KickStarter Octopus City Blues - the authentic Octopus City simulation

[CryptRat]

Throw Momma from the Centipede

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Henrietta Rotwang, a hard-working mother of four living on space colony Pluke. I wanted to write to you regarding your corporation's upcoming Octopus City Simulation Software, Octopus City Blues. You see, my ten year old daughter is fascinated with the simulation you are developing. Posters of Kaf, Daisy and the Conman are all over the walls on her room. She prints and memorizes all of your press releases, and she even wants to be an "Octoblood junkie" when she grows up.

Now, I view myself as a fairly modern and open-minded parent. I appreciate all the great things your corporation has done for us and for everyone in the colonies. I am also aware of the historic significance of the Samarduk octopus city ruins and your ambitious project to simulate what it would be like to live in and explore such a city. I can see the educational value of the simulation, and I am happy when my daughter shows genuine passion and interest in any subject. However, I am a little concerned about the nature of your simulation.

This is an image from an article in the latest Electronic OctoSim Monthly, the one titled "OCB Goes HD: Fatter Widescreen Tentacles Confirmed". In this image, a homeless young girl describes symptoms of "Octoblood addiction". Now I know that Octoblood no longer exists, and maybe it's silly to even bring this up, but... I am worried about the message your simulation is conveying to my children. When my daughter saw this image, she told me being an Octoblood addict must be exciting: living on the edge, bleeding a thick dark blue liquid, and having to consume the same liquid to stay alive. It all seems very graphic and disturbing to me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

This is another image from the same article. It apparently depicts a dark and dangerous slum area in the lower part of the city, a place so perilous that even the local police force doesn't dare to patrol. I am ashamed to admit not knowing much about history, but it almost seems like your simulation is highlighting the darker, seedier elements in order to sell more copies. All this talk of drug abuse, crime syndicates, ambiguous moral choices, and corrupt government is starting to worry me. What kind of role model is Kaf Kafkaryan? He may have been an important historic figure, but it seems quite irresponsible having children assume the role of an ugly middle-aged man who talks to tentacles, consumes forbidden substances, and commits heinous crimes. Are they supposed to identify with characters like a crafty swindler, a childish mad scientist, a deformed horse, or a jealous tentacle-wife?

This one is from your own marketing material. What is Kaf doing to the poor man? Did he kill him? What is he planning to do with the body? Why is a rat watching them? Does that graffiti show a cyborg blowing their brains out? It's all very dark, gritty and amoral. What happened to good old values? Why doesn't your simulation emphasize more positive things about our past? How about the ingenuity required to build something as impressive as the Samarduk octopus city, or how the actions of one insignificant and cowardly tentacle cutter changed the course of history? Our past was not perfect, and an authentic simulation would have to show a lot of dark and questionable things. I think you should definitely portray all the negative aspects of the city, but it's one thing to show the destructive effects of Octoblood consumption and the consequences of overpopulation and greed, and another thing to focus on these things and make them "cool" and acceptable, using them to market your purportedly educational package.

One more thing, I am very concerned about the release window of your simulation. My daughter started following your simulation over three years ago. So far all we have seen is images, videos, press releases, and the occasional demo. It must be difficult to make something this ambitious, but I want my daughter to have closure already. I'm just saying... people are getting tired of your excuses. I hope you make some concrete announcements regarding that topic soon.

Yours truly,

A Very Concerned Mother

PS: I am sending this message anonymously because I heard strange rumors of people disappearing and something called a "spider-bot". Naturally I don't believe such things, and I'm confident that Ghost in a Bottle has our best interest at heart, but it doesn't hurt to be a little prudent...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/1816602?ref=activity

 

[HoboForEternity]

like they're doing all out with this thing. one of the most creative kickstarter updates i've seen

 

[CryptRat]

In case you had any doubt it's not a Bethesda game.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/1881909?ref=activity

(Concept art by the great Jacob Janerka, check out his newly released game Paradigm if you haven't already!)

Dear backer,

I don't want to call you that, it's too impersonal. I will give you a name. The name will be a fine one, worthy of our friendship. You might be some Arbogast or another Hortense in your waking life, but in my heart of hearts you will always be Borgliddle. Let's do this thing again:

Dear Borgliddle,

I am sorry that we don't talk often. Talking to me directly, the ignoble Firas, is quite difficult. The voices take over and I am helpless to resist. Chief among them is is the voice of the Ghost in a Bottle, a powerful being from another dimension (or is it the future? The mythos are unclear...) This entity is the malevolent chairman of a large corporation developing the so-called Octopus City Simulation Software. Ghost in a Bottle is the dominant voice, the one that entrusted me with this holy quest, but there are other voices as well. From concerned mothers to leet hackers, many voices speak through me and start to babble about the latest and greatest in Octopus City entertainment.

Look at me, wasting your precious time with this nonsense. I am sorry, I am a simple creature not accustomed to speaking to high-born dignitaries such as yourself, the magnificent and most honorable Borgliddle. I wanted to speak my mind, to tell you the truth about this cursed project, but instead I jot down all this meta garbage. Maybe I'm a little afraid of what I will have to say.

So let's talk about Octopus City Blues, a game ("Games are for kids and plebs", the Ghost in a Bottle protests) I have been developing for years. The voices will assure you that progress is made every day. They will fill your little head with dreams of mothers, beetles, and twisted tentacles.

Tentacles are so funny, aren't they? It's really easy to make tentacle jokes, tentacle puns, tentacle innuendo. The voices love talking about tentacles; whenever they want to cheer the Borgliddles up, they will write a tentacle joke or two. After all, everyone loves tentacles. Some misguided Borgliddles even go and write comments like "I don't even care if the game comes out as long as you keep writing tentacle jokes". You mean well, but you are feeding the beast.

Now, it's not a lie to say progress is made. Thanks to the voices, I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Centipede trains on fire off the shoulder of a giant robot. I watched a tentacle bloom in the dark near the Hotmog Colosseum's gate. These moments will not be lost in time. So I continue to slowly chip away at the purple tapestry that is Kaf's story. Believe me, dear Borgliddle, I am trying. Sometimes I fail and give in to temptation. Sometimes I... I... play a game or watch a movie. Sometimes... I even leave my underground bunker (it's not really a bunker. I was just trying to impress you.)

It's easy to tell myself to cut corners or to discard entire sections because the game must be released. It's not as easy to actually do it. The Octopus City of my nightmares is not a Bethesda kind of world. Every Octopus City quest has a large number of conditions, choices, and consequences. These quests require a lot of thought and planning, little Borgliddle, something beyond the capabilities of my underdeveloped reptile brain.

So, I wanted to say that I still have no idea when Octopus City Blues will be out. I mean, I do have ideas, but I've been wrong too many times. With that said, I wanted to give you some options, because Octopus City is all about options, and you are a wonderful humanoid who has supported me for years.

• Continue with the current pace. Not much changes. Although I am also trying to do something about my job situation to give more time to Octopus City Blues. It will take time, and I will continue trying to improve things, but don't complain if your mutant son is already old enough to assassinate you and take over your castle by the time the game is out.
• Split the game in two. Octopus City Blues was always a story in two largely distinct chapters, with the second and smaller chapter greatly shaped by all your choices in the first one. This option would result in getting to play something sooner (how soon? don't ask!), but it isn't a magic bullet; the experience of two separate parts is simply not the same as one combined game. One benefit is having more content in total as I get more time to implement a more substantial second chapter. Still, I can imagine some people would hate the whole idea with a passion.
• Give you back your money. I know it's weird to say this, but sometimes I wish I could simply give everyone their money back. This isn't because I plan to stop or slow down development. It's just that money is no longer the main issue and I don't want anyone to feel bad about their investment. Even if we decide to go with one of the options above, you can always send me an email asking for a refund.

Because I know you like bulleted lists so much, another way to look at these options is like this:

• Good for me, good for the game, probably bad for you
• Good for me, good/bad? for the game, probably good for you
• Good for me, doesn't matter for the game, probably good for you

I win regardless of your choice, and that's all that matters. To conclude this rant I invite you, cool beans Borg, to write down your opinion and to use this opportunity to vent your frustration and disappointment. Nothing is set in stone yet, so if you have other options I would also love to hear them.

By the way, regardless of what we end up doing I want to start having monthly updates, alternating between my own pathetic voice and one of the scary other voices whose tentacle jokes you all like so much. I promise I will not rant as much next time. It will be more like boring more technical progress updates vs. cool and educational corporate propaganda.

Now that I've written this wall of text interspersed with random images, safe in the knowledge that no one would actually read it, and happy that I did my Octopus City related thing for the day and I can go back to wasting my time, I bid you farewell and wish you the best on your own Octoblood-induced hallucination.

