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Seaman (video game)

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Seaman
Developer(s)Vivarium
Jellyvision
Publisher(s)
PlayStation 2
Designer(s)Yoot Saito
Programmer(s)Arka Roy
Satoshi Endo
Yoshito Hirose
Shigekazu Ito
Kazuhiko Sugita
Takahisa Suzuki
Composer(s)Tsueno Keaneda
Platform(s)Dreamcast
PlayStation 2
ReleaseDreamcast
  • JP: July 29, 1999
  • JP: December 16, 1999
(Christmas version)
PlayStation 2
  • JP: November 15, 2001
Genre(s)Simulation
Mode(s)Single-player

Seaman[a] is a virtual pet video game developed and published by Vivarium for the Dreamcast. It was originally released in Japan in 1999, with a North American release by Sega in 2000. It is one of the few Dreamcast games to take advantage of the microphone attachment. The game developed a cult following for its dark humor, bizarre aesthetics, and innovative gameplay.

Seaman was released multiple times, including a limited edition demo version titled Christmas Seaman that was released in Japan in 1999, alongside a limited edition red Dreamcast and a PlayStation 2 version in 2001, titled Seaman: Kindan no Pet - Gaze Hakushi no Jikken Shima, the first edition of which came with a microphone.

A sequel called Seaman 2 was released in Japan for the PlayStation 2 in 2007. Additionally, a PC spin-off called SeaMail was released for Microsoft Windows, with the Seaman being able to interact with the user's applications from the desktop.[3][4]

A version of Seaman for the Nintendo 3DS was also planned, however it was cancelled during development.[5]

Gameplay

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Seaman is played using voice commands and came bundled with the official Dreamcast microphone.

Seaman is considered a unique video game because it contains limited action. The player's goal is to feed and care for the Seaman while providing him with the company that he needs. The mechanic operates in real time, so the player is required to check on the Seaman every real-time day or he could die. A portion of the Seaman's knowledge is random trivia. When he asks what the player's birthday is (and the player responds via the microphone input), the Seaman will share significant events that happened on that date.

Although the Seaman becomes fairly domesticated, it does not stop insulting the player or making less-than-friendly remarks.[citation needed]

At the beginning of the game, the player is provided with an unhatched Seaman egg and develops and interacts with it through various stages of development. Through various buttons on the Dreamcast controller, the player controls all the machinery and physical contact with the mysterious creature. The player is also provided with multiple Seamen for breeding and interaction purposes. Over the course of the game, the player is required to evolve their Seaman to different stages in its life cycle, eventually transforming into a frog-like creature outlined on the disc's cover.

The Seaman begins its first days of life as a Mushroomer, a form which consists of a well-developed optic organ and a flagellum. The Seaman lacks a face and any verbal means of communication. As a Mushroomer, the Seaman is essentially a parasite. After being eaten by a nautilus, it overruns its predator and consumes it from the inside out. Mushroomers tend to stick to one side of the tank by the ends of their flagellum if left alone. In this stage, the player's interaction is somewhat minimal and plays similar to a tutorial, allowing the player to learn to control the heat in the fish tank, direct the Mushroomers, and clean out any filthy water that has accumulated over time.

After emerging from the deceased body of the nautilus, the organism enters a stage called the Gillman, which resembles a cyprinid fish with a human face and a tentacle-like tube atop its forehead. During this stage, the Seaman becomes capable of speech but can only communicate in gibberish by reiterating comments made through microphone input. At this point, the player will begin the communication process and continue maintaining the aquarium as the Gillman grows larger, developing scales and a larger vocabulary. As the Gillmen mature, they develop scales and more advanced speaking abilities, but they will soon kill one another until only two remain. Their genders are indeterminate until they mature to the point of being able to be named. Once one is named, it will change its color and sex.

In its next stage, the Podfish, the Seaman is still fish-like in appearance and is similar to the Gillman but has gained frog-like legs. After mating, the male Podfish dies. The aquarium is also transformed into a terrarium: most of the water is gone, there is new land, and new breathable oxygen. The female then lays its eggs on the shore. Shortly after depositing the eggs, the female also dies, leaving the player a new generation of Seamen in a new evolutionary stage.

