto currencies on the other hand, like Ethereum, Solana, Internet Computer, Polkadot, and others are focusing on improvements on blockchain technology and “decentralized” networks. Creating decentralized applications (dApps), or allowing for interoperability between chains. Web3. NFTs. These are nice features of a tech platform, but they are not features of pure money. Investing in them is similar to investing in Uber, or Netflix.

These projects are updated very frequently by whatever small development team or company is currently working on them. They are feature rich, and thus contain many more complexities. This gives them the ability to iterate new ideas and innovate rapidly, however this also produces orders of magnitude more bugs.

In short,

few people I talk to understand the difference of Bitcoin vs other Crypto currencies.

The people seriously interested in Bitcoin, are interested in its pure monetary, hard money, properties, the fact that it has no centralized control, and that it can free people from the damage caused by fiat money systems.

Those interested in crypto currencies in general, are interested in a multitude of other ideas. They fall into many camps, such as creating a decentralized computing system, digitizing art in the form of NFTs, the conglomeration of projects that fall under Web3 for extending the capabilities of the current web, or decentralized financial tools (DeFi).

There’s nothing wrong with these projects but, they are not improvements on Bitcoin, Bitcoin is not the Myspace of crypto, they are not trying to solve what Bitcoin is trying to solve, and that’s the ultimate difference.

Cheers!