Entrepreneurial regards,

Firas Assaad

 

[CryptRat]

The Octopus with the Crystal Suckers

Greetings from the heart Octo-faithful,

This is a special announcement from the Ghost in a Bottle Family Entertainment company to warn you against paying heed to the content of the previous communiqué. It was written by a disgruntled employee and does not represent the values the Ghost in a Bottle family stands for. Work on our magnum opus continues with the help of our ever-expanding army of infinite monkeys typing furiously on their typewriters.

Because we know our fans deserve the best, our market research department closely follows the latest and greatest in market trends. At a time when our puny competitors still cling to the antiqued 4:3 aspect ratio, our research indicates that 10 years from now more "widescreen" resolutions will be commonplace. Given the protracted pace of development, we worry about the unlikely possibility of releasing our simulation in a dead format when everyone has already switched to wider displays. That's why we are making the world's first HD-ready Octopus City simulation.

This means we have to revisit some of the older completed areas and manually re-scale them to match the new screen resolution. This also gives us the chance to improve many of these scenes. You can see some of the before and after examples below:

For old people resistant to change, we will also have an option to experience the simulation in either resolution. After all, the goal is to appeal to everyone and everything; we will do whatever is possible to make more money, including selling information about your firstborn to the highest bidding death cult.

Aside from graphics and area design, we recently fixed a long-standing performance bug with text rendering. While inferior products from our competitors struggle to maintain 30 frames per second on the so-called next generation consoles, we are happy to announce that Octopus City Blues will maintain a healthy 300 frames per seconds on your grandfather's toaster. That's 10 times the FPS, so mathematics tells us we are at least 10 times as good.

In the past we've released small alpha builds to make sure everything is running well. We want to start doing that again in the future, hopefully with the next update. At some point we were also considering releasing an improved demo, but it's not clear if that's needed. The first demo was a decent representation of what to expect, and while a lot has changed, it might be better to wait until we're closer to a final release. Do let us know what you think about that. We promise to pretend that your opinion matters.

In other news, we have finished some new areas as well. Unfortunately, you have already seen too much, and you know what happens to people who see too much. Maybe next time...

Your most loyal and humble servant-leader,

Ghostina Bottle

 

[eat_pray_loot]

At least they don't have to worry about that Ouya stretch goal anymore.

 

[CryptRat]

The Kafkaryan Candidat

If you've been reading this blog long enough then you should know how I feel about the piece of vaporware known as Octopus City Blues. I remember twenty years ago, when the ambitious "Octopus City Simulation" software was announced, I was skeptical. I got a lot of heat for my unpopular opinion at the time. I was the 'party pooper', the pessimist who wouldn't bow to the glorious vision of the 'imagineers' at the hypothetical Ghost in a Bottle corporation. People thought I was crazy, that I was one of those loony conspiracy theorists who have nothing better to do than question everyone and everything.

It's been twenty years, and the -lambs- still wait for such a simulation software. You think I'm being harsh here? Maybe, I don't really care. It's not that I wouldn't like Octopus City Blues to be real either. In theory, it would easily be the definitive Octopus City experience, there is no doubt about that. From the beautifully rendered beetles to the multitude of branching choices and the complex gossip system, never has a simulation been so immersive and faithful to the source material. I have to give the marketing 'team' at Ghost in a Bottle credit for how well their lie is constructed. I don't blame the -lambs- for being fooled. After all, that's what they were bred to do. Ghost in a Bottle is the world's greatest magician, and they've pulled their best trick.

You can see the most recent screenshot of the simulation above. I pulled it directly from their twitter account. Notice how it's showing Kaf's room, one of the first locations we've seen of this product. In general, my calculations show that the Ghost in a Bottle team is releasing less and less content. Years ago they had a demo, and before that they regularly released new screenshots and alphas. These days there are less updates, and instead of communicating with the -lambs- in plain language, they write long irrelevant posts in an attempt to be humorous.

The Ghost in a Bottle spokesperson claims that they don't want to show new content to avoid 'spoilers'. I don't know about that. My hypothesis is that the original team involved with the simulation died in an accident 10 years ago, and having no one to replace them, the corporation has been trying to keep up appearances by remixing the existing content ad infinitum. This is corroborated by an old article on their own website.

Another thing I noticed is that they spend a lot of time talking about improvements to tools. Map editors, sprite editors, gossip editors, etc. I understand how complex making a simulation could be, but to me it signals that the 'team' is not prioritizing the things that really matter. Decades later they are still polishing technical tools that no one else would ever use, when they should be adding more tentacles (I bring up tentacles because according to their CEO, having more of them is the company's raison d'etre.)

Perhaps I am being too critical. The -lambs- seem very understanding and supportive of the company, even when it apologizes to them repeatedly. That's why I'm starting to question the so-called 'supporters'. Hundreds of people supported this game, but do we know who these people really are? Now, hear me out, I'm not saying it's not conceivable for passionate, kindhearted people who want more tentacles in their lives to exist. However, wouldn't it be more likely, given the current grim and depressing state of our world, a world run by nameless corporation where people are driven by self-interest, wouldn't it make more sense for the -lambs- themselves to be part of the lie? Just think about it. Who actually pays for an uncertain hypothetical product based on a video and some screenshots? Who puts their faith into some faceless 'company' that wouldn't even confirm whether dual-wielding tentacles is an option? That's what I thought too.

This was a 'joke' posted on the corporate social media account a couple of years ago. But the more I think about it, I wonder if all these modes were actually developed. Maybe that's why it's taking so long. In the 20 years since the project was announced, Steve Buscemi is probably too old to continue playing Kaf. This leads me to the idea that the company diverted its fund at some points into genetic engineering research in order to preserve and/or clone the aging actor. What if, during one of these experiments, the original team perished as I mentioned earlier. What if the -lambs-, the supporters, were born out of such experiments? What if we're dealing with powers beyond our understanding? With evil personified?

I came across a passage in an old cuneiform manuscript from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Akkad. According to it, a mysterious and evil presence would manifest in the end times. A cunning and deceitful false prophet beckoning the gates of hell to open. That reminded me of a character in Octopus City known as the Conman. It could be a coincidence, but when you consider the mythological significance of tentacles and octopuses as creatures of the deep, eldritch monstrosities beyond human comprehension, things start making too much sense. What's a ghost in a bottle after all? Doesn't it conjure images of a sealed demon? A hidden danger waiting for the right time?

Ghost in a Bottle recently talked about how they spent a lot of time modifying the existing artwork to support 'widescreen resolutions'. Sounds like pointless busywork, doesn't it? It might be cool for the handful of people using the over-hyped 'HD displays', but for the rest of us it's just another feature no one asked for. Where is the enhanced demo they promised so long ago? More frequent updates? Special alpha versions for supporters?

What if Ghost in a Bottle is actually an artificial intelligence of some sort, stuck in an endless marketing loop. Maybe during the Steve Buscemi incident, when the -lambs- were created, a new form of consciousness was spontaneously generated in the company's mainframe. A so-called 'neural network' was formed, a black box that crawled the darknet consuming all recorded human knowledge and feeding it into the machine. Over time, the network gets more and more complex, to the point where it achieves a certain self-aware or 'meta' quality. You can see it in the company's updates, they get weirder and weirder over time. More self-referential and less about Octopus City. At that point, can you really believe anything they tell you? You could ask for a release date and they would instead go and write a mock article about a conspiracy theorist.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking the whole thing. Time to take my medicine, I guess..




In other news, the Octopus City social media account was recently promoting an 'indie fighting game'. The game itself looks fun, and I doubt it has any relation to what I just wrote. I do find it fascinating how the artificial intelligence running Ghost in a Bottle has learned to collaborate with other entities to divert attention from the project. I wouldn't be surprised if 100 years from now Kaf will be known more for a small cameo in Indie Pogo than for the Ghost in a Bottle fiasco. You can support that project by clicking this link: Indie Pogo on Kickstarter.

 

[CryptRat]

I Married an Octopus from Outer Space

To my favorite Octopals,

The Ghost in a Bottle corporate death squad wishes you all an amorphous new year. To celebrate, we are going to share the latest and greatest scoops regarding everyone's favorite simulation software. This post will have a lot of text, because I don't know when to shut up. Put your seat belts on and get ready for another journey into the wonderful world of cephalopod trivia.


Art by the Chuck "finbeard" Simpson


Chapter 1: The Fat Lady's Song, or: The Plan
Last update someone asked me to make an estimation based on the current pace and progress. I've always been wrong about these estimations. It's easy to be optimistic and to make plans that don't pan out. There's always the gut feeling that if we work hard then we can get something out soon. This feeling is strongest when the year starts, because initially the year feels like a long time, and wonderful things can always happen. But more often than not, bad things end up happening and you repeat past mistakes. Instead, I went over past and current data. How much did we do each year? How much work are we doing now? Exactly what is left?