Instead of the introduction of hatching as Mushroomers like the first generation, the player began the game with a new form, the Tadman. They superficially resemble the baby Gillman but instead of a fish-like appearance, they resemble tadpoles. In addition, they still retain the same deep voice that their parents had. As they age, their bodies grow larger and small limbs begin to form. The Tadman eats their fellow siblings until their number is reduced to two. When this happens, the siblings will climb ashore and walk on land, ushering them into their next evolutionary stage.

The Frogman is the Seaman's final stage of its maturity process. It is an amphibious creature resembling a frog and like the Gillman, it has a human face and a tentacle-like tube atop its forehead. Now able to co-exist between the habitats of water and dry land, the Frogman is now capable of powerful leaps and the consumption of insectoid organisms; however, like the real-world frog, the creature still requires the moisture of water to stay alive. The player is provided with a sprinkler system to remedy this. It is also at this stage where the player releases the seaman into the wild. While anything concerning metamorphosis and reproduction is left to speculation while the Frogmen are in the wild, it can be assumed the Seaman will eventually lay Mushroomer eggs and start the cycle over. This is similar to the reproductive cycle of real-world fungi, which the name Mushroomer may allude to.

Story and setting

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As a new pet owner, the player is given the responsibility of caring for and learning about the enigmatic "Seaman" species using a replica of the discoverer's laboratory. The player must figure everything out by themselves, such as appropriate care, with some guidance from the narrator, Leonard Nimoy.[6]

The game's manual goes into further detail about the backstory of the seaman species. The manual on page 3 & 11 says to visit the website "www.meetseaman.com"[7] for more information, between 2000 and 2004, it redirected to Yoot.com[8] which expanded on the story in the manual.

During the 1930s, Dr. Jean-Paul Gassé was a member of a special team of French biologists sent to Egypt by the French government. During that time, Dr. Gassé was determined to research a creature that was an "omnipotent messenger of the gods" among the ruins of the Third Dynasty. In March 1932, in the city of Alexandria, Dr. Gassé met a local resident, who, while fishing, caught a Seaman. Dr. Gassé obtained a sample of some of the Seaman eggs, and went back to France with the egg samples in his possession.

When Dr. Gassé returned to France, he attempted to raise the eggs, but the Seamen died in his care. Shortly after this, he published a thesis of his work. His hypothesis suggested that the Seaman was responsible for transferring knowledge that increased during the Third Dynasty across oceans and other lands. Leading academics, however, dismissed him and his work as a PR stunt, leveraging the complaint against him that he lacked the proper evidence to support these outlandish findings. As a result, the work was ignored, and no one believed him. Despite its controversy, his theory became the basis for "anthro-bio-archaeology", a highly valued field of study.

Shortly after publishing his thesis, Dr. Gassé was fired from his post. After his dismissal, news of Gassé's whereabouts and activities were unknown, and details during those times were sketchy. Rumors began circulating that Dr. Gassé's trail traced to some remote islands in Southeast Asia. It is known, however, that he escaped the horrors of World War II and met up with his Japanese colleague, Kimo Masuda. It became clear that sometime during these years they were able to conduct further research on the Seaman's evolution, quite possibly even up to the creature walking on all fours. Unfortunately, there was very little hard data or evidence that substantiated these findings.

In March 1996, the French government established the Anthro-Bio-Archeological Research Institute (ABARI), headquartered in Paris. The institute is based on the work of Dr. Gassé, and most of the modern day research of the Seaman specimens has taken place there. In 1997, the ABARI announced there was a strong possibility that these Seaman species were closely related to the origins of ancient civilizations in Egypt. On October 6, 1998, one of Gassé's formaldehyde specimens is discovered at the University of Paris.

On February 15, 1999, parts of Gassé's journal and note entries were found in the Masuda family storehouse in the city of Matsusaka in Mie Prefecture, Japan. Professor Kendare Takahashi, who was directing the Japanese branch of the ABARI, successfully managed to breed Seaman eggs in captivity in July the same year. Soon after, Seamen were presented in aquariums across Japan. In July 2000, an expedition team embarked for Egypt in the first major research of Seamen in the wild.

