Spudd 64’s Top Ten Favorite Video Games of All Time: 7

Talented artist and incredible friend, Spudd 64 will be counting down his top ten favorite video games in the next ten weeks. Enjoy!

- Kyle

For most people I think that this game started out as a big WTF? I know it did for me. I mean, come on…a goofy fish with the face of a Japanese salaryman that insults you and makes fart jokes? As a videogame? On the newest, hottest, most technologically advanced (at the time) home console system? And for FIFTY BUCKS? WTF???



WTF indeed. I completely missed the whole tamagotchi craze. I think I was probably too old and too concerned with things like real life (ha!) to bother with it. I knew what it was, but it seemed silly to me at the time. And yet, as always, time turns our lies into truths and just a short time later I was additively obsessed with the biggest, most elaborate, most preposterous tamagotchi ever – the Seaman.

Seaman was a game full of contradictions. It used what was (at the time) a pretty amazingly slick piece of technology – the Dreamcast microphone – to allow you the opportunity to actually speak to the things on the screen.



And yet, in spite of that kind of dazzling microphone and all the interactivity it guaranteed, the graphics for Seaman…well, they pretty much sucked. For almost the entire game, which could last weeks, the only thing the player would see would be a simple, dull, and almost crude aquarium with a few basic controls in a darkened room. That’s it. No real sound effects either beyond the occasional burble and of course the ubiquitous chatter of the Seaman.

So what was the charm? What was the allure? And WTF?

The game started innocently enough. Leonard Nimoy himself provided a brief introduction and gave you helpful hints throughout the first parts of the game.



What was especially interesting is that Seaman arrived when the videogame industry in the United States was still fairly new. In spite of a few notable titles, most game designers were extremely reluctant to take any chances or to do anything truly innovative and unique with their games. The possibility of losing money on a game was simply too great and the fledgling videogame industry could ill afford a repeat of the great crash of the 80s. Yet right from the start Seaman was risky and different. For example, instead of constantly massaging the player’s ego, as most games did with copious rewards and leveling up, Seaman insulted the player. If the player checked in on the baby Seamen too often in one day, Leonard Nimoy would say that while the player’s intentions were noble, it was not necessary to play the game so often. These remonstrations would become gradually more severe until the game was practically insulting the player into having a real life and walking away from the videogame.

And yet, this bizarre cycle of mild psychological abuse somehow became endearing as Seaman and player enter into a (codependent?) relationship. Over time, and again this could take weeks, the player could watch their Seamen grow from bizarre little blobs…



…to bloodthirsty beasts parasitically devouring other creatures…



…and eventually into a school of infantile, babbling, man-faced fish.

At this point, the player’s responsibilities shifted from simply keeping the fish tank warm and clean and now the interaction began in earnest. The player could tickle the Seamen, producing horrifying gales of giggling, flick the Seamen causing irritation and sulkiness, and of course talk to the Seamen. At first, the Seamen just babbled. Phrases like “Fee bah!” and “Noink noink” were the norm. It did try one’s patience. But the more the player spoke fully formed words and sentences into the microphone, the Seaman started to respond in real English. And what a bastard he was.

After quite a few bizarrely personal questions, the Seaman would eventually become rather crass and abrasive, insulting the player in just about every way feasible. Sure, these insults could be mitigated somewhat by constantly treating the Seaman with kindness and patience, but still the Seaman was a pretty rude character. And yet, somehow, it was all hilarious. I can recall actually laughing so hard that tears streamed down my face while listening to the Seaman insult my (supposed) online porn habits.

After a long and fairly complicated series of physical transformations, your Seaman, that weird little thing the player had spent weeks talking to, eventually grew into a man-faced frog and his nature softened somewhat. He seemed…distracted. Impatient. Yearning for something which, as the player eventually discovers, is escape. A strange small ring hanging from a string on the ceiling, something which had been on the screen for weeks, proved to be the key. After several efforts at jumping toward it fail, the Seaman asks the player to cheer him on and then…he jumps high and reaches it!

Pulling the ring lifts the back wall of the aquarium and reveals a dazzling green jungle scene just behind the main wall. The Seaman prepares to hop away but pauses, and only then do we learn the utterly bizarre, completely implausible, yet oddly touching story behind the Seaman. It seems that at one point, the Seaman was an ancient Egyptian priest who fell in love with the Pharaoh’s daughter. The Pharaoh, angered by their illicit love, used the power of the god Thoth to curse them both, turning his daughter into a bird and the priest into a frog so that they could never be together.

I know. WTF?

Anyway, it turns out that your Seaman, cursed to a life of amphibian reincarnation, believes his true love is still out there and that somehow, someday, they will be reunited. And you know what? After weeks with this slimy little bastard, you, the player, really want that too.

And then the most touching part of the game happens. Yes, the second videogame to move me to tears was Seaman. Just as the Seaman is about to hop away to search for his love, he stops, turns to you, and thanks you. Sincerely. He apologizes for being so mean, and he haltingly tells you that you were a very good keeper and took very good care of him. And that means a lot to him. Finally he says that if you, the player, ever miss him, he will always be just around the corner.

It still gets me choked up. I miss my Seaman.

- Spudd 64