Long story short, at our current pace, we're looking at a late 2019 release. Yes, that's right, 2 more years for a project that's already 3 years late. It was a bit of a surprise for me as well, because I want to believe that we can do better. The two main reasons it's taking forever are (1) it's big, detailed and ambitious, and (2) we have a small team working part time. I'd rather not give up on (1) even if it means taking more time, but at the moment I can't do much about (2). Hopefully that can change in the future, but for this estimation let's assume we'll continue with the same pace. Instead of wasting your time with apologies and excuses, let's be pragmatic and come up with a workable plan.

2014 was by far our most productive year. There are several reasons for that, but the main one is actually focusing on getting the demo out. It took us a lot of time and energy, but it was also a deliverable and specific goal. For 2018, I want to have specific deliverable milestones as well. I considered cutting the project in half, but people (rightfully) didn't like the idea. That's why you're going to get not one, not two, but three demos in 2018! The demos will have different audiences and goals, but ultimately we want to speed up our development while also getting feedback and communicating more with you. Here's how it'll work out:


Art by Marina


Backers Demo: The New Intro - March 2018

The 2014 demo taught us a lot of things. Watching let's plays and seeing players actually interact with the city was a great experience. Based on what we saw, we completely redesigned the beginning of Octopus City Blues to gently introduce the city and gossip mechanics without being an explicit tutorial (that took time, but it's worth it!). The result is self-contained segment that includes a series of small but open-ended quests culminating in a final evaluation of everything you did. This is basically a pocket experience of all that Octopus City Blues has to offer, and it can be played over and over to experience different outcomes.

We want to present that as a demo for all backers. It's a good milestone because almost all the required art and music for the section are completed. However, we still need to implement the main menu and do a lot of polishing and bug fixing. The demo will also serve to get your feedback and see if we're on the right track.

Beta Testers Demo: New Main Quest - August 2018

The 2014 demo introduced the Professor's main story quest, as well as the beetle war dream. There are several main quests in Octopus City Blues, and of each of them has both an Octopus City component and a dream component. For this demo, we want to introduce a different quest we're excited about. Without spoiling much, the dream component has a western theme as Horse-Kaf and an Outlaw work together to escape ruthless bounty hunters. The Octopus City part is a mystery where you have to find the identity of your enigmatic target.

This is intended for backers at the tester level or above, as it's more likely to spoil some things. Instead of the old beta tester forum we'll figure out a better way to distribute this (itch.io has nice tools.) I picked this quest because, while much of the art for the dream section is done, we still need to actually implement the quest and work on new areas. The demo would then serve as a good motivation to focus on wrapping the quest up.

Public Demo: New Intro and Professor's Quest - End of 2018

The final demo isn't focused on new materials (there's always the risk that we're showing too much.) The goal is to present the mature and finalized version of what we tried to show in the 2014 demo. This public release will be very similar to the final version, and will include both the new intro (after taking your feedback into account) and the Professor/Beetle Queen quests. We actually had to cut some content for the 2014 demo, and some scenes were merged into exposition-heavy monologues. We want to do it properly this time, and balance the choices so people are more likely to get different endings.


Art by TFT


Final Version - 2019?

Like I said before, with our current pace we expect a late 2019 release. I hope that releasing these demos will push us to do more and hopefully finish it sooner, but that's my optimism talking again. Instead, let's see how many of our goals we can accomplish this year. You can expect a similar post early next year with more details.

Chapter 2: Tearful Tentacle Town MMXVII
2017 was interesting in terms of progress. We did several things that actually slowed us down, but we did them knowingly because we thought it was worth it. In the beginning of the year we had a long chat about the state of things. We concluded that attempts to take shortcuts and simplify things were frustrating us and hurting the vision we shared with you in the beginning. This doesn't mean that we'll kick back and take infinite time to make the perfect product, but quality will always come first. We won't release something we aren't proud of.

Widescreen Resolution

The original 4:3 aspect ratio of Octopus City Blues wasn't a deliberate decision. The earliest prototype was made in an engine with a boxed default resolution, and we kept using it in subsequent versions. It helped that there was less to draw on the sides of the screen, and that some early Android devices supported 4:3 aspect ratios.

Octopus City Blues is not really meant to be "retro", even though it's heavily inspired by the aesthetic. We break the rules more often than not, and we are trying to build something fresh and unique. In today's world, where widescreen resolutions are a given, we want to reach as many people as possible. Unfortunately, this meant going back and redoing over 30 scenes. In some cases we took the opportunity to substantially improve them as well.

Scheduling Changes

Somewhere along the line I decided that one measure to release the project faster would be to simplify the scheduling system as much as possible. Instead of having NPCs walk around they would simply pop up in different places as time passed. Furthermore, many of the schedule-based mechanics were removed or simplified. The main benefits were having to draw less sprite frames, reducing the potential for path finding bugs (e.g. characters getting stuck), and not having to write a detailed schedule for every single NPC (there are over 120!)

That sounded good on paper, but in practice it didn't turn out very well. It was weird to leave a location only to see the NPC from the previous location already waiting for you in the new one. The city felt less lively and dynamic as well, contrary to one of our major design goals. After fixing several path finding bugs, the system was revamped to bring back many of the old features while also keeping it a bit simple. NPCs will now walk and enter/leave locations from the proper exits, instead of popping up somewhere else. Most NPCs still won't have full schedules, but there will be enough to bring life to the simulation.

As seen above, the system was also extended to allow NPCs to talk to each other and perform various actions as part of their routine. This includes the ability to perform actions at random intervals, and to interact with the environment and other characters around them. This took a lot of work as the code was basically rewritten, but I really like how it works now. For example, you can learn new gossip by following NPCs and listening to their conversations.

Performance Improvements and Fixes

These are the kind of changes that are hard to show. Major issues with the game engine were resolved this year, allowing Octopus City Blues to run very efficiently on older hardware. This includes one of the oldest bugs, where the frame rate would drop whenever text was displayed. Text rendering was also improved, and the editor is now easier to use.

Art Progress

Of course, Marina has been busy with the art as well. In addition to the stuff we've shared in 2017, several new scenes were completed and we also have unique cabinets for different arcade games. Currently we're working on the evaluation section of the first planned demo, where you'll receive a unique card based on your choices. Marina is painting and drawing each card traditionally, and will later digitize them for Octopus City Blues.

Chapter 3: Octoblood Made Me Do It
So there you have it. Congrats on making it this far! I initially wrote even more, including a full chapter about what we did every year since 2012, but maybe it's better to focus on the future rather than dwelling on the past. I want to start the year with an optimistic and pragmatic outlook, and the demos seem like a good way to do it. There might be delays and setbacks, so I'm counting on you to yell at us and ask for updates. An Octoblood junkie can only get better when their family and friends tell them to get off their lazy bum and get a job scraping squashed beetle remains off the sidewalk.

 

[CryptRat]

Le Cercle Violet

CONFIDENTIAL

Bureau of Octopus City Simulation Regulation (BOCSR)
New Samarduk Office

10:38 PM FLEADAY NEWT 18, [REDACTED] - RFMID: G0A24XB13-005

ATTENTION INSPECTOR [REDACTED], ROOM 401B 2W,

PRELIMINARY FINDINGS RE GHOST IN A BOTTLE INC <PRODUCT CLASSIFICATION DECADENT SIMULATION SHAREWARE CATEGORY UNSAFE TITLE OCTOPUS CITY BLUES> CONCERNING ALLEGED DEMO PLANS

CASE HISTORY
Earlier this year, in a press conference taking place on the 2nd of Grain, the keiretsu known as GHOST IN A BOTTLE, registered with the Chamber of Mega-Commerce with number [REDACTED], announced their upcoming plans. A concerned mother contacted the vaporware-prevention unit of our office, the Bureau of Octopus City Simulation Regulation, to investigate GHOST IN A BOTTLE's activities and ensure that they are working on the demonstration releases they promised the public. Two of our best agents successfully infiltrated the GHOST IN A BOTTLE fortified pyramid by posing as new employees. This report chronicles their findings and reveals the true extent of GHOST IN A BOTTLE activities in the last few months.

HIGH-LEVEL SUMMARY
The findings are mixed. Our agents were able to ascertain that GHOST IN A BOTTLE is indeed committed to the fulfillment of their plans. They have taken clear and constructive steps to improve their production pipeline, and a measurable improvement in their efficiency and productivity was recorded over the observation period. However, it is the opinion of our agents that even with all these improvements the promised demo will take quite some time. This could mean [REDACTED].

The corporation took several steps, including holding weekly meetings to discuss art progress and requirements. But the main improvement was achieved by introducing weekly goals, represented as points, assigned to every task. One point represents what they could realistically deliver within a day, and tasks usually have 0.5 to 2 points. Each week, the company committed to an average of 6 points, and work was done almost every day to reach that goal. This helped them double the amount of work done per week.

Within a reporting period of 60 days, they were able to work on more than 53 points in 49 tasks. What remains is 78 points in 76 tasks. Assuming they continue with the same pace, this means they still need 88 days to wrap up their first planned demo.


REASONS FOR DELAY
Our organization analyzed the work done by the suspect corporation and was able to summarize a few reasons for the disparity between the company's plans and their actual performance.

