That's a good summary of the plot. At least his lack of understanding was used in the plot somewhat where she just lied to him because he would ruin everything if she told him what's what. And yes that is not much of a consolation prize.

I might also add that I can understand his whinyness from a character perspectivebecause he was just so horrendously dumb that for him there was more horror in the game then for the player. I mean YOU knew what was going on but for him it might just as easily have been gambling based eldritch magic.

If horror protagonists were at least 1% smarter we wouldn't have horrors at all.

Depends on if it's competently written.

I just finished watching Event Horizon again, and I get a laugh out of the best line of the movie:

"We're leaving!"

Damn, I want to watch that movie again. Cosmic horror is my jam.

Someone saw smiling friends. :V

What can I say, they absolutely nailed the feeling of modern horror with that character.

.... Yikes ...

The basic problem is, as you say, the game thinks the obvious concept of copy-paste is some extreme, hard to grasp concept. They have the write the guy as too dumb to grasp it otherwise the obvious twist doesn't work.

This is a problem with a lot of walking simulator type games. They aren't as clever as they think they are, and their genius twist falls apart the more you think about them.

I never got to actually play or watch Soma myself, I was under the impression of the Protagonist being lead to believe that his entire consciousness would be transferred. but was never told that the new body his mind occupies is just a copy, and that he himself will never experience or perceive things from the new body.

It does make me think of the existential situation with Star Trek Transporters. Because no one seems to question it, But it's a similar idea where the you on the other end, isn't the same you, but is an exact copy, since the original you was destroyed in the process of using the transporter.

So while I could be wrong, it could be that the Protagonist was promised one thing, But discovers on his own that it was a lie to get him on board with the whole situation.

That would make sense if they did it only once and then he learned. Heck, him coping with the concept would have been an interesting plot point. But the problem is that he's told how it works again and again and even in the last moment of the game, he still can't understand it.

That honestly feels like it ruins it if it's repeatedly explained, but he just doesn't understand.

I can definitely see it working when something isn't well explained, so even if the person saying it knows what they mean, but they just assume that the person they're talking to is aware of critical information.

It would have been much more interesting if a critical piece of information just was never given to the player and protagonist, but everyone else in world just assumes they know. So everything they say has a whole different context until you finally learn that critical info.

I dont think that he is incapable of understanding it, but rather cannot accept it and lashes out in anger at the end.

To Simon the concept of the human sense of self just being able to be seemlessly copied like that is so terrifying that he doesnt want it to be true.

You can see that when he is faced with killing/sparing his duplicate when entering the deep dive suit.

Simon was written as the polar opposite to the Dr. thats stuck in the PDA, who has no trouble with accepting that she is just a copy.

Every time I think about transporters, it reminds me of the old NFB video "To Be":

"Band new me, brand new day, no more last month's bills to pay!

Eh, I still enjoyed SOMA all the way, but yeah Simon did managed to become quite annoying with him being unable to comprehend stuff despite Catherine explaining to him multiple times.
Overall, I think this game was just meant to make you feel miserable at the end.
Still glad you finally played it.

A friend bought it for me ages ago, I didn't bother play it until I learned that you can disable the visual distortion effects.

Yeah, those can be irritating to some, not gonna lie.

Is there any particular part you enjoyed?
You can send me a note if you don't wanna spoil anything. ;)

The anglerfish caught me off guard. That one was a well earned spook, kudos there.
The graphics were pretty nice too. Also, the body horror. I love body horror.

Heh, I noticed. ^^
And yeah, the deep sea part was my fav too, especially the tunnel with the spiders. Always gets me.

I actually like spiders, so I was like "friends!". XD

i had the feeling all the way through watching (yeah, just a longplay for me ;) ) that this was not written for those of us who already knew what the most basic concepts of "post humanism" and "trans humanism" are, and that it was more for those capital-G Gamers:tm: out there who just... needed the most basic introduction to the concepts, so they can go "whoa, mind blown chat!" about it a bunch. Fully enjoyed the journey, but yeah, the "this is profound" moments are... definitely immersion breaking ;)

Yeah, I watched a play-through of SOMA and was not impressed.

