Blog of Josh Hall

Had a dream about a video game last night.  It was a free roam world, 3rd person, kind of like the game Black & White.  All the characters were animals and you had to interact with them to learn "concepts" like trading, communication, hiring, etc to get things done.  The point was just to create a community that worked together and you got to chose how they worked together, whether through strict government policies, violence, friendly favors, etc.  It was a very cartoonish and humorous game.  The animals were very personified.

So that was the extent of the dream, and then I started thinking about this more and fleshing it out.  As far as names for the game, the first thought was "Orgz" since it’s catchy and could be short for ‘organization" or "organisms".  My next thought was for a sub-title, which was something like "All animals are created equal.  some are just more equal than others."  Which is an obvious lending from the book Animal Farm  by George Orwell.  Then, you’d have to consider the legal ramifications, but it would be a great opportunity to base the game on the book and just call it Animal Farm.  You could use all kind of quotes from the book like "2 legs are better than 4".

You could pick from a few animals as your character, each with their own personalities and benefits:

Duck – Everyone’s friend since they are in the air, water, and on land.  They’re pretty emotionally unstable and irational though.  They also can’t do much hard labor.

Horse – Very stern and a strong laborer.  Things are the way they are because they should be that way.  Not cooperative or open to change or creative inovation.

Dog – Smart and analytical.  Able to organize (herd) everyone to action by motivation (not fear).  Sometimes distracted by leisure instead of work.

So the goal of the game would be to run a farm, but it’s really more of town exchanging goods and services.  Like, the pigs have bacon to trade, you don’t actually kill the pigs for their bacon, you talk with them and work out something in exchange, like X amount of mud for Y amount of bacon.  Keep the pigs happy, and they’ll give you more bacon.  you could even get a little more complex about designing the layout of the farm.  Keep the cats away from the muddy pigs so they’ll chase the mice out of the barn.  A sense of humor will determine the success of the game, so you have to put in a lot of witty things like being able to open a petting zoo for money, but none of the animals like being extorted like that (form of prostitution).  Or humans coming in and offering to outsource your cow production items like milking, meat packing, etc.  Cows would be really stupid in the game.  Really stupid.

I want to invent something.  Something that will require a patent.  So basically, I just want to have a patent on something.  I think they’re pretty cheap.  I have a lot of ideas, but I never do anything with them.  I should start writing them down more…

Reposted from my friend, Neil:

*Top ten things Pittsburghers should do to celebrate if the Pens win the
Stanley Cup*

10. Flip over Mellon Arena’s dome and put it on top of PPG Place to make the
biggest, shiniest Stanley Cup ever

9. Load people dressed in penguin costumes into Giant Eagle shopping carts
and roll them down the Hill towards Mellon Arena

8. Everyone wrap themselves in tin foil and run amuck in the city, like
thousands of legged Stanley Cups

7. Mail jock straps (cups) to every “Stanley” listed in the local phone book

6. Egg the house of every “Joe” and “Lewis” listed in the local phone book

5. Use the Cup to serve borscht soup in tribute to Geno’s mom

4. Use the Cup to serve vodka in tribute to Geno’s dad

3. Fill the Cup with urine, give it to Hossa, and tell him it’s IC Light

2. Change the name of “Australia” to “Crosby” so “Sidney Crosby” owns yet
another one of the Capitals

1. Buy foreign cars

So, I realized something this morning.  I’ve been living in a dream world during my dreams.  There is an actual place that I visit repeatedly, and even help build.  This place has many ties to real places, like under the belle vernon bridge, the carnegie science center, and a few houses.

Specific to last night, I took Kallie to see this aquarium I had helped build at the Science Center.  It’s physically impossible to do what we did, but it was pretty cool.  Think of it as a tube aquarium with a diagonal cut through it.  We hung this clear net material around the open part.  So if you were at the bottom, you were able to jump on the net and climb up it and be able to touch the dolphins and stuff through the water.  So the water just held it self back from the net somehow.  Anyway, once you climbed to the top, there was a restaurant and just a place to stand around and enjoy the view.  Like I said, this is something that I actually remember building in a previous dream.  I had put in the floors at the top of the aquarium and someone else was installing the net.  During last night’s dream, the net was beginning to wear with holes in it, and I remember thinking that someone is going to have to redesign the material to be stronger since all these kids were going to be climbing on it.

It’s just weird to think that there is saved dream data somewhere in my head that I revisit from time to time.  I’m not sure that’s uncommon, just a new revelation to me.

Sitting around a friend’s house Saturday, Nick, Andy, and I had a fleeting idea for a new business.  We’ll call it Retro’s.  It’s a store where they have every video game console available for you to play.  You’d have to have the systems behind a case, and only employees are allowed to handle them.  Patrons can come in, pay a membership fee or some equivalent to play any game from the library of video games you have in stock.  Now, the cool part is, as you’re starting out, you, of course, want to build an inventory.  So, you barter membership time for game titles or systems that you do not currently have in stock.  Eventually, you’d have a pretty awesome collection of all kinds of games and systems, and you didn’t really have to do work for it at all.

So i get this random newsletter in my email the other day from this summer camp program in Australia.  My initial thought was that it was just spam, but it looks way to legit.  So I go ahead and go through the unsubscribe steps, and just shrug it off.  A day or two later, I get an email from "Joshua Hall" saying that he’s working to process my unsubscription but couldn’t find my email address in their DB.  Turns out I got my own numerous email accounts mixed up when I attempted to unsubscribe, but that’s pretty funny I just natually ran into another Josh Hall.

This comes a day after Kallie tells me that one of the big doctor’s at her office has a son named Josh and his last name is also Hall.  So Kallie is going to have to explain repeatedly that she is not marrying Dr. Hall’s son, I’m sure.

My curse.