• Aggressive initial estimation to motivate employees to work longer hours (without getting paid, of course, they're not a charity)
• While the company tried to have more empirical and accurate estimates last time, some tasks weren't defined well enough for proper estimation.
• Bugs and performance issues were encountered as work commenced on new features.
• Certain planned decisions didn't feel 'right' when implemented, so changes were made to the original designs.

The company's management maintains a positive outlook and considers the delay proof that their milestone-based plan is working. They allege that it encouraged them to work differently, measure their work accurately, specify their designs better, and push themselves to focus on the simulation.

[REDACTED]


BUREAU RECOMMENDATIONS
Our investigation affirms that the GHOST IN A BOTTLE corporation has made measurable steps to fulfill their promises, but must work harder to meet the expectations of their shareholders. See the attached sheet for a summary of some of the work the company completed within the specified reporting period.

GHOST IN A BOTTLE will continue to work with the same procedure and pace. Their primary goal is to wrap up work on the BUNKER OS menu system. This includes sections such as an event calendar, item bag, and settings menu. They also still have to work on many small bugs, tweaks, and quality improvements in preparation for the release.

Note that the findings of this report are independent of the recent news concerning the acquisition of the Bureau by the GHOST IN A BOTTLE corporation under the government's new privatization initiative. [REDACTED] The Bureau is and will remain neutral and partial, serving both the greater interests of the public and the corporate goals of its new benefactor.

CONFIDENTIAL

ADDENDUM: WORK DONE
This is a selected list of some of the GHOST IN A BOTTLE activities as recorded during our investigation. We opted to focus on things that are fully done and that can be shown in some way. You can expect more from future GHOST IN A BOTTLE press releases.

Automatic Edge Correction

"Many of us struggle every day with the inability to find our way around edges. You take a few steps forward only to be thwarted by an obnoxious wall or a table. You then have to re-orient yourself, perhaps take a step or two side-ways, before continuing your daily march to mediocrity.

With Octopus City Blues such unpleasant collisions will be a thing of the past. Kaf has gained the ability to intelligently move around certain frustrating edges. All you have to do is move forward and the advanced EDGE COLLISION ASSISTANT (patent pending) will take over and successfully circumvent the obstacle. Truly a marvel of modern engineering"

-- Reinbach II, Tentacle Experience (TX) Artisan

Our agents were impressed by this innovative correction feature, but also stumbled on several cases where it behaves in unexpected ways. In the animation above for example, an unintended bouncing effect occurs when using Kaf's signature spin attack. The designers at the company assured us that it's not a bug, but rather an 'accidental feature'.

Menu Performance

"Because Octopus City Blues tries to emulate real life, it also renders the mysterious floating text we all use to communicate. It does it in REAL-TIME (nothing pre-rendered in this sim!) In the past we did some work that greatly improved the efficiency of text rendering, especially on inferior machines. When working on the menu the performance issues returned. While the rendering of individual elements was fast, rendering a lot of them (e.g. every menu choice) caused a noticeable slow down.

We improved this by grouping all menu components and drawing them together efficiently. The image above compares the frames per second before and after this change."

-- Samsa, Resident Vermin Fanboy

Pathfinding Improvements

"Path finding, you see, is a delicate task. A horrifying dark force that compels the citizens of Octopus City to move around. We had problems with it in the past. That we did, yes. But now, today, we ironed out some more bugs. You'd better believe it! What do you mean you heard this before? Well, the bugs can't be infinite, can they? Eventually they get tired. That they do, no?"

-- Rheya, Simulation Emotioneer

Next-Generation Handshake System

"Octopus City Blues teaches you a lot of useful life hacks. As the world's leading edutainment software it can be used to prepare for a successful job interview. Learn how to communicate non-verbally using ancient touching exercises.Your fingers will thank you for it."

-- Ghostina Bottle, cyborg CEO

Gossip Spread

"I heard a rumor, just some silly gossip. It said that once you tell a character something in the simulation, there's a chance they will tell a friend, and that friend will share it with another person, and so on. Now, this is just a rumor, and I'm only sharing it because it's 'spicy' enough to be shared. No one cares for lame gossip after all. Am I a chatty person for sharing this? I guess someone else might not share it. Perhaps they're not interested in the subject, or maybe they don't have friends, who knows? And the thing with rumors, once they become viral they can change the world. So be careful with what you share, that's all I have to say."

-- Lady Libra, Rainbow Janitor

Journal Menu

"Why are you talking to me, you good-for-nothing punk? Youngsters these days show no respect. Back when I was your age, we didn't have them fancy menus. No sir, we had to do things the hard way. A man back then would pull himself up by his bootstraps, make something out of himself. It was a different time, kid. You wouldn't understand. Just go away, will you? I have no interest in what bottle in a ghost did or did not do. Let them pat themselves on the back for all I care."

-- Bunk, BUNKER OS mascot

Sprite Improvements

"Marina, our tentacle art director, has been in her office for days. Everyone is worried about her, and we even tried to break the door. We know she's alive. Every now and then a new sprite sheet slips under the door. Apparently she's going over all the sprites and improving them. Sometimes it's subtle and then some other times the difference is night and day. Still, to go through these cursed sprites again... it's madness! And now she wants to add shadows too! Absolute madness!"

-- Henrietta, Jr. Tentacle Artist

Others

• Time progression (weekdays and months).
• Bold and italic text.
• Visual improvements to stress system.
• NPC relationships/attitudes towards Kaf.
• Reduced memory usage.
• Designs and initial work on calendar menu.
• Work on quests and dialogue.
• Many bug fixes.
• Heart Attack Points.™

 

[CryptRat]

Octopus City, Texas

Ms. Daisy Nefastis, could you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your role in Ghost in a Bottle?

Umm.. my head hurts... Who... are you? How did I get here?

This is Kaf's Tentacle Barn, the world's biggest Octopus City webring and affiliate network. We talked over the phone and you said you wanted to tell the world about Octopus City Blues. Until recently you used to be a Ghost in a Bottle employee.

Oh, I did? Yes, yes. I was. That terrible company. The world needs to know. That awful awful place. I can still see the spider-bots whenever I close my eyes. Dreadful, absolutely dreadful.

Thanks for agreeing to answer fan questions, by the way. Let's start, shall we? Forum user Neurosaur asks: Is it okay if I cut tentacles myself or should I call a proper specialist like Kaf Kafkaryan or Gregor Samsaryan? I'm an anthropomorphic squid, as you may see, a former kart racer, and sometimes I really need a good tentacle cutting.

Sam-what? What's wrong with you people? Seriously. This is exactly what I'm talking about. All the craziness. Are tentacles a joke to you? I used to be the same. But once you're inside that place... it's horrible. They actually had tentacles in there, real live tentacles. You can't even get close to these things, they stink. They... they...

Are you feeling alright, Ms. Nefastis? Take a deep breath. How about you tell us a little bit about the latest Octopus City Blues developments?

That place is a madhouse. Where do I even start? The nerd squad was working on character schedules. These nerds always are. Apparently the game models can do more things now. It was too technical for me. They have problems now and then, bugs and new ideas. The art group did a lot of work as well. Many new characters, menu portraits and sprite animations. Why am I talking about this anyway? What did you say this place was?

Like I said earlier, this is Kaf's Tentacle Club. An elite fan-fiction portal for the rich and powerful. I have another fan question, this time from user UTTER BODGE: How did the idea for this simulation software come to be? From whose dark, twisted mind(s) did these tales arise? Can you confirm or deny it began life as a spinoff from an unrelated squid kart racer simulation?

Huh? What's with all the squid questions. We weren't actually allowed to use that word on campus. They really hate squids there. They also hate the word "game" for some reason. They probably steal all their ideas from others, then feed them to some computer algorithm. That's how Ghost in a Bottle always did business. They call it the Dung Ball model. By collecting all the garbage and concentrating it into one product they can bewilder the masses and make them buy even more products.

That's very interesting. A few months ago a report by the Bureau of Octopus City Simulation Regulation was leaked and it painted an optimistic picture of the company's ongoing progress. Did anything change since then?

Report...? Haha, you guys are so gullible. "Leaked"? They produce these reports themselves. I've seen rough drafts in trash bins. They feed you whatever they think you want to hear. Although... that report wasn't too far off from the truth. They were doing well at the time, and had a measurable way to.. umm.. did you hear that? Well.. what was I just saying?

About the report...

Yes, management called everyone in and had them come up with detailed plans and estimates. They were getting things done. But then they slowed down. Some people were traveling or had personal reasons, I guess. Afterwards they were back on track, but things grew out of hands. It's not that they're working any less, but there's always more work to be done. It's a difficult balancing game, where you plan something in advance, only to find that it doesn't work out very well once you do it. You have two options then, press on with something you don't like and follow the plan, or create more work to improve it.

Can you give us some concrete examples?

