Seaman (1999)

I have to be honest, I don't remember how I obtained my Dreamcast.

All I know is that one day, I owned it. I think, perhaps, it came from my father, who was trying every way that he could to buy back my trust and love after hurting me time and time again (emotionally, never physically) by repeatedly failing to show up for our visits and, on the chances I did spend the weekends with him, getting so drunk he'd fall asleep for hours, leaving me to my own devices. Either way, however it happened, I know that I appreciate having been given it, because it truly was - and is - a marvel of technology. From a company that really was ahead of its time, SEGA, who not only were pioneers in the concept of online gaming what with things like Sega Channel, but also peripheral items and internet connectivity on a console like this, it's a damn shame SEGA eventually fell out of favor and are nothing more than a publisher these days.

SEGA was my entire life, growing up, as far as games went. When my mother re-married, my stepsibilings already had a Genesis, and my stepbrother and I spent hours upon hours trying to beat Shinobi 3 or Sonic 2 or playing NHL 95 (the BEST regular hockey game ever, fight me) and sometimes renting weird stuff we'd find in Blockbuster like Mutant League Hockey. Entire weekends would zip by as we stared at a screen and fought one another to the death, or worked together to reach a climax. But eventually he didn't want to play with me anymore, he wanted to spend time with his friends and find a girlfriend, and while I can't say I don't blame him, I also can't deny I was a bit hurt. So when I finally got my hands on a Dreamcast, it was like a new era. Just me, playing Sonic games (Adventure 1 & 2 or Shuffle was is an extremely underrated title) and enjoying myself as a solo gamer.

I can remember a trip my parents took me on to Death Valley when I was around 11 or 12, and taking my Dreamcast with me and playing games in the hotel when I wasn't out exploring sand dunes. I did this because, even then, I could recognize I'd rather spend time with digital people than real people, especially my own family.

And, much like the console itself, I'm not sure how I came across Seaman either. I think I was in a Gamestop (probably well before it became a Gamestop) and was looking through their Dreamcast bin when I happened upon a case for it. I was enthralled, because it looked utterly fascinating and unlike anything else I'd ever really seen before, plus it would allow me to utilize the microphone peripheral of the console, something I rarely - if EVER - got a chance to do before, or after, that. So I picked it up and went home to try it out. I admit, I was...perplexed, at first, because Seaman is actually barely even a game, it's more like a simulation. It's almost a modern sim game before they existed, in a way. Seamans entire premise hinges on the concept that you are going to grow a fish in a lab, but this fish has a human head and can learn to speak with you.

Bare minimum gameplay, honestly. You take care of a fish/human hybrid. I was a weird girl, so this immediately piqued my curiosity and was right up my alley. And I know plenty of girls will try and pump their "weird" cred by saying "I'm not like other girls!" and listing off what strange pieces of media they enjoy, and I don't like to pit myself against other women because that sort of competition gets nobody anywhere, but I need you to understand just how weird a little girl I was. I was the type of girl who asked her parents to stop driving so I could take photos of roadkill. I was the type of girl who brought home a sheeps eye I was supposed to dissect in middle school. I was the type of girl who once ate a deep fried chicken foot at a Ranch99 Market because it 'looked cool'. I realize that these all involve animals and this all just sort of makes me sound like a serial killer, but I assure you, I'm not. I'm just fucking strange, and so was Seaman, so it was instantly appealing to me.

Seaman has, as stated, extremely little gameplay, and most of the time is spent feeding for him, cleaning the tank and, eventually, conversing with him best you could. The thing is, I don't mind this sort of thing, and I certainly didn't mind it then either. It was oddly calming. Comforting. Cozy. Alliteration aside, I loved caring for that stupid bastard of a fish almost as much as I loved caring for my real fish, and I think that's another aspect that appealed to me. I had actual fish in the house. I always had a fish of one kind or another growing up, because they were simple pets. We had dogs, sure, and we a million other pets too (a leopard Gecko, a dozen mice, my stepbrother had snakes), but the fish were my pets specifically, and I adored them to pieces. I think that love for fish only strengthened my interests in taking care of Seaman, because, like them, he was simply scales and fins, but unlike them, he could talk to me.

And the thing about Seaman, above all else, was he was kind of a snarky asshole. I myself was a very cynical child, and so I appreciated hanging out with a digital fish who shared my sense of humor. Sure, the conversations weren't real conversations, this was on the Dreamcast for fucks sake, it wasn't anything like we might have today. But for the time period it was a technical treat. And it opened up my love for conversing with digital creations. Years later I'd spend hours "talking" to Oliverbot or Cleverbot online and many other programs masquerading as people simply because I knew their responses would be what I wanted to hear. Real people rarely told me what I wanted to hear.

Seaman gave me a scared queer little girl a place to relax and someone to somewhat talk to every day after school, and that was a truly welcome thing. I never beat it, because really why would I, but I appreciate the hell out of it for being a weird thing that helped another weird thing survive adolescence. And though I haven't broken out the Dreamcast and talked to Seaman in over a decade, it's nice to know that he'll always be there if I need to. I realize I don't need to rely on him anymore, that I can have relationships with actual humans, despite my hermit like tendencies. So thanks Seaman.

Thanks for teaching me there's other fish in the sea.