Ok, so I had a weird dream last night that a company I used to work for somehow got into virtual reality (immersion…matrix style) development.
A snippet:
I returned to my desk after being away in Europe for almost 2 years to find it as I had left it. A EUR 50 bill is laying under a scattering of coke bottles, post-its and dry-erase markers. I pick up the bill and realize that the room’s layout has completely changed. I don’t recognize anyone in this department and my desk is juxtaposed against its surroundings. It is the only desk to have remained in its original position. My old shared office is now full of secretaries and the main entrance to the building has moved.
After finding my way to the new development quarters it dawns on me that we’re not working on agricultural control systems anymore. In addition to berger and jordon the development team has a new face. He’s about 4′ tall with a blue and tan trucker hat, dog ears, skater gear and he’s illuminated from below. I gather he is not real. The entire room is strikingly normal for having a virtual character at work with my one-time workmates.
Normal conversation ensues with the topic quickly turning to “What are you guys actually doing now?” Jordon points to a 6″ high rectangular pad in the corner and tells me to stand on it. I’m now in a city at night. The buildings are an all matte black with faked flourescent light squares for windows. There are no street lights, lighting comes from along the gutters and spills upwards onto the passing cars. The cars are generic uni-tone polygons that zip past in an easily discernable pattern.
Jordon appears beside me on the 4-lane street. Berger’s voice joins us from everywhere. My guide walks across the street without looking left or right, hesitating or waiting for me. “He made the traffic” I think, and follow closely behind. “We’re working on a game.” explains Berger. I shoot a “duh” look off to no where in particular and the voice laughs.
Something is happening left of us down the street. An undersized crotch-rocket lands from the sky being chased by twin spacecraft. They spacecraft are shaped like a double edition dvd with decent textures to add the missing polygons. The motorcycle threads itself through the traffic and, as it passes us, I recognize the driver as the new floppy eared programmer. Two missiles appear from in front of the spacecraft and track the motorcycle. They do seem to know where the bike will go in advance so I assume the AI’s been hacked for the time being.
The biker evades them with ease after a quick right hand down a strikingly similar street. Berger chimes in with his best god voice “But you forgot about the bomb!! Mwahahaha” and trails off with real laughter. As he finishes a vomit inducing BOOM shakes my virtual self and my virtual internal organs. Refocusing, my eyes catch a completely silver version of a Mario World oversized-bullet heading towards the motorcycle. It’s apparently come from nowhere since it’s descending towards it’s target.
Turning left town another cloned street, the biker manages to put a building between himself and the impending danger and the bullet strikes the building. The building wins and the silver breaks into 1′ diameter, paper thin frisbees.
Jordon explains to me that this entire process is necessary to generate the frisbees. I’m dumbfounded. The game is virtual frisbees……and the only way they’ve been able to build them is through this hacktastic sequence. They’re now floating all around the streets so we grab a couple and start walking towards a bright spot on the map.
The bright spot is a park. Mitch, Phil and Jon (get a webpage you hippy) are there already……
–End Snippet–
OK….so I think I’ve been away from home for too long…I’ll be heading back on the 27th of Jan and hopefully that will make the funky dreams go away.
/me goes to grab some food
Thank you sir, this by far is one of the better things I read in a while.
-Berger