There's this scene... it's early on. Maybe it's better if you take a look, I got it on my phone:

[Link to the video : https://ksr-video.imgix.net/assets/021/698/812/b62805d55f7d7dbe5537cefd8ec497fb_h264_high.mp4]

It's not special really. The original plan and script called for one character to give a sandwich to another character. This was planned years ago, and the sprite and programming work was done. But in the first version, the player had no choice. That's another word they hate, by the way, "player". They prefer Octo-surfer. "Play is something babies do", they'd say. Anyway, when the big boss, Ghostina Bottle, saw the final scene she was furious. Everyone in the responsible department was promptly sent to the company's gulag, which is right next to the corporate kindergarten.

That sounds a little bit extreme.

Yeah, everything about that company is. They really care about "choices" for some reason, and they realized it was the first time a choice was forced on Kaf. That's a big no-no over there. So they had to rethink the scene and add all sorts of extra animations for different scenarios. You can't see it in the video, but you can actually keep refusing to do what you're told, and eventually things play out differently.

I think it's ridiculous, especially since the final outcome of the scene doesn't change much. It was a question of Kaf doing something voluntarily vs. being forced to do it by others. This little thing took extra work, and little things like that pile up.

Choices are important for an authentic Octopus City Simulation, so to me it sounds like the right thing to do.

That's debatable, even within the company. When do you say "this is good enough"? It's just an example of the kind of difficulty they have with planning things. Even when it seemed like they learned their lessons and planned everything properly, things take more time.

For example, they planned work on the progress saving system for one day, but when they actually got to implementing it they needed to check if the file is corrupt and to handle special cases with backup files. It took several more days to get it right, but since you can only have one save file, you want to make sure it always works. It's obvious in hindsight, but I guess the team is small and there's so much to do. To be fair, I know the employees are doing their best, but sometimes your best is not enough.

I see. Time for another fan question. User Revereche asks: How many tentacle children am I allowed at a time?

Are you people making fun of me? What's with all the nonsensical questions? What kind of parent would want multiple tentacle children? How are you going to provide for all of them at the same time? Look, I'm not going to answer any more tentacle questions. I'm leaving if you ask any.

I'm sorry to hear that. Let's see... non-Tentacle questions... how about this one...? No, it's a tentacle one. Tentacle... tentacle... tentacle... I guess fans really want to know about the simulation's biggest feature. Oh, found one. It's by Pestergeist ‏: Whats the best place to buy octoblood? asking for my "friends science homework eating dog" y'know.

You do realize that Octopus City Blues isn't real, don't you? They have tentacles and fake blood and all that but it's just a simulation. Although, it did turn out to be more than that. So their corporate pyramid is inverted, right? It goes deeper and deeper underground into a non-euclidean labyrinth. I was mostly working in the higher level, and it was quite normal. Sometimes you heard weird screams from below, but we were told it's a defect in the heating system.

I think we're getting a little bit off-topic here. Let's move to the most important question. Several people asked about the release date. Do you know anything about that?

Haha, remember how I told you they ban words like "squid", "game", and "player"? "Release date" is probably on top of that list. They would never give you an honest answer, because they simply don't know. They were wrong every time they made an estimation. Is it incompetence, inexperience, lack of time and resources, or being mule-headed perfectionists? Probably all of the above!

And what about plans for multiple demos?

They did mention that. It was ambitious, but they wanted to motivate themselves. Right now three seems unlikely, and the goal is at least two. It could even be that you'd get only one demo. The whole thing was partly an experiment, to measure things and learn how fast they can go. What they did find out is that they're trying to do quite a bit, and it will take more time. Instead of committing to deadline, they want to approach it one milestone at a time. It must suck for you fans, hearing the same excuses over and over. I'd say we should all grab some pitchforks and make a stand. Wait.. did you already tell me who you are?

Yes... Kaf's Tentacle Sanctuary, the darkweb's biggest Octoblood trading platform. I understand that it's hard to give a deadline. How about a percentage then?

Progress percentage is hard to quantify. If I told you that art was at 70% or that they used up 80% of their budget or that 90% of the base systems were implemented. What's the overall percentage then? And if we say the overall percentage is 90% (it's not!), does it mean the last 10% will take 10% of the time it took to get there? If anything, I expect the last 10% to take much more. They won't release something they don't like. Except that one time they did, when the door to the lower level opened. There was a weird smell, and the air tasted like dried blood. And out there, in the dreadful darkness...

Ms. Nefastis...?

I... I think I remember. I was running away. And someone stopped me. It was you... you dragged me into this room. You had a needle in your hand... This is no webring. What is a webring in the first place!? You're with pyramid security... you're... you're...

That's good, Ms. Nefastis. Take it easy. What you've just went through was standard screening procedure. You indicated last month that you were planning to leave the Ghost in a Bottle family. We had to make sure you wouldn't cause us any trouble out there. After all, we take corporate loyalty very seriously.

So this... this was a simulation? A test...? And I said all those awful things. Please, forgive me... it was the drug. I would never say any of that outside. You have to believe me!

I'm afraid it's too late. The bot has already been calibrated on your biometric data. You seem to think that we hate "games" here, but nothing could be further from the truth. In the pyramid's underground labyrinth, you and the EX-2000 series Spider-Bot will play a game, the most dangerous of all games.

 

[Life of the Party]

No Truce With the Octopus.

 

[CryptRat]

Have a Good Funeral, My Friend... Kaf Will Pay

(Quite boring update, quoting for the reference to Grimoire but there's a video in the link I can't quote, it's almost worth it if only for its music)

As I said before, my friend, your Octopus City does not exist. In this asylum you're keeping me there's a running joke. The other inmates would come up to me and ask about "Octopus City Forever" or "Octopus City: Heralds of the Tentacled Exemplar". They would joke about part "3" or say that since the first announcement they've had children whose own children would be old enough to play it. Ha ha ha. Very mature.

The answer is as it always has been: slow, steady, with ups and downs. This year has actually been exceptionally good for the project. We have weekly meetings and concrete tasks, and we're feeling better about things in general. The other inmates (who, like you, believe that they live in my make-believe city) might demand proof. What about proving that you exist first? That this city exists? Can you do that? Didn't think so.

That said, early this year we did talk about not one, not two, but three demos. It was a way to focus development and show you that, unlike your false world, my authentic Octopus City simulation does exist. We had a detailed plan of sorts, and worked on that goal really hard. What happened next will shock you!

Like a young tentacle engorged with Octoblood, the demo plans grew organically as we started working on each piece. This part here didn't work as well as we expected, let's do it differently! That other part over there is fine, but what if instead of two characters talking you had a boxing match. Could you draw Kaf with boxing gloves? And about the menu we're finally adding... what if it also showed the local news and weather?

Of course, this is unprofessional. It might be called bad management, or perhaps self-indulgence. The things creatives (I prefer the term imagineers) do when they don't have someone in a suit bossing them around. You need discipline to finish something on time. Knowing when to cut corners or how to give up on more ambitious ideas.

On the other hand, Octopus City Blues is a passion project for us. We've put our hearts into it and we want it to be worthy of all the effort it took. Your world is a dynamic one, where choices do matter, and where characters interact and evolve. Given time, what we're creating will be quite unlike anything you've ever seen... and you've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

That's why having a demo is important. We want to show you the depth of that world: how gossip and lies spread, that there are no good or bad choices, how every quest has different solutions creating cascading effects. In this cursed world you can, among many other exotic rituals, side with genocidal robots to bring down humanity, cheat your way into becoming the president of the city's homeless, bring a dead arcade venue back to life, start a beetle fan club, find a cure for male pattern baldness, challenge an outlaw goldfish in a spaghetti western duel, and marry a b-beautiful turkey.

The current plan is still to release something this year. Ideally two of the demos we mentioned, but probably a combined longer demo. This is a promise. As for the full version, we made some big decisions recently. We'll tell you more about that before the end of the year.

So... we have a plan, my friend. We never stopped, and won't for the foreseeable future. The other inmates in the asylum might laugh, or they might simply give up on the concept. But it's still ongoing, the world's first authentic Octopus City simulation. You'd better believe it!

Wait, are you leaving already? You don't believe me, do you? I am getting better, you know. I... I was just joking, about the world being fake and everything... please don't go... it's lonely in here. In the dark... you can hear the larvae crying inside the walls... I'll finish your world... I mean the simulation... I will... don't... go......

 

[LESS T_T]

there's a video in the link I can't quote, it's almost worth it if only for its music

(webm tag to the trick)

[webm]https://ksr-video.imgix.net/assets/022/389/029/4541ab263a64dd57a477cd6a8ba8aa1e_h264_high.mp4[/webm]

 

[CryptRat]

Five Graves to Octopus City

OCTOPUS CITY SUN
THE WORLD'S CHEAPEST TABLOID
Gruelday, Ember 10, 130
60 pages - Price: 2Ŧ

Homeless Man Assaulted
According to eye witnesses in the Clock Tower District, a homeless man was assaulted by members of the "Shrimps" gang. What started as a quarrel in the district's Centipede Express station ended with the gang members violently attacking the unidentified victim. A middle-aged tentacle trimmer was also involved, attempting to diffuse the situation.