Development and release

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Seaman is one of the few Dreamcast games to take advantage of the microphone attachment. The narration is voiced by Toshiyuki Hosokawa in the original Japanese-language version and by Leonard Nimoy in the English-language version. The face of the Seaman creature is modeled after the game's producer, Yoot Saito.[9] In the Japanese version, Saito himself provides the voice of the Seaman, while the baby Seaman's voice is provided by his daughter, and the young Seaman's voice by the daughter of one of the programmers. During development, Sega had requested that a celebrity be used if possible, but Saito was hesitant, but later said that the fact that he played the role himself was "the key to success" because it gave him the advantage of being able to rerecord lines as many times as he wanted, so it was no longer a question of money.[10]

Seaman was developed by Vivarium. It was conceived and designed by Saito, who originally came up with the concept of a joke when one of his coworkers was creating a tropical fish simulator. When Saito told his wife of the concept, she supported the idea despite considering it gross and strange. Saito also shared the concept with Shigeru Miyamoto who also liked the concept and was credited as someone important to the development of the game. Seaman was intended to be developed for the Nintendo 64DD, but was instead made for the Dreamcast. The decision to develop the game for the Dreamcast was made when he was introduced to the vice president of Sega, Shoichiro Irimajiri, who thought it could make the console a market leader. The prototype was initially developed on a Macintosh computer, with a year-and-a-half spent on converting it into a Dreamcast game.[11] Near completion of the game, test players attempted to use long sentences to play the game. This caused the Seaman creature to say "Can you say that again?" repeatedly. To fix the issue, Yoot Saito changed the phrasing to say, "You talk too long, I don't understand" in order to inform players they need to use shorter and simpler sentences to interact with the Seaman creature.[12]

Localization was handled by Sega of America and spent a total of nine months, where multiple changes to comments were made regarding sex, politics, and slang based on cultural differences. In the Japanese version, the in-game Seaman creature would make comments based on the player's content saved on their memory card but this feature was removed in the English version due to privacy concerns. The creature's personality was different from the English version being more casual and negative.[13]

A limited-edition demo version titled Christmas Seaman was released in Japan on December 16, 1999, and available for only ten days either through the Sega Direct online store or as part of an exclusive red Dreamcast pack-in.[14] The title came with two discs, one for sending messages and one for receiving messages, allowing players to connect to the online servers and exchange Christmas wishes and messages, while a Santa themed Seaman shares some of his trademark "Seaman wisdom".[15]

In 2001, Seaman was re-released in Japan for the PlayStation 2 as Seaman: Kindan no Pet - Gaze Hakushi no Jikken Shima[b], the first edition of which came with a microphone. A PC version for Microsoft Windows was planned, with the Seaman being able to interact with the user's applications. No release date was specified, and it was later cancelled.[16]

Reception

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As of February 1, 2004, the Dreamcast version of Seaman sold 399,342 copies in Japan, making it the third best-selling Dreamcast game in the region at the time.[30] The PlayStation 2 version of the game sold 305,632 in Japan as of November 2, 2008.[31] It received an Excellence Award for Interactive Art at the 1999 Japan Media Arts Festival[32] and received the Original Game Character of the Year award at GDC 2002.[33] In 2008, Game Informer named the game one of the top ten weirdest games of all time.[34]

Greg Orlando reviewed the Dreamcast version of the game for Next Generation, praising the game and stating, "the gentle art of conversation meets Resident Evil – and the Dreamcast gets its most bizarre title ever".[24]

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Seaman for the "Console Innovation" award during the 4th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards.[35]

See also

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[edit]