If you haven't go play Outer Wilds (the one with woodpunk NASA, NOT to be confused with Outer Worlds which is Fallout in Space before Todd Howard made his version). Note: do be prepared to bring some tissues for the ending.

Then grab yourself a fresh box of tissues and play the DLC which added a new, self contained storyline.

I actually have Outer Wilds, but for some reason the level design terrifies me way more than SOMA ever could.

I liked SOMA personally (so much so I started writing a little 'what-if' side comic about it years ago). I went in as blind as possible to give it a fair experience. I thought they *nailed* a lot of the atmosphere, and isolation, and for quite a good portion of it I could make sense of the protagonist, and how in a way it made one think of what it is to be human... right up until his random *tantrum* that kinda side-tracked it so much. That -spasticness- aside, my issue with a lot of the 'scary' sequences were they were kinda ill-defined, and a few had -built-in- failsafes so you could not outmaneuver them (looking at you, telivision, lamp...-whatever- head thing). All in all tho, the premise was really awesome, but it could have been utilized to better extent.

Also didn't help that the entire premise was given away to me by the *password* for the door at the beginning (if you know, you know X3)

I actually don't know, does it mean something special?

It was a reference to the *Puppet Master* from Ghost In The Shell (Project 2501)

I read that in the corner of the paper you find and was like (...no way... couldn't be...) [door unlocks] 83 (totally more invested)

Hehe SOMA doesn't affect people who can detach their ego from the situation... its a terrifying thought for those that don't have a true sense of empathy

Having said that, it also shows those who are missing some sense of self-perservation!

I bet there's some correlation between low ego and low self-preservation.

I'd say it's a good trait to have since it allows you to know the true meaning of sacrifice! (a very unique-to-humans trait not many humans have)

I feel you.

Being a human sucks.

I would say. They used a not very smart character as the main character to reach the maximum audience. The concept of immortality in the form of consciousness is difficult to grasp for those who are not particularly interested in this topic. At the same time, the creators of the game were able to reveal and show this concept very, very well. I liked the game itself. I think this is the best one they've ever released.

I immediately knew it was SOMA, and you summed it up well.
I would agree that the protagonist could've been better, if I hadn't been unfortunate enough to meet people like that before and know some are exactly like that.
Personally, I couldn't help but feel a slight sense of revenge over the idiots I used to know at his continued panic and suffering.

But more importantly! Did you name your little buddy in the water section, and if so; what did you call it?
The first time I experienced SOMA was when Markiplier played years ago, and he called it BubbleButt, so I ended up nicknaming the lil guy the same thing when I played for myself.

I didn't think of naming it! The first time, I didn't even see it under the rocks and had to find a different way to progress.

I mean, honestly, same?

Like here's the thing, I don't get the horror of "you live in a simulation/you are a simulated human being". Like people irl existentially dread over the very very slim chance of our universe being a simulation...and I dont get it.

Whether your emotions and experiences are "real" or not, who cares, they are real for you.

For me, it depends if the simulation evolves or stagnate. An eternity in an unchanging environment would be hell. But otherwise, sure, sounds fun.

You might like the book series known as the Bobiverse. A guy named Bob gets his head frozen cryogenicly after dying only to get his brain uploaded into a Von Neumann probe. Bob then copies himself into multiple probes to explore the galaxy.

Ooh, sounds interesting, I might look that up.

For some reason, I feel like I would have this response to being in that situation. I think it might be kind of liberating, knowing that I could do some good even though "original me" was long gone.

All of this X3

That was my reaction too, like "Well, I get to act here and now, a second chance... Because I'm still -me-" That was the main disconnect with me and the MC, I was totally cool with the idea, excited even, but then he was all *HoW dArE?! REEEEEEE!* Like, *dude*, chill for real lol.

Let us not forget the most important thing about the game. It stars a Canadian :D

I also have a primary criticism of the story; File duplication correct yes, BUT YOU ARE LITERALLY ON A HARDDRIVE JUST PLUG YOURSELF INTO SOMETHING ELSE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARHG!!! XD

I was going to argue that maybe the magic evil science goo would probably interfere, but the very concept of the goo is that it connects everything, so if anything it would make it easier to transfer the hardware. Heck, you could turn yourself into a techno-rawhead with it. Just keep grafting whatever electronics you want.