According to Professor R. Borgliddle of the Federal Institute's College of Criminal Justice, such incidents are not isolated. The professor went on to link the increase in gang violence to poverty and overcrowding. Such conditions cause social institutions in the tower to crumble under their own weight. The office of the tower's Magistrate refused to address this incident.

Physicists Confirm That We Are Living In A Simulation
Researchers at the Federal Institute held a conference yesterday evening to announce their success in proving that the world we live in is part of an advanced simulation. Philosophers have pondered this question for thousands of years, but the scientists at the Institute were able to create their own miniature simulation using an advanced biological computer. "For many years people were considered crazy if they questioned everyday occurrences such as text magically appearing when we speak or the constant background music we hear all the time." noted Dr. R. Borgliddle, professor of Applied Octo-Simulogy. "For some reason, the simulation we experience seems to be focused on one insignificant, funny-looking tentacle trimmer. Unlike the rest of us, this individual is capable of dreaming even without indulging in Octoblood."

The mini-simulation, code name "Octopus City Greens", is still in beta stage. Scientists believe the same is true for our own imperfect world, explaining the perpetual cycle of human death and suffering. "When we started, we figured it will take us a year to complete. That was 10 years ago. It just goes to show how complex such a simulation is, and how intelligent and hard-working the people making it must be." explained Borgliddle. "Based on my own experience with our miniature simulation, there is no need to worry about whether our world is complete or not. Science tells us that as time approaches infinity the possibility of finishing our world goes to 1."

Elderly Amateur Artist Ruins Priceless Paintings
A popular series of full-length portraits of Octopus City citizens were reportedly defaced by an amateur artist in a botched attempt to retouch the pieces. The paintings were being prepared for display in the upcoming "Faces of Octopus City: How Hotmogs See The World" exhibition. These rare full-length portraits, found last year in the sewers by a junk dealer, are believed to be the work of wild Hotmogs living under the city. Unfortunately, the hobbyist artist in charge of organizing the exhibition decided to "improve the childish paintings" by adding more realistic shadows and details.

Art collectors around the city protested what they labeled as "vandalism" and "art crime", insisting that the whole point of this discovery was to showcase the creativity of the primitive beasts. "It is one thing if one or two paintings were defaced, but she actually went and 'fixed' almost all of them." said R. Borgliddle, a renowned art historian. The 90 year old hobbyist does not understand the outcry. She told us how she spent countless hours working on the delicate restoration job "in order present the paintings in the best possible light". She added that she tried to respect the crude intentions of the original artist, while also conforming to the sophisticated expectations of people paying money to visit such an exhibition. In some cases, she even produced animated versions based on the original pieces.

Conman Responds to Criticism Regarding Big Beef Delays
In a press conference yesterday, the business magnate known as the Conman addressed the increasing skepticism regarding the upcoming Big Beef show. "I am doing my best, my dear friends. As I always like to say, you can't rush Quality™!" announced the Conman with a plastic grin. The Big Beef, once an annual wrestling event to celebrate the city's cultural heritage, has been repeatedly delayed ever since the Conman's company took over the hosting of the event. When questioned by R. Borgliddle, Octopus City Sun's chief correspondent, about his earlier statements regarding having three smaller "demo" events in preparation for the actual show, the Conman failed to come up with a convincing reply.

"I'm sorry, pals. It ain't gonna happen. I tried my best to wrap the first demo event this year, but it's much easier said than done." The Conman assured reporters that this year was the most productive one in a very long time. However, he claimed that things turned out to be more complicated once the project left the design phase. "What can I say? I know I shouldn't promise you things, but I just can't help it. I promise to do better next time." The Conman refused to give a clear deadline for "next time", asking Big Beef fans to trust him and to wait for the next update for more specific details. The Conman concluded with a message to the fans:

"I love you all, it's true. Every time I let you folks down it hurts me more than it hurts you, but maybe it's for your own good! Perhaps you're simply not ready for the Big Beef right now. This year was good, next year will be better. We're still working on the demo event, and there's still a lot to do. The demo ended up having a lot of content from the final show, so it might take a few more months (3 per the current estimation, but you know how accurate my estimations are!) I will keep you all updated! Please look forward to it (laughs)"

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[orcinator]

Guess they got inspired by Barkley

 

[CryptRat]

They just shared a quite boring update : What Ever Happened to Babay Kaf?

With our current pace, 2019 is not looking to be the year of the Octopus. Even 2020 seems challenging in the current situation. We are still working on a demo for this year.

 

[CryptRat]

Kafkaryan vs. Kafkaryan

Friends of Octopus City Podcast

Episoe 104 - Transcribed by Chihei Kirke

♫ Intro music plays ♫

Octofreak89: Hello octo-fanz! Welcome to another episode of the Friends of Octopus City Podcast! As always, this is your host Octofreak89 and today we have a very special guest with us. She's an old-time octo-fan and a respected member of the community, here to tell us all about the underground scene during the early Octomania days. My guest today is Ms. Daisy Rotwang. Welcome, Daisy!

Daisy: Hi Freak! Thanks for having me.

Octofreak89: Thank you for coming. It's not every day that we get to talk to a longtime fan of the franchise. You used to be part of the underground octosim scene, right? Could you tell us more about it?

Daisy: Back then things were different, Ghost in a Bottle had just announced the discovery of the city ruins. These days we take octopus cities for granted, but back then they were just stories. No one believed they actually existed.

Octofreak89: I can imagine. We're still learning about the blizzard and the calamity. After the discovery of the ruins, Ghost in a Bottle had exclusive rights to the excavation site. And so... they announced an ambitious plan to reconstruct the city in a simulated form. Project BLUES.

Daisy: That's right. But GiaB was different back then. They kept the whole thing under wraps. Didn't want to share it with anyone. I remember waiting for their press releases. Octomania was a real thing, and I wanted to know more. So I went online and searched for Octopus City.

Octofreak89: These days you can find many websites and digital shrines dedicated to the subject, but back then things were different, weren't they?

Daisy: Most of the search results were taken down by the company. But I did come across OctoWorld, a very small forum where people were posting theories and even fanfiction. It was exciting to find like-minded people, but my mother didn't like it one bit, and even wrote an angry letter to GiaB (laughs)

Octofreak89: (Laughs) Wow! So we have a bunch of eager fans getting together. How did it all change?

Daisy: Well, initially we didn't mind waiting. GiaB posted regular updates. But the deadline started slipping, there was the survey, the split drama, and numerous updates about another demo.

Octofreak89: Do you remember some of the things they shared in these updates?

Daisy: Yeah, for example, they said the second demo is taking time because it has to include everything that will be in the final version. A lot of things were cut from the first demo. This includes features like saving, the full menu, or scheduling of characters. So for the next demo they wanted to make sure everything you need in the full version is 100% done.

Octofreak89: That's interesting. Do you have specific examples?

Daisy: It's random things like sound effects in the menu, or how the old demo only worked with a couple of controllers. The new one uses a database of controller types to support many more. They also introduced an outline around characters to make it easier to know which objects you can interact with.

Octofreak89: Yeah I remember that. Wasn't that around the time they announced improvements to the dialogue system too?

Daisy: I think so. They improved performance by only loading schedules and interaction data for characters that are close to Kaf. They also wrote a very powerful dialogue tree system that remembers every choice you make. It was a big deal because you're meant to experience the simulation many times, and it helps to visualize the paths you covered last time.

Octofreak89: This is all very fascinating but let's get back to the OctoWorld forum. You said people didn't mind waiting initially.

Daisy: Yes, but eventually some people got impatient. Using the information we had at that point they started their own fan simulations. Ghost in a Bottle didn't mind all the fanart and fanfiction, but they drew a line when it came to what they called "counterfeit sims". People were getting cease and desist letters every day. They had automated systems scanning for infringing content. It was a dark time.

Octofreak89: The Octo-Purge...

Daisy: They cracked down on fan forums, cons, and even legitimate news feeds. An old woman had a SWAT team break her door and force her to the ground. One of the most interesting fan sims back then was a film noir one called "Gumshoe Blues". After shutting it down, GiaB hastily put together a screenshot showing a character with that name. They were stealing from the same fans they treated as thieves!

Octofreak89: It's hard to believe we're talking about the same Ghost in a Bottle. Their attitude is very different these days.

Daisy: I think they were just being overly protective. Once the demo came out, things changed. It was out there in the open, and they didn't fear the fans anymore.

Octofreak89: Speaking of that... what did you think of the demo?

Daisy: People might think I'm critical of GiaB but I'm no hater. I'm a fan after all, and the demo was everything I wanted it to be. It had even more tentacles than promised! My favorite part was the extra beetle dreams. Everyone wanted to see more of the lovable Beef Worm 13 squad, and they gave us exactly what we wanted. It was wonderful.