Seaman at MobyGames

References

[edit]
Notes
  1. ^ Japanese: シーマン, Hepburn: Shīman
  2. ^ Japanese: シーマン~禁断のペット~ガゼー博士の実験島, Seaman ~Forbidden Pets~ Dr. Gassé's experimental island
Citations
  1. ^ "Seaman". sega.com. Archived from the original on December 19, 2003. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  2. ^ "Seaman Ships for Dreamcast". GameSpot. August 8, 2000. Archived from the original on November 6, 2001. Retrieved June 4, 2024.
  3. ^ Byford, Sam (September 6, 2019). "Seaman creator Yoot Saito on the fishy Dreamcast AI that was way ahead of its time". The Verge. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  4. ^ "IGN: Seaman Invades Your PC". November 17, 2009. Archived from the original on November 17, 2009. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  5. ^ Hansen, Steven (July 15, 2015). "Yoot Saito on Iwata, canned Seaman 3DS game". Destructoid. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  6. ^ Vivarium, Jellyvision. Seaman. Sega. Scene: Ending credits, 4:17:55 in, Narration By.
  7. ^ "Yoot". www.meetseaman.co. Archived from the original on August 15, 2000. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  8. ^ "Yoot.com - the Seaman Expedition". www.yoot.com. Archived from the original on February 19, 2004. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  9. ^ DreamcastGaga (November 15, 2012). "Seaman: The Prohibited Pet!". Archived from the original on July 15, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  10. ^ 世界の岡本吉起Chチャンネル 【コラボ企画】超名作『シーマン』はこうして生まれた！【斎藤由多加(ゲームクリエイター)対談】(前編)
  11. ^ Byford, Sam (September 6, 2019). "Seaman Creator Yoot Saito on the Fishy Dreamcast AI That Was Way Ahead of Its Time". The Verge. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  12. ^ Graft, Kris (August 28, 2019). "20 Years After Seaman, Saito Reflects on Creativity and Making New, Strange Things". Gamasutra.
  13. ^ "Feature: Yoot Saito—Creator of Seaman". Gameweek.com. Archived from the original on January 4, 2001. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  14. ^ Gantayat, Anoop (November 30, 1999). "Christmas Seaman". IGN. Retrieved December 15, 2008.
  15. ^ Phelan, Mike (2015). The Dreamcast Junkyard 100% Unofficial Ultimate Collectors Guide (2nd ed.). p. 8.
  16. ^ "Seaman Goes PC". GameSpot. March 17, 2006. Retrieved July 20, 2008.
  17. ^ "Seaman for Dreamcast". Metacritic. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  18. ^ "Seaman for Dreamcast". GameRankings. Archived from the original on December 9, 2019. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  19. ^ "Review: Seaman". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 134. EGM Media LLC. September 2000. p. 155. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  20. ^ Langan, Matthew (July 26, 1999). "Famitsu Weekly Reviews Latest Dreamcast Games". IGN. Retrieved December 15, 2008.
  21. ^ "NEW GAMES CROSS REVIEW: シーマン ~禁断のペット~ ガゼー博士の実験島". Weekly Famitsu (in Japanese). No. 915. Enterbrain. June 30, 2006. p. 59.
  22. ^ "プレイステーション2 - シーマン ~禁断のペット~ ガゼー博士の実験島". Weekly Famitsu (in Japanese). No. 915 Pt.2. Enterbrain. June 30, 2006. p. 90.
  23. ^ Prof. Marc Nix (August 8, 2000). "Seaman: Journey to the bottom of the sea and learn the meaning of life from a gutter urchin". GamePro. Archived from the original on January 6, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  24. ^ a b Orlando, Greg (September 2000). "Finals". Next Generation. Vol. 3, no. 9. Imagine Media. p. 104.
  25. ^ Provo, Frank (August 8, 2000). "Seaman Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on March 2, 2020. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  26. ^ 2 Barrel Fugue (November 24, 2000). "Review: Seaman". GamePro. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. Retrieved March 12, 2020.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  27. ^ Mad Carl (October 19, 2000). "Seaman: Sega's gone insane ... and i like it!". Planet Dreamcast. Archived from the original on October 19, 2000. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  28. ^ Hart, Lee (December 2000). "DC-Import Review: Seaman". DC-UK. No. 16. Future plc. pp. 80, 81. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  29. ^ "Edge Awards 2000" (PDF). Edge. No. 82 (March 2000). February 22, 2000. pp. 54–63.
  30. ^ "Sega Dreamcast Japanese Ranking". Japan-GameCharts.com. Archived from the original on May 4, 2009. Retrieved December 15, 2008.
  31. ^ "Sony PS2 Japanese Ranking". Japan-GameCharts.com. Archived from the original on March 3, 2009. Retrieved December 15, 2008.
  32. ^ "「第4回日本ゲーム大賞」受賞作品一覧". Japan Game Awards. Retrieved December 15, 2008.
  33. ^ "1st Annual Game Developers Choice Awards". GDC. Retrieved August 30, 2011.
  34. ^ "The Top 10 Weirdest Games of All Time". Game Informer. No. 180. April 2008. p. 28.
  35. ^ "D.I.C.E. Awards By Video Game Details Seaman". Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
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