Will Wright, creator of The Sims and SimCity, is making his next game. It will be mobile, and it involves harvesting your memories. Yes, your personal memories. It's called Proxi. According to the website, "In Proxi, memories are the building blocks of the world. They're represented by piecing together 3D models to create different environments." In the video, Wright says:
Now, this is, in some sense, a game of self-discovery. A game where we actually uncover the hidden you, your subconscious, your inner id, and bring it to the surface, bring it to life, so that you can interact with it. You can play with it. You can learn from it. And it can learn about you. We do this, primarily, by pulling out memories from your past; those unique things that happened in your life that make you who you are.
To get there, Will Wright is looking for one special 3D game artist to craft these procedurally generated (?) memory-digging scenes. It's a contest, so if you're the right artist for the job, apply for the Proxi Art Challenge here.
I'm only speculating, but to harvest your memories, Proxi will likely require access to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al, in order to build these playable dioramas. Which could prove interesting. If you've posted only about the good things in life, then Proxi will have to reflect that. But if you're like my Facebook friends? Wow, your Proxi could be drawing up scenes of divorce, loneliness, alcoholism, and Russian bot Trump memes. I, for one, am not interested at all in Proxi recreating my high school talent show failure where I played the wrong side of Tha Dogg Pound's "Let's Play House" instrumental tape and I jumped off stage and ran out of the lunchroom.
Ugh. Good thing social media didn't exist in the '90s. There's no record online of that all happening. Unless Proxi is going to google up my name and find this particular news post and craft a diorama from that. I'm deleting this post.
Then again, perhaps it won't be so prying. Perhaps you'll just type in a few key words and, like a Scribblenauts battle, it'll gin up those words in a 3D scene. Maybe I'll type in "fishing trawler," "dad," and "projectile vomiting" to create one memory from my past. Or "Navy," "guided missile cruiser," and "it's September 11, 2001, and this commercial airliner is not responding to our hails" for another. Wow. Sorry about that. Memory banks store scary stuff sometimes. Maybe I should just stick with things like "newborn baby girl," "sleeping on my chest," "Skyrim on the 360." There, that's undoubtedly real, but less hardcore real, maybe.
No official word when Wright will launch this episode of Black Mirror, but he's picking a winner from his art challenge on or around May 14. Proxi is going to be quiet, contemplative, and utterly wild. This is some next-level stuff, which is the only way Will Wright does things.