Octofreak89: I totally agree! Do you ever find yourself longing for the olden days?

Daisy: Sometimes. Sure, it was a scary chapter of the GiaB story, but it was also thrilling. These days people are spoiled and can get their Octopus City fix whenever they want, but we were the original fans. We were the ones who believed in Octopus City, who loved it as an abstract concept. Waiting eagerly for each update, building an imaginary city in our dreams, anticipating the promised day. We were the pioneers, surfing on waves of hype, and that has to mean something.

Octofreak89: Beautifully said. Thanks for your time Daisy, it was a pleasure having you on the podcast.

Daisy: The pleasure was mine. Thank you!

Octofreak89: And that's it for today, folks. I'm going to wrap this up with the latest statistics from the GiaB website, in case you want to keep up with their progress:

• Part 1 Finished Scenes: 77, Remaining: 55 (Last update: 74, Remaining: 59)
• Part 1 Finished Sprites: 61, Remaining: 62 (Last update: 58, Remaining: 65)
• Demo Remaining Tasks: 46 (Last update: 53)

♫ Outro music plays ♫

 

[MRY]

They posted another update, thankfully not in-character, giving some background on why the game has had such a troubled development cycle: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/2635422

(I'm not sure why this candor is so hard for so many developers, to be honest.) There's also a prior update that wasn't posted here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/2585219

They still think there will be a demo by the end of this year, but I think it's pretty unlikely. In May 2019, there were 55 remaining scenes, 62 remaining sprites for Part 1 of the game. In September 2019, there were 53 remaining rooms, 61 remaining sprites.

 

[almondblight]

They posted another update, thankfully not in-character, giving some background on why the game has had such a troubled development cycle: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/2635422

(I'm not sure why this candor is so hard for so many developers, to be honest.) There's also a prior update that wasn't posted here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/2585219

They've been pretty good about updates, writing one roughly every 2 months (sometimes in character, sometimes out). Also props to them for offering full refunds to anyone who wants one, no questions asked.

 

[LESS T_T]

Oh they got Steam page:



Release seems to be distant but maybe they want to put out the demo in Steam Games Festival?

A couple more updates since don't look that promising on the progress though:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/2744954
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/2821627

But funky inventory UI:

 

[LESS T_T]

I'm concerned that these updates looks like normal KS updates lately. I hope the dev is okay: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues/posts/2891961

Anyway, their new estimation:

• Demo - later this year
• Part 1 - the end of next year
• Part 2 - 19 months after Part 1

 

[CryptRat]

 

[CryptRat]

The Curious Case of Kaf Kafkaryan

Concept art by @Audio_Mew
Abstract
In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of contemporary literature regarding the enigmatic, and often misunderstood, figure known as Kafford "Kaf" Kafkaryan III. By tracing the origins and development of the character in popular culture, we construct a model explaining why this particular name gave rise to an entire genre of Octopus City fiction and mythos. In particular, we examine the latest manifestation as presented in Ghost in a Bottle's upcoming Octopus City simulation software.

Keywords: Kaf Kafkaryan, Octosimulogy, Pitiful Creatures, Tragic Comedy

Genesis

As you probably know, the significance of the Kaf entity is a hotly debated question among octosimulogists. After all, there has to be a reason why this is the only personal name to be uncovered after decades of excavation in central Samarduk. We have learned a lot in the last few years as the Ghost in a Bottle corporation ramps up production. By utilizing highly-trained T.E.S.T.E.R units (Tentacle-Enabled Search & Tabulation Expert Resource), the company was able to fully reconstruct the so-called "beetle scenario" involving Kafkaryan. Much insight was gleaned from the heroic T.E.S.T.E.R's "cybernetic dives" into the simulated "beetle juice" neural amplification interface. This includes both "bug fixes", corrections to our understanding of the Kaf entity, and "improvements" that make it easier for a layperson to understand the historical context. Furthermore, these efforts paved the way to finally automating the cross-platform deployment experience, so that Kaf-facts can be seamlessly deployed into any capable IoT toaster in the world, regardless of the operating system it runs.

Reality Synthesis

Of course, in order to simulate the Kaf entity you must simulate the intricate processes that define such a creature. A simulated K will have to sleep, dream, wake up in cold sweat, and spy on the numerous citizens of the cursed city. A long time ago, the Ghost in a Bottle syndicate made plans to simplify the scope of some of these systems. It'd be great to simulate every subatomic particle that makes up the old tentacle trimmer's receding hairline, but given the technical limitations and the short lifespan of most octosimulogists, it was important to focus on the most essential aspects. This is finally completed thanks to a new system that divides the average simulation day into 4 parts (morning, afternoon, evening and night). The team also gave up on simulating the intricacies of sleep deprivation and debt, although Kaf can still drink coffee to stay up late, and sleeping in a dangerous place leads to negative consequences.

Academic Censorship

Some naïve researchers in the field are happy to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that you can discuss Octopus City without talking about politics. At the same time, a growing number of parents are very concerned about the cultural impact of Kafmania. Some schools have even banned words such as "tentacle" and "Octoblood" from their curriculum. While Ghost in a Bottle's responsibility is to the truthful recreation of the past, they also realize that the debate regarding tentacles detracts from the true educational opportunities that the simulation enables. That's why the simulation includes a mode that completely removes all references to tentacles, Octoblood and octopus puns—the simulation itself is renamed into Scarab City Greens. This allows children of all ages to focus on learning things that really matter, such as using psychedelic mushrooms to murder innocent beetles.

Future Work

In this paper we reviewed several facets of the ongoing process to recreate Kaf Kafkaryan. As you can tell, the progress is encouraging. This year was particularly good in terms of technical implementation, although the visual aspect is moving slower than average. This is partly due to the ongoing pandemic (most likely linked to people keeping beetles as pets, and in no way related to GiaB breaking the forbidden seal to Kaf's tomb), and also has to do with the team tackling some complex animations for future nightmares.

What remains for the public demo is modernizing some old content, weaving separate quests into a comprehensible narrative, and plenty of testing and small improvements. This will take place over the next 2-3 months, and will be followed by another batch of T.E.S.T.E.R. deployment to ensure proper Kafibration of various measurements.

References

• Nomura, Tetsuya. “The Bow Tie Counts As Belt: A Theory”. Journal of Octosimulogy (121)
• Badluck, James R. “On The Three Tentacle Rule”. In Proceedings of Octocon (130)
• Kojumbo, Hideous. “Objectifying Kaf: Shameful Words and Deeds”. Back of the CD Case (129)
• Crawford, Karl. “Kaf Fan Art Considered Harmful”. World Octopus City Congress (128)
• Reinbach III, Schtolteheim. “Do Beetles Dream of Electric Beats?”. Octopus Life Vol. 3 (128)

Tables and Figures
Figure A: Progress Stats

• Part 1 Finished Scenes: 78, Remaining: 35 (Last update: 77, Remaining: 36)
• Part 1 Finished Animations: 76, Remaining: 35* (Last update: 74, Remaining: 36)
• Demo Remaining Tasks: 8 (Last update: 14)

* Unscheduled work

 

[CryptRat]

Beetlejuice

"Thank you for joining this tour of the Ghost in a Bottle HQ. Please stay in the group and carefully follow my instructions. Remember that the spider-nanobots are only here to protect you, so don't be alarmed if one of them ventures into your ear canal; only people who recently posted unfavorable opinions about us on social media should be concerned ."

While the tour guide goes on, I take a look around. The other guests are all listening intently. Most of them are GiaB employees from some remote offices visiting New Samarduk for the first time. This is also my first time inside the inverted pyramid, but everything feels familiar. I spent months studying the leaked plans after all.

"Hello? Are you listening, ma'am? We were just doing a round of introductions. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?"

"Oh, sorry about that. My name is Henrietta Fanfaryan. I'm a journalist for the New Samarduk Bee. Nice to meet all of you!"

It wasn't easy manufacturing that identity, but I know it will take them several days to verify it. That should give me ample time to slip in and out with the source code to their alleged simulation. I can feel the immense weight on my shoulders, but I'm also confident in my team.

...

"It's just a demo! Why is it taking so long!? Completely unacceptable!"

It's been over 15 minutes since I gave the tour group the slip. No one seems to have noticed, but we have a plan in case they do. I followed a group of developers into a meeting room, where their manager, a centipede-faced cyborg in a fancy suit, is making a big deal about delays. Some nerd tries to come up with an excuse.

"Well, it's the writers, sir. They keep rewriting and changing things. No one sticks to the plan, so how are we supposed to follow a deadline?"

...