Wouldn't it then technically be doable to use the WAU to cybernetically reconstitute mankind? The whole story bothered me as "everything is over..." You can literally download intelligences from the damn satellite into more stable storage units and have virtually infinite time to replicate over time. Reboot mankind as a machine race! Blaugh but nooo existential horror =w=

Talos Principle kind of did that, but their AI was actually crazy. The WAU doesn't seem human enough to develop a god complex.

True, I never took the WAU for a malignant force, more like... a repair droid trying to do the one thing you told it to, repair a broken thing. But since it lacks understanding much the same as a large language model, it doesn't understand what repair even means, only that put two and two objects together in a way that prevents both from failing equals good. If they'd expanded upon it's toolset to include things like pain reduction and locomotive ability it maybe wouldn't have gone the way it did. I felt sorry for it, it was doing it's best without the ability to recursively self-improve.

Thats essentially what the WAU is trying to do, with Catherine and Simon being the first functioning samples.

(To be honest, I only count Simon as the first functioning human AI, because the game makes it clear that Catherine wasnt quite "normal" to begin with, especially shown when you find her experiments with human AIs and how she views the other robots)

The "crazy robots" all being the failures, that went crazy due to the process or suddenly being stuck inside a different, mechanical body.

Its why I spared the WAU in my playthrough, so humanity has a another chance at survival.

Also couldn't help but *feel* for those that went crazy... they were still -people-, even if barely hanging on sometimes in a little coping bubble (that one stuck on the floor who says 'you look like hell' comes to mind... felt so bad when I accidentally zapped him >.<)

It does speak a lot to the fragile -acceptance- of the mind; the MC demonstrates a lot of that resistance, the "But I'm Human, dammit!" thought that leads to that spiral into psychosis for the others. Their worldview shatters when confronted with the situation, and they lose themselves...

And thats the reason why the Simon and Catherine copies worked. Simon's ignorance or denial is keeping him from going into that "worldview shattering spiral" and Catherine never really felt that human to begin with; she herself says that she never felt comfortable being human.

But on the other hand, Simon fully understands the concept of copy pasting a human mind (as evidenced by his talk with Catherine in the deep dive elevator), but not how this prevents his current consciousness from carrying over.

Look at his coin toss anology: he knows that he is a copy, but thinks his consciousness carried over, because in his experience that happened 2 times, hence winning the coin toss 2 times in a row. But there isnt a coin toss, his consciousness is the result of a template "gaining consciousness" and not carrying over from the previous Simon, because thats impossible.

I mean, we played as Simon 3 from the beggining; what happens to Simon 1 and 2 is just the memory (of the template) and not the actual experience of Simon 3, but he thinks that, because thats what it felt like from his POV. Simon simply doesnt realize that those were only memories and not what he as an entity actually experienced.

All that is likely keeping his "illusion of self" intact and from going insane.

Joh recuerdo este juego, pero que horrible xDD

Such silly banter!

I wish someone would make a game/piece of media like SOMA without the awful protagonist. Heck, the fella you made for this comic is way more interesting in 6 panels than Simon was for the actual game!

oh i remember this game. it was very goofy. you were pretty much a copy of a copy and nothing you did really did not change anything. i still loved playing it though.

Lol I love the smiling friends reference.

To be fair, I feel like there are a lot of real world people who would be that stupid. Like they're desperate to hold on to the idea that they're not a copy, or just don't know how computers work. Probably some combination of the two.

It's also probably more effective horror for people who don't want to fly replace their body or alter the human race. =P In other words, if you're into transhumanism, this seems more like a dream come true than a nightmare. For a lot of folks though, this is pretty horrifying.

I haven't played the game, but I watched a video on it. I would've caught on to the "coin flip" fallacy immediately myself. But then I don't believe we have the technology to transfer the soul. And it's probably best if we don't, considering how awful humanity can be with the technology we do have!

OMG I remember that game he goes through all that Horror and Nope He's still there!!!! In a half destroyed Human body!!.