It's been more than an hour now. No alarms at all, and that's extremely suspicious. I find my way into some kind of audiovisual room. There are various screens showing different scenes from the simulation. I use the nearest terminal to look for the access code to the next underground level. In a folder named "Hotmog Burgers", I come across several files:

Nothing really useful. A browser bookmark leads me to their project management software. I scan the list of tasks from the last couple of months:

• Rewrite Mutant Dream's Dialogue
• Beetle Avoidance Behavior in Plaza
• Hotmog Burgers Map and Animations
• Cache Sound Effects on Map Load
• Outline Objects Behind Counters
• Combine Learned Gossip to Learn New Factoids
• Keyboard/Gamepad Button Prompts in Text
• Beetle Dream Fixes and Improvements
• Gossip Dialogue Improvements
• Bring A Beetle Back to Life?
• Simplify Date/time System
• Hotmog Burgers Kitchen Map
• Update Arcade Map
• Stress Icons
• Various Performance Improvements
• Simplify Creation of Directional Sprites

Each of these is broken down into subtasks with a lot of technical details and screenshots, but I don't see anything related to the access code. I make a backup of the logs and the screenshots just in case.

...

"We meet at last, Henrietta Fanfaryan, or should I say, Bailey Samsa, member of the designated terrorist organization Mothers Against GiaB. I've been expecting you."

"How did you find out? Didn't my documents check out?"

"We have our ways. I'm afraid you've put too much trust in your team. In any case, you'll have to leave empty-handed."

"You're letting me go?"

"Yes, but you won't remember any of this. We have ways to do that as well. I'll tell you what, ask me any question about Ghost in a Bottle. I'm feeling talkative today, and it's not like you'll ever remember any of this, or even your own name."

"...Well, when is Octopus City Blues coming out?"

"Why, you've picked the hardest question of them all. Perhaps I could show you..."

He presses a button on the desk. Suddenly everything around us vanishes and we're in a small room. I thought I was at the deepest level of the underground pyramid, but I can see the street through the window. The scary businessman with the face of a ghost is gone, in his place a cowardly tentacle trimmer looks at me with a silly grin.

"What's the meaning of this?"

"This is Ghost in a Bottle. The team is just me and a couple of good friends. We don't even work on the simulation full-time, but we're trying our best."

"That's impossible! What about the global corporation exploiting our planet? How is a team of few people going to deliver more tentacles than the competition?"

"It just sounded cool at the time, but we really want to make something truly unique and to offer many choices with real consequences. It's hard to plan when few people are doing everything and their personal and professional lives repeatedly get in the way."

"So what are you going to do? Just keep promising demos for the next couple of years?"

"Just one demo, and it's definitely this year. Beyond that I believe we need to reconsider the way we work, give the project more priority or hire helping hands. I'm actively looking into several options, so hopefully I can say more about that in the coming months."

"If you say so. What about me? Are you still going to erase my memory or whatever?"

"Weren't you listening? The Ghost in a Bottle Megacorp doesn't exist. You're free to go and do whatever you want."

I still don't know if the conversation really happened. I try to contact my team but no one is answering. In a puddle of rainwater an old but familiar woman looks back at me. When did my hair turn gray? Have I wasted all my life chasing an illusion? Or is this whole thing part of their memory erasure procedure?

More importantly... I didn't get an answer to my question. Did they just put on a show to buy more time and make me wait for another progress update?

 

[Modron]

They did an update on steam today well a week ago: What's Octopus City Blues?

Where are we? Who am I?
Picture a giant octopus-like creature resting on top of a mountain. Instead of frolicking beneath the waves, our ginormous octopus resides in an inhospitable snowy world. The dregs of humanity have learned to coexist with their colossal protector, fortifying it with various structures and machines. In particular, large towers were built around each of the creature's 8 arms.

Our story takes place in the districts of the densely populated Gold Tower. Here, we meet a small and repulsive humanoid who goes by the name Kaf Kafkaryan. Kaf occasionally works as a tentacle trimmer, someone hired to cut the excess tendrils that grow all over the city. Our unlikely hero starts out applying for a job at the Curtain Crust corporation, and has to endure their lengthy recruitment process. Around the same time, Kaf begins to experience a series of bizarre dreams, playing the role of a soldier in a beetle army, a horse in a lawless frontier town, or a stranger in love with a turkey. What does any of it mean?

In some of these dreams, Kaf is asked to investigate matters in the real world. In doing so, a terrible truth slowly comes to light, one that has to do with Octopus City's sordid history and its ominous future. Among many other things, Kaf will have to raise a child, fight with insults, spread false rumors, work with shady factions, cure baldness, ride a centipede train, and climb a tentacle in order to decide the city's fate.

Why am I shaking?
It's important to note that Kaf isn't a hero. Our pathetic little friend is a walking bundle of nerves. Faced with several nerve-racking encounters, you'll have to navigate complex forking paths while carefully keeping an eye on Kaf's stress. You need to keep a level head in order to come up with rational solutions. On the other hand, Kaf's creativity and boldness under pressure might surprise you. It's up to you to decide the right approach for each encounter.

Stress is indicated by shaking text. The more shaky an option is, the more stressful Kaf will be. The shaking text is optional and can be replaced with textual or iconic indicators. While managing short-term stress, you need to keep Kaf's overall health in mind as well. Eating junk food and making hard choices isn't the best lifestyle for our lovable old geezer.

Not every choice you make is stressful, but many of them are significant. There's always more than one way to deal with any situation. If a door stands in your way, you can try to talk your way in, pretend to be someone else, climb through the window, hire a professional to open it, or build your own lockpick out of crushed beetle remains. Each of these choices may result in different outcomes, and will impact your relationship with other characters.

There's no penalty for making a "wrong choice", and no game-over screens. Even failure will sometimes reward you with unique content down the line. We hope that players will ultimately feel inspired to experience the simulation multiple times to see everything it has to offer.

Who are all these people?
While story and choices are important, remember that we're talking about an Octopus City Simulation. We're building an educational experience to teach you about life in the historical city. That's why we paid a lot of attention to simulating the lives of the many denizens who had inhabited that cursed place.

The simulation starts on an early Mossday morning. The date is Cod Moon 6, 130 (FC calendar) to be exact. From that moment, the simulation plays out in real time, albeit at an accelerated rate of 1 simulated minute for every real second. Time passes as you explore the town, but it's also possible to skip ahead by reading comic books. The day is divided into 3 distinct phases: morning, evening, and night. Usually, Kaf will fall asleep when it gets late, but you can drink coffee to stay up at night.

The inhabitants of the city have their own daily schedules. A person might be found at work in the morning, in a restaurant in the evening, and might not appear at all on weekends. Certain events also take place on special days throughout the year, such as a weekly street market. Each character has their own sets of interests, confidants, and dispositions towards Kaf. They might also be part of larger factions or groups, and angering one faction member will have an effect on the other members.

The world of Octopus City is relatively small. Armed with new gossip and items, you'll find yourself repeatedly interacting with the same characters. That's why we put a lot of effort into writing many unique responses for them. Each character has their own life and history, and you'll slowly get to know them and understand their connections to each other and the main plot.

How do you talk to someone?
To help you interact with the city and its citizens, you are equipped by a state-of-the-art BUNKER 2X Personal Assistant. The device offers two modes: Field and Bunker. Field mode is used for sharing items and gossip with other characters, and it's also where you'll get occasional notifications about the items you pick up and the gossip you learn.

The Bunker mode on the other hand is the domain of Old Man Bunk, your very own virtual grouch. Bunk will give you hints whenever you get stuck, and you can explore his room to access a variety of applications. For example, use the item bag to combine or drop items, the calendar to keep track of upcoming events, and the journal to view all the gossip you've learned.

Think of gossip as special items that you earn by talking to people or witnessing events. New gossip can override or combine with what you already know, allowing you to deduce connections and uncover new truths. The main use of gossip is to ask characters about various topics. You should be careful about what gossip you share with others, however. Depending on the character and how viral a factoid is, gossip can spread to other characters over time.

But what's Octopus City Blues?

Octopus City Blues is a graphical terminal where you guide a hideous avatar through several real and imaginary worlds. You control the avatar directly using the keyboard or a controller. You examine the environment, talk to characters, and learn gossip or receive items to use on other characters. Sometimes you find yourself in stressful encounters where you have to make choices based on your mental state and the gossip you learned earlier. There is no way to experience everything Octopus City has to offer in one session, as many of your choices lead to mutually exclusive outcomes.

Along the way, you will also engage in little minigames. You might play baseball with a scary insect queen, attempt the perfect business handshake, or learn to dance. There's also a dedicated button for spinning like a hedgehog, but that's mostly useless.

Octopus City is a comedy and a tragedy. Octopus City is love and hate. Octopus City is you and me. Octopus City is everything… and nothing.

I need this in my life!
We've been working on this project for years, and we're getting closer to the finish line with every passing day. In the next update, we'll go over everything we did this year, in addition to our plans for the upcoming one. Stay tuned!

By the way, we're currently preparing for another round of play testing. It'll probably take place some time in the next few weeks. If you're interested, feel free to hop on our Discord server and wait for the announcement. We'll also provide more details via some of our social media accounts.